Reading the Facebook feed and someone was quite excited about a remake of the movie “Poltergeist“. I mentally groaned.
I’ve been mentally groaning for the past 30 or so years since the remake craze began in earnest and started making 2nd rate remakes, or homages as some would term them, of older movies. Every year brings some updated version of a classic movie or TV show that someone thought that they could do better. One of the few things that I dislike about movies is that any producer or director with enough money or influence can come around and make a terrible version of a movie classic.
Some directors add lines, take out lines, even whole scenes. It’s rare, make that very rare, that a remake can surpass let alone equal the original in terms of quality. All these remakes offer is a chance for a studio to make more money on an old property.
Does that mean that there should never be remakes? Of course not. Some stories have to be retold from time to time. Culture and civilization change and the old stories need to be re-interpreted to suit new audiences. But remaking a movie or TV show 30 or even 50 years after the fact? No, that’s just greed and arrogance talking.
Someone argued that remakes don’t take away from the original productions. I would agree that would be true if people got to see the original first. But this rarely happens these days. Inevitably the focus is always kept on the new version and the richness and vibrancy of the original is often lost. People may end up with a bad impression of what could be a great story because they had not seen the original version.
The other thing that is harmed by remakes is originality. Producers blinded by the lure of possible easy money may eschew original scripts and ideas and choose instead the path to “easy” money.
Some of the innovative, original, and even lucrative film properties have been speculative, and risky ventures that were unproven but given the green light by studio executives.
The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture, was a huge risk. Seems silly nowadays that someone would doubt the power of talking pictures, but it’s true. Gone with the wind, burning down an entire movie set for one scene and using highly expensive color film? They must be mad! Star Wars, made by a young director using all sorts of new special effects features and delving deeply into the space opera genre. A huge risk. But all of these were not just financial but dramatic successes.
Imagine if they had instead opted for the quick dollar instead?
Instead of just focusing on the monetary aspect of film production or making a film just to make a film why not let the ideas people develop their ideas freely and take a risk on something new rather than rehashing what has already been done.
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