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Remake of Alien
rynne:
--- Quote from: axerton on 28 May 2009, 08:11 ---I think the thing behind remakes is that a lot of people in the movie buisness have a start in theatre, where the same plays are put on over and over again by different theatre groups which means that actors can play their favourite chracters and directors can put their own spin on a story. Then they change mediums because there's no money in theatre and they take the attitude that doing something that people have done before you is perfectly normal. Speaking as someone who has done a bit of amature theatre I completely understand this and honestly get a little pissy with all the people complaining about remakes - you don't have to see it.
--- End quote ---
Do you have any data to back this up?
It sounds reasonable enough on the surface. But for it to be true, you'll at least need some figures showing that remakes are significantly more likely to be make by people with theater backgrounds than those without.
Ozymandias:
Even if it's not true, it's a reasonable point.
Not everything is a fucking holy grail that should never be touched or messed with lest the universe screams and dies int he agony of a shitty Alien remake oh fucking no.
Orbert:
Most cultures, perhaps all, have a tradition of storytelling. The same stories are told over and over, passed down through the generations, yadda yadda yadda. In the beginning it was done verbally around the campfire, then in books (how many hundreds of versions of Mother Goose stories or Grimm's Fairy Tales have you seen?) then in theaters (every high school and every community theater has done West Side Story countless times), and now in cinemas. It's all the same thing. Someone thinks it's a good idea to tell an old story a new way, they do it, in whatever medium they work in.
I think there are some movies that just don't need to be redone, and will probably be worse, but whatever. They don't get my money. Heck, there are movies I've seen that are remakes of older movies, and I didn't even know they were remakes.
But it seems like every time they remake a movie, there's a group out there screaming "Oh no, they're raping my childhood!" Those people need to chill. Or, you know, just don't go see it.
Sox:
A lot of people from theatre also go on to write...but why should they write something original? There are some books I can not stomach. I just don't want to read them..too many pages.
I am suggesting that they rewrite them. A few to consider...
LotR
HHGttG
Paddington Bear
Mein Kampf
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
the Bible
The instructions for my dyson
Every post Johnny C has ever made on this forum
I think the argument about theatre doesn't hold up because those guys usually follow the scripts to a tee. Who in theatre rewrites Shakespeare? They change the cast each time the show is done because it's always in a new location, the orignals have aged, they may not be available...
When it comes to theatre and the stage, the play transcends the cast and crew. It is the job of the cast and crew to perform the play. That's what they do. None of these remakes have exactly been even remotely faithful to the original movie. The only time movies were remade in a 'theatre' like fashion were with Psycho and NotLD, and everybody who saw those thought 'what was the point'. They would be right to.
Theatre changes because the nature of theatre is that it is the temporary spontaneous thing. The live performance is gone forever once the curtains draw. Film as an artform is totally unlike that, it's a permanent thing. Each movie spends months, or years being refined to the product that is finally delivered in order to stand there forever.
The movies from 50 years ago are still exactly the same today as they were then. Just like the books people still love to read.
The only things coming into play with remakes such as this one are egos and money. If movies degraded with time, I would buy into the argument. But they don't. A remake is not a homage. Not if you package it up and market it to millions of people. A fan could recreate a movie shot for shot with his friends in his basement, that would be cool. I'd buy into that. This however is disrespectful to the original people involved. Just as it would be disrepectful to rewrite Douglas Adams or Johnny C's forum posts.
Movies are not theatre. Not even remotely similar. Surel, both use actors. Car tires use rubber, but that don't make them pencil erasers.
rynne:
--- Quote from: Orbert on 28 May 2009, 14:39 ---Most cultures, perhaps all, have a tradition of storytelling. The same stories are told over and over, passed down through the generations, yadda yadda yadda. In the beginning it was done verbally around the campfire, then in books (how many hundreds of versions of Mother Goose stories or Grimm's Fairy Tales have you seen?) then in theaters (every high school and every community theater has done West Side Story countless times), and now in cinemas. It's all the same thing. Someone thinks it's a good idea to tell an old story a new way, they do it, in whatever medium they work in.
--- End quote ---
That being said, most of those traditional stories were told and re-told because there was no storage medium. They were told and re-told because there was no "record" that could be referenced at will. Or, to put it another way, if those stories weren't retold, they would've been lost.
Theater is somewhat similar in that the actual performance is a live act that occurs at one place. The script is permanent, but that's just a part of the entire show. The show itself must be re-acted every time.
Contrast that to films which are, by definition, a recorded medium. The story exists in a way that is (essentially) easily and permanently accessible. Like Sox points out, a film will be the same 50 years after it was made as it was the day it comes out.
I think that permanence goes hand-in-hand with higher standards for cinema re-tellings because previous films are always accessible (whereas, say, you can't go to a theater and see the original performance of Les Mis).
Now, I don't necessarily agree with Sox that "the only things coming into play with remakes such as this one are egos and money." There are cases where film remakes or reinterpretations have added or altered the story or tone enough that they can stand as separate works in their own right. But I think that a simply desire to recreate a film without significantly altering or improving on the original isn't enough justification.
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