Cinema in this day and age (specifically the Hollywood bred
section) is fixated on the idea of modernization. Through the movies that are made based on
toys, comics, books, and games of generations past, the film landscape is
turning into a modern interpretation of the past. Remakes, reboots, and new adaptations of old
material have helped to build the movie world that currently exists. When looking at it from a point of corporate
greed, the argument can be made that using familiar material is going to help
sell seats in the theater or copies on home video. From the point of view of artistry, it can be
quite an interesting experiment to find a new, interesting way to tell old
material. Each of these outlooks are
valid in their own way.
The greed of Hollywood executives is something that I
believe I have touched upon in previous posts.
The point of producing movies in Hollywood is to make money. A lot of money is put into many of the big
movies that get released in a given year.
Transformers, The Lone Ranger, The Avengers… Each of these movies had a
budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
That’s a lot of money. You’ll
also notice that these three films are based upon known products. Transformers was based upon a line of toys
and an animated television series for children.
It was updated to a modern (2006) world with modern looking robots and
modern looking vehicles. The Lone Ranger
was originally an old radio serial that was brought to the audience through the
use of a modern looking period piece.
The Avengers is a modern set story about characters that were created
throughout the 20th century in comic book form. Each movie is a big budget film adaptation of
an established source.
Established sources are a good way for studios and producers
to earn money upon their investments.
They don’t want to invest in an unknown property when they could bring a
recognizable name to the movie. There
will be more interest generated among the general viewing audience if they
recognize the title of the movie that a studio is releasing. If they have a good history with the previous
iteration of the property, the studio is hoping they will want to see the
current version. This is not always the
case. Sometimes, as in the case of the
recent Robocop remake, the studio strikes a negative chord with the potential
audience. The people who have an
attachment to the original are against a remake of material that they
love. They know that the studio is
playing upon the nostalgia that they have and they feel betrayal because of
it. They expect the worst. However, there is still some curiosity within
them that will likely eventually get them to seek out the film. In the end, the studio still manages to get
the audience that they desire, though not in the way they desire.
The other side of modernizing films is to find new ways in
which to tell a story that has already been told. In this scenario, the movie is not being made
to profit upon an established product or known name. Instead, a story is being reworked and
readapted into a different setting in order to tell it in a new way. The people behind the movie are trying to
make a refreshing update of stale material.
Movies like West Side Story and Warm Bodies have new ways of telling
Shakespeare’s classic romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story takes the story and plants it
in the New York teenage gang scenery of the 50s. Warm Bodies takes the same tale of teenage romance
and puts a comedic zombie spin on it.
The changes in scenery help to give a sense of newness to material that
has undoubtedly been performed thousands of times. It helps to reduce a feeling of sameness that
the material may end up having.
Another way to modernize stale material is to make a sequel
set in a modern day environment. It’s a
way to bypass the story while still capitalizing upon the characters and
situations that they were a part of. One
such instance of this, and the one that sparked the whole modernization idea
for the post, was Hercules in New York.
In 1969, Hollywood decided to take one of the most popular strong-men in
the world and use him in a movie. That
man was Arnold Schwarzenegger. The idea
of the movie would be that Hercules got banished from Olympus and ended up in
1960s New York City. He must experience
life among the mortals and avoid the dangers of the mob. He has already gone through all of the
challenges that we know he faced, and now he faces the modern world.
Going about making a sequel like Hercules in New York can be
a difficult thing to do. There is an
assumption that the viewers will know the events that preceded the movie. There also needs to be care for the part of
the audience that does not know the assumed back story. The story needs to stand on its own while
also building upon any previous lore pertaining to the characters. It’s basically what a normal sequel needs,
except it’s not a direct follow-up to the previous story. Looking at Hercules in New York, you can see
that all of this exists. The problem is
not within the creation of the story, but rather the execution. The acting in the movie only weakens what was
already a shaky script. The action is
shown in a way that makes it more ridiculous than good. And the direction leaves a lot to be
desired. It’s tough to make a sequel of
this sort work. Hercules in New York
does not pull it off.
No matter whether or not modernizations of familiar tales
are successful or not, they are always interesting. Movies that have a new spin on them can make
unoriginal material feel like something that hasn’t been covered before. The different methods taken to make stories
feel new again can be a perfect example of originality being within the people
who make movies rather than the stories themselves. It’s easy to appreciate the craftsmanship
that goes into giving this sort of original feeling, and it’s something that
I’m grateful for in movies every day. If
it weren’t for that skill, the movie landscape would be a bleak and barren
place. As it is, movies are still
flourishing and providing entertainment for people around the world. If that isn’t a good thing, then what is?
There are a few notes to make before you stop reading:
- I’ve previously covered retold stories in the post for April Fools.
- The idea of originality coming from how a story is told was originally written about in the post for Jonah: A Veggietales Movie.
- If you have any suggestions for future movies to cover, you can leave them in the comments, or tell me on Twitter. Don’t be afraid to suggest a bad movie. I’ll watch pretty much anything.
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