Rampant Exclamations

With the recent emergence of Transformers as one of the seminal movie experiences of my generation, it has come time to address a more general concern that I, and others like me, have shared for lo these many years.  I am talking, of course, about the current trend of “reimagining”, “prequeling”, “adapting” or “updating” beloved comics, video games, tv shows or classic movies.  Most of the entries in this category SUCK, and for no reason that I can fathom most of them continue to suck, even with such lofty role models as Spiderman, Batman Begins, and 300 to look up to.  Heavens to Murgatroid, Hollywood!  If Michael Frickin’ Bay can do it justice (and I don’t use that name disparingingly; I have it on good authority that “Frickin” is his nickname) then anyone should be able to!

The lack of success in this realm is appalling given the fact that in almost every case there is both an already completed work with a popular story/character/world/universe to build upon, and a gift-wrapped audience to feed it to.  And you know we’re going to eat it; even if we don’t remember the ingredients including monosodium glutomate and hydrochloric acid, our mouth waters for the first bite.  We want to believe that’s real steak coming out of that microwave.

Then we see Fantastic Four or Alone In The Dark, and we’re rushed to the hospital to get our stomach pumped.

Movies adapted from books don’t seem to get the shaft like this, even though their audience is arguably the hardest of all to please.  Because books have hundreds of pages in which to flesh out characters and storylines, movies inevitably have to cut out entire swaths of plot or characters to make it fit in one sitting.  However, Harry Potter has done well in the book adaptation field, and so did Lord of The Rings and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy.  Narnia I wasn’t too big on but I seem to be in the minority so that counts as a win too I suppose, and I am very much looking forward to The Golden Compass and Ender’s Game (a movie I’d proudly stand in line at midnight for.)  So, why is it that the book audience gets so much more nutritional value from its movie versions?  I mean, The DaVinci Code was no prime rib, but it wasn’t the “meat-flavored food-type dinner slab in gravy” that Catwoman was. 

And while I’m at it, what the F*&% was up with Catwoman?  We gave them the reins to a beloved Batman-related character, and they gave us Catwoman, which is the same as saying they gave us AIDS, except someday there’ll be a cure for that.  There is no cure for Halle Berry and Sharon Stone in the worst acting job since the latest Big Brother season, with writing that looked like the result of 20 boxes of Alpha-Bits dumped onto a table and read right to left. 

I say there’s no cure because Hollywood doesn’t seem to want to “reimagine” movies that absolutely suck, but instead want to go back to movies that are already good, and make them suck.  There’s nothing wrong with Texas Chainsaw Massacre?  Let’s redo it!  Everybody loves The Shining right?  We need 3 more versions!  You know, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner would be a lot better with Ashton Kutcher!  What madness IS this?  Why aren’t they redoing movies that desperately need redoing?  Why must they go back and destroy memories retroactively?  I’d say because they are evil, but then I would be condoning your thinking of them as flaxon-haired villains swirling cups of Absinthe while rubbing their white Persian cats, and they do not deserve such cool imagery. 

Is it because they respect the video game, comic book and tv crowd so much less than those wit da book learnin’?  Do they think those audiences are so stupified by the shiny colors in the opening credits that anything after that is just icing?  I should hope not, but I can’t think of a better explanation right now.  And the realm of mediocrity is not confined to video game and comic book adaptations, oh no.  Witness the eye-melting horror that is Taxi, Starsky & Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard, Garfield, and the like, and you’ll swear the writers and directors had never seen these shows before.  There must have been something viable about those franchises when they were first on the air or they wouldn’t have been so popular, and yet somehow in the film process everything good about them seems to have been separated out and thrown into the fireplace to burn, destroying any evidence that these shows were any good, while also heating the producer’s office to a toasty enough temperature to approximate his awaiting dungeon in Hell. 

So Hollywood, harken!  Aye verily, behold the glory those with the power to change things!  Transformers is the shining beacon of light by which to right your ship’s course!  Use it as the template for all of your other upcoming genre and niche projects, and you won’t go wrong!  Stop Annihil-raping(TM) our treasured memories with garbage like House of The Dead and Ghost Rider!  Stop updating movies that don’t need updating in the first place!  Stop being douches, Hollywood, and pay us a little respect!  If Michael Frickin Bay can direct an epic and engaging story based on a TOY, then the rest of you should be able to come up with something viable from hundreds of issues of comic books, dozens of tv shows, or hours of video games.

Except you guys doing the new Care Bears movie.  You guys are screwed.  Just put Lionheart in there somewhere and I’ll give you a pass.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 11:19 am and is filed under News Post, Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.