We write films about someone doing something amazing,
different and to be inspired by and we talk about them for years.
We remember the best actors and directors for their
contribution to TV and film with the new characters they’ve brought to life.
Yet… Even after all the examples as far as the eye can see,
we still see regurgitations of the same invention every single year without
fail. There are exceptions but for crying out loud, does it not make you want
to scream (and not in a good way) when you see a trailer for ANOTHER ‘X – Men’
sequel, ANOTHER ‘Disney’ remake?
Now, I’m well aware of the arguments here, so first I’ll
address some of the good stuff we’ve seen and some insight as to perhaps ‘why’
they worked so well.
A GOOD REBOOT – ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’
Oooooh no, a lot of us were saying. The originals were
superb, regarded by experts and those who aren’t, as one of the most successful
stories ever. If you haven’t seen it by now then shame on you. It offered a
reluctant hero his chance to defy the impossible, learn to fight and become a
hero through (literally) epic glowing sword fights with a well-polished villain
with one of the most original character arc’s in history. Alongside we also had
a selfish smuggler mercenary turned loyal soldier and two adorable robots
attempting to keep up and offer whatever they can to be useful. THEN we had the
god-awful PREQUELS that were a complete VFX craze, heavy-political story and
the most annoying sub-character that was added for a bit of comedy just to make
the political content more bearable, whilst a cheesy love story between the
good guy and a queen was designed to explain why he turned into such an asshole,
emotionally manipulated by a bigger asshole corrupting a galactic government to
his own aims. Herein, I feel addresses an interesting thought. Although it was
an attempt to learn more about the way things worked in the ‘Star Wars’ world,
I’m not sure enough people cared.
There were ‘some’ interesting fights along
the way – Think we all loved villain; ‘Darth Maul’ but he was in and out all
too quickly then he’s dead. Speaking of the fights – My GOD, the amount of CGI
fucking killed me. WHY use these when you’ve got millions and millions to craft
a practical scene more believably? Even the bit at the end of the last prequel
when Darth Vader awakens – again – riddled with CGI? WHYYYY – It’s a bloke in a
suit. Just fucking film it. You think we don’t know the difference? We did – It
sucked and that stupid scream he does… You’re telling me everyone was cool with
this? Not one person said; “hang on, he sounds retarded dude, lets try something
else?” – Jaysus!
So – Force Awakens comes along, done by Disney, new actors,
we’re all suckers for the Star Wars brand. That’s what it is now – a brand, lets
face it. Hollywood are shameless, just stick the brand on it and they will come.
Although the plot was all so fucking similar to the very first film we all saw
decades ago – WASN’T IT INCREDIBLE? I loved it. I still shouted out when we saw
what happened to Han Solo. I didn’t exactly get how ‘The Order’ was any
different from ‘The Empire’ nor how it was so quickly re-organised and my
biggest criticism was how the fuck did Rey become such a swords master so quick,
especially Finn. However, it was so enjoyable I was able to forgive ALL of this
because it stayed focussed on exciting characters, did away with the political melodrama,
brought back all the things we loved and sure it may be the same kind of thing
but there was enough to bring new things into it, such as what storm troopers
are made of and planted enough seeds to enjoy the legacy of the sequels that
would follow. You could argue that ‘Jason Bourne’ has been nothing but the same
but I have to say it is the ONLY original franchise post-2000 that I have
enjoyed all the way though.
A GOOD ADAPTATION – ‘Deadpool’
I was going to talk about video game adaptations such as ‘Lara
Croft’ (2001) to do my female writing friends a service or ‘Prince Of Persia’ (2010)
for its reboot value from my last comment as they’re both successful examples and
build towards the upcoming ‘Assassin’s Creed’ release but thought Deadpool (2016)
was probably a more relatable example. Fine, its Marvel and a pre-existing
character and the dickheads in the archive room running out of shit to turn
into a film but THIS one however – Displays that audiences love the one’s with
balls to go further. Deadpool is the merc with a mouth and rather than sugar
coating the violence, sex and cursing, they ‘FUCKING went for it’ and we loved
them for it. So much so, box office sales, from an initial budget of $58
million it went on to become the 3rd highest grossing R-Rated film
of all time at $349 million.
Back in the 80’s we had Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) & Robocop (1987) where manufacturers were making model toys for the kids. Deadpool was
a loved character from the comics that hadn’t been touched and amidst all the marvel
characters that kept coming out, ‘Spiderman’ just got his latest reboot (fucking
awful by the way and don’t even get me started in its sequel), a leak of a
scene reached the internet and sure as shit, we all saw someone had made a
great effort at giving us something new. Wit, sex, violence and a simple enough
revenge story about a guy who just wants his face back, fighting scumbags along
the way, whilst sarcastically saluting its Marvel infrastructure along the way –
PLUS it wasn’t one of those wash-out cash grabbers. This was made with a lot of
(albeit twisted) love and respect to the fans. Not only did they also close the
story to everyone’s satisfaction but the fans all leaving saying ‘mate, I’d SO
go see a sequel of that shit – was fucking brilliant.’ My own personal
favourite line; “That sounds about as much fun as a sand paper dildo!” – Bloody
hilarious. That’s what the creators surely want to hear us say too right?
I
mentioned ‘Terminator’ earlier – who after the 3rd film was happy
enough to say the same, or after the 4th or even worse, the 5th
film? – What started as a great concept was tarnished by its own legacy because
it brought down its R-Rating to attracts greater audience appeal and from the 3rd
film onwards, they’ve been bloody awful. We live in hope that ‘Deadpool’ dares
do the same, eh?
What’s more about these two examples, Hollywood - They made
a shit load more money than anyone could have predicted and both hold record
highest grossing profits, so…
A BAD REMAKE – Total Recall
I actually have a 'GOOD' example of this coming up but what I found interesting was the scale of a bad one compared to it so I just found it more interesting to tackle this first. I 'know' I mentioned 'Robocop' but I'm not gonna go there again! So I've chosen 'Total Recall' (2012)! Who the hell asked for you and what
the fuck went wrong? Total Recall (1990) was a simple, silly but fun
Schwarzenegger version of pre-dated Jason Bourne on Mars, with his trope puns,
daft fights and production design.
That’s it. Now someone in a much more
fortunate position than we, has lots of money to make a new film, maybe
something completely new like ‘Looper’ (2012) - yep, not only did it come out
the same year but this director’s now even going to direct the next Star Wars
film. Or do we approach a few literary agents or festivals, competitions like ‘The
Black List’, ‘Shore Scripts’ etc and lets pick something pretty damn fresh and
exciting but nope, they went and did something ‘nobody’ asked for, making for
shite reviews and a barely average profit. To be honest, I almost wish it had
made a loss just to teach a few people a lesson.
Firstly, why did you have to
call it Total Recall when you could have easily changed a couple of things and
had something else?
Secondly, (now, the example of a good remake) why oh why didn’t I just watch the remake of
Judge Dredd (1995) that came out that same year; Dredd (2012), which was not
only miles better than its bullshit earlier counterpart but also far better
than your film, hands down & interestingly, less bullshit cgi and a better
service to fans just as Force Awakens was, like I said previously. What's still no surprise to me is that for less money, they did a far better job and 'real' creatives had to think about money more clearly and really focus on what they wanted to achieve. You can argue but watch both 'then' tell me which one you enjoyed more, either as a fan OR as someone completely neutral.
Films I Wish Weren’t So Successful
Uurgh, there are many things I know that I’ll be disagreed
with on. As much as we enjoy telling each other to sod off, I think we can get
back to some middle ground on this one. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy sequels for
things like ‘Deadpool’ where its earnt its place for taking the risks, serving
the fans and a offered something original but this does NOT mean I wish to see
it spiral out of control, no matter how much money it makes. Lets have a look
at some of these examples from the highest grossing films of all time:
Titanic (1997):
Cos’ I’m a maaaaan… Grrr… Based on a real event tragedy and
its important to understand the gravitas of our history. Whilst I have nothing
but the deepest of respect for James Cameron, in terms of the scale of his
films - God I thought this was boring.
Spiderman 3 (2007)
What could have been an awesome face off between my
favourite comic hero and its best villain ‘Venom’ was completely fucked by
throwing in two really stupid bad guys on top and taking up so much screen time
that there was NOTHING left for the best of them. Totally ruined Spiderman for
me so it was no surprise that the (unnecessary) reboots with Andrew Garfield
that followed were completely shite!
Avatar (2009):
Yep, its ‘Pocahontas (1995)’ and whilst enjoyable is it
anything more than just visuals? I enjoyed the spectacle, who didn’t but one of
those things I’d see once then never see again. I couldn’t even remember the
names of any characters. Suppose I can respect it for doing something different.
Transformers 4 (2011):
I was almost on the set of the 5th one recently
for a bit of extra money but I had a friend visit instead. Granted I thought
the 1st film was good fun and you can fault Michael Bay all you like
but he delivers exactly what young boys want, girls, cars, giant robots and
shit (whilst he was busy fucking up our reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles), this is nothing but a cash grab of a pre-sold franchise and bores the
hell out of me.
Iron Man 3 (2013):
Are you fucking kidding me? This hunk of shite? I actually
enjoyed the 1st one despite the stupid amount of egocentrism and
interrupting of dialogue half the time but lasers coming out of peoples eyes
for no reason, a ridiculously stupid final fight and the lack of the actual ‘Iron
Man’ throughout, not to mention the big 'spit in your face' moment of the revealing of the bad guy. What the ‘actual’ fuck?
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (2014)
Aaaw Gaaawd, just stop. You’re successful, you’ve made
money, now fuck off and make something else. Okay, I watched all ‘Lord Of The
Rings’ to understand the rage. I respected them all even though they weren’t my
kind of thing and no, neither is ‘Game Of Thrones’ but at least in TV you’re
allowed a bit of exploration into the world of this arena. In cinema it just
seems like a cop out cash grab and an excuse to not invest in new talents and
stories.
Batman v Superman (2016)
YEP – You guessed it. Of course I was gunna!
They insist on hammering out so many
of these things yet something “everyone” agrees was so shit ‘still’ makes more
money than you can count – Urrgh! How can a title promise so much and deliver
so little? I told everyone it was going to be shit. Tonnes of talking, tiny
(although great) fight scenes and the most annoying little pussy as a bad guy,
you can imagine just punching him in the face there and then. Oh by the way,
Wonder Woman is strolling around in there for no reason too…?! The hell
happened here?
So there you are…
Hope you enjoyed the rant. Guess what I’m saying is that in my opinion there
are fewer great examples of the good then there are of the bad in bringing
something back to the spotlight. But those that have done so, are so worth
remembering. Next blog, lets look at some of the crazy shit that’s going on in
television lately.
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