I really think that Hollywood is really running out of original ideas to make movies out of. Over the past couple of years all I have seen is just an onslaught of movies adapted from other forms of media -- comic books, novels, television shows, and video games-- or movies that are merely remakes of movies that have come out before -- Nightmare on Elm Street, Batman Begins, The Three Musketeers and Footloose. I can't remember the last time that I went to the movie theater and the big blockbuster was an original storyline that I haven't seen before. I can understand why the movie industry is doing this, because there are a lot of material out there that can be made into very good movies (still waiting on a very good video game movie) and they want to update old popular movies using new technologies to appeal to new fans. But there has to be a time when enough is enough. The current remakes that are being made that pop into my head are Judge Dredd, which originally came out in 1995 starring Sylvester Stallone, and Robocop, which came out in 1987 and starred Peter Weller, and those were two very good movies that don't need to be remade and will still be good in future years.
...to be continued
I personally like the remakes of all the oldies. I come from a very sheltered family so some of the old movie titles are some I never even heard of (FOOTLOOSE is one of them). When the movie industry remakes a classic, it gives me the opportunity to learn what was so great about the first version to make a second. I cant find all the great movies, and some of the recommendations I get don't capture what I really like in a movie. Remakes give me a commercial that lets me see some of the story line, and sometimes I will watch the remake only to want to watch the original. So for a person who doesn't have much knowledge about the American movie industry and doesn't know the classics..remakes are the only way to be apart of the original movie
ReplyDeleteHi Kevin, this is Robert, the TA for 214. You raise some interesting points about the lack of originality in Hollywood. I've noticed this too. Seems like all the great ideas for movies come from other movies overseas or from books. I was thinking of Martin Scorsese's films the other day. The Departed was adapted from a Hong Kong movie, Infernal Affairs; and Shutter Island was adapted from a famous book. However, I think some remakes outdo the originals. For example, Christopher Nolan's reboot of the Batman series seems to take the character to a whole new level of complexity that the original Batman movies failed to do. Some further avenues to explore on this topic is how much of Hollywood movies are truly original, the statistics. Maybe you can draw some conclusions about the state of creativity in Hollywood compared to other movie industries: the Japanese movie industry, Hong Kong movie industry, and of course, Bollywood. I look forward to reading the next part of this blog post.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I meant that I'm the TA for 414, not 214.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when it comes to remakes. Personally, this just makes me lose interest in watching current movies, because I want to preserve the originals in my mind and not tamper with watching the remakes. Also, I dislike it when the movie industry would stretch out the initial movie and make sequels or prequels. For example, Fast and Furious, they are just stretching out the plot of the movie way to much, because there shouldn't be more than one movie about racing and grand theft auto. For me, I love to watch documentaries and comedy. Documentaries are the genre that doesn't get stale, so that's why I am interest in that.
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