they've remade assault on precint 13

[originaldrum]

uh-oh

my initial gut reaction is that it will be shit,

can anyone who catches it give a run down

the original is as bleak as you can get, and from what i saw of the trailer it looks like it was made by the same people who made backdraft

 

[LRJP!]

a friend who'd never seen the original went to see it after i begged and begged for him to catch the real one on tape. (How he'd never manage to catch it before i'll never know! I made him watch They Live...)

How can a remake be anything but terrible? I never understand why they remake films like this, surely you can knock up another Cops Under Seige plot without infringing too much. Surely any interest from the original will be dispelled by the liberties and reduncies encoded in the new one's execution?

gah!

 

[originaldrum]

How can a remake be anything but terrible? I never understand why they remake films like this, surely you can knock up another Cops Under Seige plot without infringing too much. Surely any interest from the original will be dispelled by the liberties and reduncies encoded in the new one's execution?

gah!

amen brother

 

[henrymiller]

jonathan rosenbaum liked it. in answer to the the question, can a remake ever be good, do the words 'RIO' and 'BRAVO' mean anything to you? (or 'NIGHT', 'OF', 'THE', 'LIVING' and 'DEAD') FFS!

 

[LRJP!]

jonathan rosenbaum liked it. in answer to the the question, can a remake ever be good, do the words 'RIO' and 'BRAVO' mean anything to you? (or 'NIGHT', 'OF', 'THE', 'LIVING' and 'DEAD') FFS!

Exactly. Why remake Night Of The Living Dead when you can just steal what you need (the Living Dead, Dim lighting) and make another movie instead. It'll probably suck, but you won't have corrupted the feel or memories of the earlier film to anything like the same extent.

Why remake Rio Bravo when you could give it a snazzy and aggresive new name with an ominous number in it or something...

 

[LRJP!]

and thinking on, surely to some extent the existence of codified genres is works against the need for a specific remake, everyone has access to the important/fun/relevant bits for their own movies (stories, whatever...)

Cops In Trouble are Cops In Trouble...

 

[henrymiller]

basically, it's only the name and the very basic set-up that survive in the remake, cf 'the thing'.

 

[LRJP!]

Well this is true, but at least in the cited instance they (Carpenter?) tweaked the title; I mean it’s easier to distinguish The Thing From Another World and The Thing in your head and on the video store shelf. it’s not building on top of the old, so much as beside…

In relation to the thread specifically there’s a jump from low-middle budget popcorn actioner to post-Bruckheimer headache which is I guess as much what I’m objecting too as the actual principle of remakes.

(my favourite line from The Thing From Another World: "At 5:19 the hand became alive.")