You’re watching a trailer at the theater. The lights are off, the popcorn is fresh – trailers are your favorite part of coming here, aside from the movie.
And while you’re staring up at that big screen before you, your neck a little achy (being as you had to get as close as possible), the most exciting trailer you’ve ever seen bursts into play – sound, color, Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) spiraling around you. You cant wait to tell the person beside you how awesome it looks and how you have to see that next, when a single word falls from their mouth.
“Remake.”
EVERY movie that is coming out – not just recently, but for the past twenty or thirty years – have almost ALL. Been. Remakes. Nothing coming out is new, fresh, and original. Hollywood needs to get it’s game back, before I bring it to them.
Most of the remakes aren’t nearly as good as the originals were either. Take Race to Witch Mountain. First off, it was renamed Escape to Witch Mountain. The old man in it is actually old, not just a buff, famous action actor with shaggy clothing and a bad past.
This film is the perfect example of how Hollywood and film making has changed since the years of golden film creation. There were too many explosions, the dialogue was simply for the image the director’s sponsors thought would gain them cash, and it held none of the spark that the 1975 original had.
But Hollywood has gotten clever. They choose films that were made just long enough ago where half their viewers wouldn’t even know what they are about to pay ten bucks for is a remake. They go in and think they’re seeing the most creatively new film ever made.
I don’t see why Hollywood doesn’t try to make their own stories and concepts more often either. Some of the most original plots they’ve put out into the world are giant franchises today, still being used to television series, comic books, novels, and art.
Take Stargate, for instance. The film came out in 1994, and while the critic reviews were mixed and blended, the box office numbers said it all. Stargate has been a cult sensation ever since, being made into T.V. shows like SG-1, Atlantis, and the most recent one, Stargate Universe.
Even larger then Stargate, however, is Starwars. EVERYONE has watched Starwars. So why are originals so few and so rare to come by on the big screen? Films come out based on books, and while that isn’t straight from a script-writer to the movie reels, it’s better then remaking everything two hundred times over.
I’m sure many believe it’s difficult to come up with something original today. It is pretty hard to make something that isn’t relatively related to any story that’s been made up until today, but it doesn’t have to be some mind-blowing fresh and new concept.
Just an idea that you’ve created yourself, and making that idea completely your own. I’ve seen a ton of films that are about psychological mind tricks, but Inception still blew my mind. So next time you plan to go see a movie, check where it came from first.
