Bit of a rant this time.
The other day someone was reviewing a straight to video movie called “Solomon Kane”. He called it a derivative version of the earlier movie “Van Helsing” starring Hugh Jackman. Oh how Robert E. Howard might have shuddered.
I informed this person that it was in fact the other way around. That the character of Solomon Kane had in fact existed decades earlier and that the look of the Van Helsing character was almost a direct copy of Solomon Kane.
It’s not the first time that this has happened. So many good pieces of literature and older movies get co-opted and reworked to make “modern classics” that it makes me sad.
“Fugitive” from 1993 and starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones is loosely based off “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo
“Crocodile Dundee” is partially based off “Brave New World”
“Four Brothers” with Mark Wahlberg is actually a John Wayne movie called “The sons of Katie Elder” just reworked for the 21st century
Same thing for the Clint Eastwood movie “Gran Torino” which is a remake of “The Shootist”
I guess the thing that bothers me is that the original writers and artists don’t get the proper respect that they merit for their work. Specially when someone is not well-informed and says that this so-called new classic is being ripped off by the original source of the material.
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