Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: 42 on July 07, 2005, 02:19:48 PM
-
So after a comment made by Prom the other day I've been thinking about this.
A lot of TV shows and movies are being remade but are "darker" than the original. What exactly does that mean?
The show in question was the new Battlestar Galactica, which is a lot more serious than the original, but also has more use of black and gray in it's production design.
Then I was thinking about the upcoming remake of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" which is also being declaired as "darker" than the original.
So, is this just a new use of terminology that is so over used that it really has lost all meaning? And what is the fascination with remaking stuff darker?
-
Consider the fact that these "original movies" were usually taken from something else (a book or comic book). Now, a lot of people have seen the first movies, then read the book and wondered where the heck the movie producer came up with his ideas. So now people want to make the movie, but this time keep it like the Original story (see: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).
Or they know they need lots of action and violence to sell the story, and this is usually done in a dark setting.
-
This is the post-modern era, after all. It's not surprising that stories with darkness and less hope are the common thing.
-
Darkness isn't a postmodern thing. Light is, or light mixed with darkness, and things that are confused or difficult to intepret.
-
See, I'm not convinced that these darker remakes are just more violent or more depressing.
I kind of think that they are trying to more serious. Delve deeper into the human psychy or at least give the audience more credit for being intelligent. Something like that.
-
Good question. I think its mostly due to the nature of retaling a story more than anything. Like they say hey lets remake Kong... but darker, moodier, edgier. They're just trying to one-up the last one, make it cooler and hipper. Sometimes they go for a different angle, like more funny or new ending or whatever. So that is my idea, just sort of spin doctoring it to get people into the new movie, and the darkness is supposed to be cool factor or something.
-
Well, whatever the reason, there certainly are a lot of remakes. Practically every major movie this summer is some kind of a remake--Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, War of the Worlds, Bewitched (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it seems like a lot). An occasionally remake can be good, but sometimes they are like sequels--just not up to snuff with the original. I think instead of redoing an idea done well (like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which admittedly I will still see because of Depp and Burton, but I still think was unneccesary--it was a CLASSIC!), I would rather see new ideas done well.
-
Unfortunately as a society we are losing all creative ideas. Just thing about it, how many songs, shows, and movies are remakes to older books, songs, shows, and movies. In order to keep people buying into the old stuff redone they have to change it enough in order to have so originality to it. Most time they use better special effects, different look, and other items of that nature. This lead so a new futuristic twist to the same old stuff....which most times makes it seem like it is darker then the original
-
I don't think we're losing creativity as a nation. I think the phenomenon of the remake is a symptom of entrenched MBAs in the film and TV industry. They don't like taking chances on new ideas, it's risky for the bottom line. They vastly prefer to go with some sort of known good and remakes are, by definition, known good.
If anything we as a nation are less vociferous in our objection to the lack of creativity in movies and TV than we should be.
I think the creativity is there but is being ignored by vested interests.
-
Skar, I have to say that your new avatar seriously disturbs me. :P
-
Skar's avatar is what I do every day when I code.
-
I don't think we're losing creativity as a nation. I think the phenomenon of the remake is a symptom of entrenched MBAs in the film and TV industry. They don't like taking chances on new ideas, it's risky for the bottom line. They vastly prefer to go with some sort of known good and remakes are, by definition, known good.
If anything we as a nation are less vociferous in our objection to the lack of creativity in movies and TV than we should be.
I think the creativity is there but is being ignored by vested interests.
I like what your saying here...there is some creative spirt left but it is mostly independent work that has the most original ideas.
I too like your new Avatar......its beautiful
-
Why thank you. As soon as I saw it I knew it was destined to be my avatar.
As for the creativity. Now we just need to figure out how to captolize on it, find some good stuff, get it widely distributed and make money on it.
-
Dangit!
I thought this thread was going to be about the band "The Darkness" being in some movie.
You taunt me so, 42!
-
Crap band, so I think we all dodged a right turkey of a movie there. :P
-
Yeah, the Darkness is about the only band that make me want to ... ok, i won't finish what I was thinking there. for your sake.
-
No sense of musical fun, you all.
None at all.
;D
-
Back on topic . . .
I don't think our society is losing it's creativity. Just as many new things are being made as they were decades ago. The only difference is that, along with the new things, we're recreating the old. So now we have twice as much media, but we're noticing the recreated stuff more because it's something that we recognize.
-
I refuse to go back on topic until people apologize for making fun of The Darkness.
Besides, never count on a thread to stay on topic past page 1 here at the 'ol TWG. ;)
-
not liking the Darkness means I have no sense of musical fun? that's a laughable accusation.
I prefer to listen to bands that SOUND good while they're having fun with their music.
re: on topic. you guys are all treating remakes as if they were a new thing. Even in film it's hardly new. How many silent film versions are there about Cleopatra?
How many versions of Robin hood and King Arthur have you heard? How many versions of the inundation do you think there are?
I mean really, saying that all the remakes indicate a lack of creativity is saying that we've never had any in the first place.
That's not to say that all remakes are creative. Far from it. But being a remake is hardly a shoe-in for lack of creativity.
-
I'm teasing, of course, Saint.
And if you want proof of how awesome a rock band movie can be I'll turn your attention to "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park."
Someone needs to remake that. Only darker. With The Darkness.
-
only darker, with KISS again. THat movie rocked harder than This Is Spinal Tap.
-
I agree with Saint that we've been retelling stories for a long time, but I would go back a little further even than the film industry. How many different ways and times have folk and fairy tales been retold? Perhaps it's a modern expression of that kind of storytelling.
-
I mean, Disney pretty much started up retelling stories, and they do it to this day. But certainly, as Stacer suggests, story telling (and retelling) in millenia old.
-
incidentally, i wasn't misunderstood, I moved beyond movies with my second comment. I think I've seen one telling of the inundation in film form. HOwever, every culture has a version of it.
-
Uh... Disney had nothing to do with starting the retelling phenomenon. ??? Especially when you think about what stories they were retelling, they were just continuing a long tradition.
-
I think what he meant was that DIsney as a company got it's major start by retelling stories. At least, that's how I understood it. That's not 100% accurate either, but they wouldn't be what they are today without it, so it's close enough.
-
Unfortunately as a society we are losing all creative ideas. Just thing about it, how many songs, shows, and movies are remakes to older books, songs, shows, and movies. In order to keep people buying into the old stuff redone they have to change it enough in order to have so originality to it. Most time they use better special effects, different look, and other items of that nature. This lead so a new futuristic twist to the same old stuff....which most times makes it seem like it is darker then the original
Wasn't the Humphrey Bogart version of "The Maltese Falcon" a remake of the original version of the film? I remember something to that effect in Umberto Eco's "Faith in Fakes". ???
Didn't Shakespeare steal most of his ideas from Boccaccio and other writers?
Tolkein? *pfft* He just rejigged the Nibelungenlied :P
I'm of the (somewhat contentious) opinion that there are no new stories under the sun, only good or bad retellings of the ones we have. The tendency of Hollywood to "stick with what works" (Rocky 1-5, Lethal Weapon 1-4, etc.) is just the reducto ad absurdem of this tendency...
-
I actually am now thinking that remakes are important to society. Kind of like how a oral stories were passed on form one generation to the next. Just because the stories ahs been placed in film, it doesn't necessarily ensure it's immortality. Thus films are remade to allow for the currant generation or culture to place their own individual mark on the story. Primarily as a sign of the acceptance by the current generations of the previous generations ideas. However, if the remake is done poorly, it is often seen as a slight to the previous generations, which is unfortunate.
However, it is concerning that the trend to remake old ideas in a dark, cynical, and morose manner kind of reflects the current generation doom and gloom mentality. It also makes me wonder if there will be a back-lash to this trend where another generation chooses to remake the preceding ideas in a light and more care-free interpretation.
-
Post-post-modernism?
-
Well, there has to be something after post-modernism.
-
Pan-Modernism, and we're nowhere near it yet. Panmodernism will be the final step to transhumanism - it will occur when a significant portion of people have moved to posthumanity, and will be the result of the rift between the human and the posthuman. By the time Panmodernism is over, no people will be recognisable as Human, unless some cult of purists or such survives. Unlikey, new sapient species tend to eradicate the old.
-
No, i'm pretty sure that there will be a change in artistic goals and styles to a different general mode before we all mutate into something not currently recognizable as human.
-
/me is currently not recognizable as human
-
Stacer, Saint E got the sense I was intending. Sorry for the ambiguity.
-
I'm of the (somewhat contentious) opinion that there are no new stories under the sun, only good or bad retellings of the ones we have.
There is nothing new under the sun, it has all been said and done before"
- Sherlock Holmes
I agree entirely, there are basic themes of story that we simply repeat with new narratives. Shakespeare did indeed base huge chunks of material on traditional legneds, poems, or history (e.g. large lumps of Julis Caesar comes almost straight from Plutarch, it's actually rather weird to be reading Plutarch and realise you are reading something you previously appreciated as literature in an english class in one of your history textbooks...)
Oh, and apparently there are only seven storylines. I shall have to ask my mother about that, I always forget whose theory it is. But I accept the idea in a cursory, uninformed way.
-
I feel too many people strive to water things down to a simplified level. Sure, we could say all stories are the same. But by the same logic, all humans are the same. Which is not correct, obviously. It's similar to the 'co-incidences' game where you say... well, Lincoln and JFK died 100 years apart... they both were assassinated... and so on. It works, but only because your willfully ignoring the parts that do not fit into your hypothesis.
It also smacks of a desire to not have anything new, to just settle down with what you have and stick with them.
-
it really smacks of trying to simplify things to encompass everything into your understandign, instead of broadening your undertsanding to grasp it all.
Now, there are patterns, don't get me wrong. I think that Campbell had a number of things wrong, but often when you get these limited number of stories, some elements of some stories are made far more metaphorical than is reasonable, so they're forced into the pattern.
-
I don't know if anyone other than me has watched the whole season of the new Doctor Who, (and enough of the old series to compare) but if so I'd like to discuss it in light of this thread.