Remake Alert!: Fuck Remakes. Boycott!

When I started writing about remakes on this blog I held a complicated opinion regarding the recent trend of Hollywood remakes. To put it simply - I was on the fence. I could appreciate some remakes, I've enjoyed some, not enjoyed others, and some are just insulting. Now, more than ever, it seems there isn't a single working filmmaker who would be opposed to a big budget remake.

My opinion was recently simplified by reading an editorial piece on CineRobot, a blog I've enjoyed for quite some time now. Replicant, the cyber-brain behind the scenes at CineRobot, wrote an article deriding the upcoming movie Death Race. It just so happens I had already written two articles to that same effect. Death Race is, of course, a remake of Death Race 2000. The comparison between the names alone leaves much to be desired from the remake. Some executive said to himself: "How can we make our worthless piece-of-shit movie sound like a watered-down rehash of a classic campy sci-fi murder romp? Let's take 2000 out of the title. That'll really give them less to be excited about."

The original already took place in an alternate timeline!!! Why didn't they just stick with that? Why not go the route of "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...."??? Dumb asses.

Here's a sample of the insight that finally pushed me over the edge: [from CineRobot]

Remakes have always been apart of Hollywood history but there is a big difference in remaking a film from the 1970s now versus when a film from the 1930s was remade in the 1950s or 1960s. Now, we can all rent the original films on DVD anytime we want, unlike audiences in the past who had to rise up off the couch and venture down to the single screen theatre to see whatever they wanted to see. Those were the days pre-IMDB, pre-video store, pre-Netflix, pre-video on demand, pre-dozens of movie channels on your TV. Remakes in that era made perfect sense because every twenty five years or so audiences were completely recycled for stories.

Too true! I have endless swathes of information at my fingertips all the time. There is no excuse anymore for not knowing that a movie is a remake. There is no excuse for trying to market such a movie as anything but a remake. There is no excuse for the complete lack of originality on display in Hollywood today.

Please join CineRobot and myself in saying....

FUCK REMAKES. BOYCOTT!

Fuck you Hollywood. Come and get me.