remakes\adaptations\sequels\p*sstakes

BlitzKrieg · 21-03-2004 2:47am #1

-Was in the cinema the other night watching Dawn of the Dead (remake) and before the film they were naming out other films (over the cinema radio) out at the moment.

Starsky and Hutch (remake)
Cheaper by the Dozen (remake)
Dawn of the dead (remake)

and then they named upcoming films

Hellboy (adaptation)
Shaun of the Dead (p*sstake)

And I felt a great sadness because when i left i looked at the board to see only 2 original films on it. 21 grams and along came polly

I also remember in 2001 when they had the top 10 films for box office success the only original film on the list was Monsters inc. all the rest were remakes adaptations or sequels.

Now i'm not condemning them (though alot i would) but is it not a tad irritating that people argue that film can be considered an art form on the same level as a novel yet in the last 4 years there has been prob less then 20 films which can be considered amazing in quality and also be considered a creation only in film (LOTR does not count if someone calls it out ITS AN ADAPTATION!!!)

rant over

Karl Hungus · 21-03-2004 11:15am

While I certainly dislike the constant remakes being churned out by the hollywood machine, I've actually got some hope for Dawn Of The Dead being a good film. Despite the horrible Tom Savini remake of Night Of The Living Dead not so long ago.

But I don't think it's a completely fair arguement to strike off adaptations, as film and book (Or comic book, as be the case with Hellboy) are very different media. As far as art goes, it's almost as if you were shrugging off a sculpture of a woman because someone else had already painted a woman. Not the best analogy, but I think it stands true, seeing as a book is just written by one person, whereas a film has many contributers, from writer, director, actor, cinematographer, composer and so on, and is altogether more of a culmination of skills.

A book on the other hand uses the imagination of the reader. So while I'm reading, I will have my own image and take on a certain character, or location. But as with film, you can see an actor's take on a role, or how a cinematographer would show a certain location.

So altogether, it's just not fair to say an adaptation is unoriginal. Not even by the screenwriter, who'd often enough have to change quite a bit for it to be shot in the medium of film. You can't just take a book and film it...

NightStrike · 22-03-2004 12:59am

Hollywood is just lacking some real good serious ideas at the minute. Even the big film at the minute (Passion of the Christ) is based on a story rather than something original being made up. A lot of stuff like the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre is just terrible

Goodshape · 22-03-2004 1:27am

Anglewhore, I think you're missing the point of BlitzKreig's post... the authors of film would call it an artistic medium, and yet Hollywood, at the minute at least, seems content with churning out remakes and adaptations of previous 'works of art'.

I think the only solution is to look elsewhere for decent films. Hollywood is spending so much per movie, they can't afford to take risks - why spend $300,000,000 on a film that might do well, when you could spend it on a tried and tested formula that's been proven to work a hundred times in the past.

In saying that, I think the next few years will be very interesting in terms of filmmaking - people are beginning to realise that it doesn't take millions of American dollars to create something original... it just takes a single idea, a camera and a moderately capable PC.

So be patient... the revolution is coming, and thouse ****s will be the first against the wall once it gets here

ixoy · 22-03-2004 2:13am

I can understand you being irritated by remakes and sequels, but I'm with AngelWhore on the score that you shouldn't decry adaptations. I mean if that's the case, you'll insult the Godfather series, one of the most wildly acclaimed set of movies of all time. What's more irritating is the recent spate of companies acquiring the rights to make any old video game into a movie - games which, in themselves, have little enough plot to be bothered with.

How do you feel about movies that base themselves on people then? Take the wonderfully inventive "American Splendor" - should we remonstrate the producers for using a real life person for inspiration as well as his work? Or commend them for doing an original piece of work? What of "Cidade de Deus"? Based on real life events (or a book even?) - is what they've done with original material sufficient?

BlitzKrieg · 22-03-2004 2:30am

...ok.

I'm not saying adaptations etc are bad and should be stopped. And i completely take up your point that alot of adaptations are done amazingly.

Its just...uhmm how do i say this. Ah. I'm studying film in uni and everyone (inc. me sometimes) get on these big hypes on how film cannot be accepted as *just* an economic media and must be accepted as an art form. And then people go on about how all these great directors\actors\etc have created such amazing scenes etc. And coming out of these seminars i'm on a real buzz until i bump into a random zoology studant or such. who is a huge comic book/novel reader and says its a load of sh*t etc etc and that all film does is tell stories for stupid people etc.

I say he's full of sh*t and then i go to cinema where i almost see he's right. All these films which remake old films and remove all the sultilty and creative imagry (chainsaw massacre) and replace with cliche crap. Or they make adaptations of comics (big thing at mo) and make it painfully Over the top or stupid. In the end of it all I wish for a film to come out which i can go into and not have someone saying they cut this or they redid this craply. I want them to go in and maybe say that could have been better at this point OR I really liked the whole idea behind that.

IXoy -every media have great works of art based on real life. So i dont see why film would be different.

ObeyGiant · 22-03-2004 2:00pm

You seem to be ignoring the economics of the situation entirely. Studios are choosing to do adaptations, sequels and remakes because these are more cost-effective for them. They can afford to spend more money on the big stars and marketing because of the money freed by the fact that they already have the source material, or they already have an established audience (I'd love to see the percentage of people who went to see TCM because they loved the original) or 'name' (Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Dead). These movies are, in general, a cynical exercise in economics, with very little money left over for any sort of artistic merit.

And, unsurprisingly, these are the ones that do best in the cinema. Audiences lap them up.

But then again, success is no indicator of quality.

As a rough way of measuring this, let's take a look at the IMDB's top grossing movies for the year you mention - 2001 (here). Of the 10 on this list, only 3 are not remakes, adaptations or sequels. Compare this to the most popular films of 2001 (here), which contains only one adaptation.

There are a few directors and writers working within the Hollywood system that are doing genuinely interesting, genuinely original stuff (PT|Wes Anderson, Charlie Kaufman), but apart from this, Hollywood is geared towards the Easy Dollar (albeit to finance their predominantly loss-making "original" projects) and definitely think you should check out something other than your local multiplex (or GenericSummerBlockbuster) before lamenting the death of film as an artform.

remakes\adaptations\sequels\p*sstakes

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