Sunday, January 31, 2010

HYS – Remakes and adaptations

It’s been a while since the ESPV team has offered a HaveYourSay post for yall to mill over.. so we thought we’d throw a nice simple one out there to kick off the new year.

For many film lovers and critics the last ten years was known as the decade of remakes, adaptations and attempts to bring old stories to life.. sometimes with dire results.

The Lord of the Rings, Transformers, Sin City, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, King Kong, 3:10 to Yuma, Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Alice in Wonderland, Dawn of the Dead, The 300, Infernal Affairs, Hell Boy, Superman, Batman, Where the Wild Things Are… all remakes, adaptations or classic stories brought to life for the first time on the big screen.




(Images: Google)
For some, original storylines and characters loose their authenticity when, for example, brought from the comic book page to the silver screen. Some aspects of a story which originally captivated a select audience, when adapted to film, often come across as being watered down to suit Hollywood’s mass-market.. much to the displeasure of true fans and followers.

Others find satisfaction in Hollywood spending big bucks on remaking classic favorites. But, as we all know, the results aren’t always inspiring or satisfying.

What has been your best/worst movie remake, adaptation or old-skool story?

Do you think Hollywood has done a good job over the last decade?

What classic story would you like to see made into a film?

Leave us your comments below!

4 comments:

PHilfy said...

..I am serriously over Hollywood taking old stories and making crap films out of them.. I reckon more indie labels and film makers would create better, more authentic remakes etc, sadly they dont have the same budgets and cant really compete..

Etchy said...

i actually attended a talk by a guy who licenses out japanese anime characters for merchandising and remakes... he explained that creating new characters and stories from scratch is much more expensive and much more risky... very hard to predict the return you'll get in advance for one thing...

which explains why sequels are so popular. There's some formulas around... that a sequel can most likely make like at least 60% of the original (and some times more of course). remakes or adapations from books and comics are other ways of hedging your bets...

at the end of the day, its all business...

Miss Scarlett said...

Worst = Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li

No, over the last decade, Hollyweird had become more and more out of touch with their audience. They've sold their souls to the all might dollar (or what ever currency strikes their fancy) and making money sits ten times higher on the list of priorities than anything else. I'm convinced making all the remakes, prequels, sequels and adaptations are so popular to make is becuz they come with a guaranteed audience aka guaranteed $ AT LEAST opening weekend.

Hollyweird's creativity is all but dead. The studios are dinosaurs still trying to do things the way they always have.

Classic story to film? Right now, I don't think I'd trust them not to screw it up.
If they could get it right, I'd like to see a film version of the 80s cartoon series Voltron ;)

Selph said...

I personally think the worse remake so far have been Planet Of The Apes & Poseidon...Both were wastes of my time and effort to sit through them....

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