I've heard this many times before and in some ways it is true. But it's still possible to "wow" people with a very original idea from time to time. The first thing that comes to mind - The Sixth Sense. Nobody expected that. Look at pretty much anything Terry Gilliam has done. 12 Monkeys blew my mind when I first saw it.
Sure, with any of these movies, you can scrutinize every single detail and you're going to find similarities to other movies and stories. But it's how all of these little details are told throughout the story that can make a truly original movie.
Hollywood (is anything even technically made in Hollywood anymore?) seems to have given up. And it seems they have gone back 2 or 3 decades to get all of their ideas - at least a very large portion of them. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense to follow this practice though. There have been quite a few remakes that have been created because the original had so much potential but just basically failed or couldn't live up to what it should have been. It took 6 tries (only including American film) until the great Michael Mann finally came along and was able to make Last of the Mohicans into the film that it should be.
Is Hollywood assuming that those of us that are products of the 80s are willing and have the money to spend on terrible realizations of our (hopefully) fond childhood memories?
Transformers is coming out in 3 days and though the movies are just amazing for eye candy, I'm pretty sure I'll be much happier just watching the insane trailer 3 or 4 more times instead of paying to watch the overrated Shia and his horribly unfunny comic relief family screw up what could have a chance of being a decent action flick.
The other giant toy product of the 80s was GI Joe. (I'm not including Star Wars as we all know what happened with those sequels...) I couldn't even get myself to watch the entirety of this one when it came out. But guess what...the sequel is in the works!!! Woohoo!!!
Oh yeah, Hot Wheels is being made into a movie. How is that even done? Hot Wheels are just miniature scale versions of real cars. So basically, they're making a movie with cars in it and branding it Hot Wheels so people will go see it because of the familiar name. Ok, technically these have been around since 1968.
At least I know what I'm doing on my birthday. What am I doing? Well, The Smurfs comes out on July 29th, so of course I'll be watching that. Ok, in all honesty, I don't think this one is all too bad. It's actually being targeted for the kids that are the same age we were when we originally watched the cartoons. And the cast looks pretty good too and Katy Perry is in it too.
TMNT, that's right, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are on their way back. The movies have pretty much always been bad, so maybe this one has a decent chance of being something good finally, but I'd rather they just leave us with our fond memories of the comics, cartoons and toys.
So what is next for toy movies? Micro Machines? MASK? Care Bears or Rainbow Bright? Cabbage Patch Kids? Where is He-Man or She-Ra? I'm personally holding out for Glo Worm and Friends.
But the products and toys from the 80s that are coming back as movies really isn't the big problem. It's the remakes of movies that we grew up on that just shouldn't be touched. I've known for quite sometime that they were working on a remake of Red Dawn that will be coming out later this year. This is the first of many upcoming remakes that saddened me. The worst part is that it looks like it actually has a pretty decent cast. But the original is such a classic and shouldn't be touched. Yes, it was cheesy and quite unrealistic at times, but that's part of the appeal. I'd much rather they made something maybe somewhat similar and called it something completely different.
Then there is Footloose. Seriously? An excellent movies that still, to this day, has a great lesson behind it. Just like Red Dawn, it still possesses the 80s' cheese, but believe it or not, that's a good thing. And well, in case you aren't aware yet, the trailer for the new version is out. It actually hurt to watch it. Some of it looked like it was a shot for shot copy of the original while the rest was filled in with shots from Step Up 3D. I hate you, MTV. And Dennis Quaid, I'm very disappointed in you.
Let's see, War Games. Yep, lets see how we can screw this one up too. It's just not gonna be nearly as cool as when you don't have to connect to internet without having to take the headset of a non-cordless phone and set it into the accoustic coupler. Especially since there wasn't even an internet back then. Well, not one that was publicly available. It's going to end up just being a "tech" movie where they show a bunch of hacking in a way that it doesn't actually happen. Here's a video and image to contemplate:
Conan isn't looking all that exciting. The time has passed to make a movie like that. And once again, there was nothing wrong with the original, so why screw with it?
And then there is my favorite. But this one isn't a movie that has already been made. It's not a cartoon. It's not a comic book. It's not a toy. Ok, well, it sort of is a toy. It's a video game. Well, tons of video games have been made into movies and very few have been successful. Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon, Wing Commander (how can you go wrong with FPj and Matthew Lillard?), Doom, well, not the greatest. But there have been some successful movies and some that are actually well made. The first Mortal Kombat movie wasn't the greatest, but was quite successful. Same goes with the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movies. The Resident Evil movies have been very successful and though I've only seen the first two movies, I think they were actually well made too. Zombies and monsters may not be your thing, but that doesn't mean they aren't good movies.
So what is this video game that is such a ridiculous idea? Well, it's definitely a classic game. The problem is that it's probably too classic. Classic to the point where it has no story line at all. Dig Dug and Frogger have more of a story line than this. Imagine a game without a joystick, but instead it has buttons to turn, move forward (thrust) and shoot. The main enemies are single pixel wide outlines of the games title. Yes, it's Asteroids. Yep, this is going to be completely plot driven and no special effects at all.
Next up, Pong: The Movie.....ok, just kidding on that one. Please don't prove me wrong.
Since I'm on a roll... Battleship. Just like Hot Wheels. Take any movie that has, well, battleships in it and call it Battleship. Then say it's based on the popular Milton Bradley game and we'll make hundreds of millions!!!
The final script for Battleship
Ok, there are quite a few more that I've come across that have temporarily slipped out of my tired brain. Let's just hope that there are a few people with money in "Hollywood" that remember/understand that there are still people out here with brains that enjoy new things and aren't swayed to see movies just because of what they are supposedly based on.
