by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology
I can't hold my tongue any longer. Tom Cruise is planning a remake of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and..well, there goes my last vestige of hope that my childhood would survive the New 'Aughts unscathed. Oh, and it gets better: John Travolta is set to take Paul Newman's part.
Yeah. I'll let that sink in.
Look. This isn't anything against Hollywood and their annoying tendency to throw money at bad ideas. This isn't even anything against Tom Cruise or remakes in general. This is a protest against trying to improve that which cannot be improved, AKA the Greatest Buddy Film Ever Made(tm).
This may come as a shock, considering the shiny purist hat I'm known to wear on occasion, but I don't think remakes are an inherently bad idea. I think that, if done with the right intent, remakes can be an amazing gauge for the fluid changes within a society. I've had a pet theory involving Invasion of the Body Snatchers (ask me more!) and the fact that every time it gets remade, it takes on the subtle paranoias dominant in culture at the time. There's been three or four versions so far, and every time, the tenor of the aliens doin' the snatching changes, evolving from Commie fears to hippie hatred to...well, whatever conglomerate it is that troubles us in the 2000s. I don't know, Nicole Kidman's pristine, creaseless forehead maybe? Anyway, the point is, it's like a Tabula Rasa that a filmmaker can use to overlay the concerns that pulse underneath the surface of a culture.
Remakes can be a handy tool, but usually only if there's a point to making them. As much as Disturbia bugged me as a pale imitation of the perfect Rear Window, it was still kind of neat to see the classic storyline interpreted using technology that probably spies on us more than we spy on each other. I've heard rumors of an upcoming remake of The Birds starring George Clooney and Naomi Watts, and I was excited, even with Michael Bay's name attached--it wouldn't be hard to update the "nature's revenge" in a way that resonates the same way it did in 1963, considering the hypocrisy that's found in a society that drops off the weekly recycling in the back of a gas-guzzling SUV. Plus, the caliber of the attached stars (Clooney and Watts) made me hope for a smart reinvention rather than a lame grab for money.
Anyway, back to the main point: what is the real purpose behind remaking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the 2000s, especially in its current Cruise/Travolta incarnation? I've gotten pretty good at reading the writing on the wall and I don't like what I see: Meet the Parents with cowboys. Cruise has already admitted he loved the movie as a kid, which literally makes him the worst possible choice to helm the remake.
That's not to say a remake couldn't work: give it the Deadwood treatment, and grunge up the already grungy lives of two affable outlaws. The original was admittedly light on the revisionist history angle, so you could play that up: not even cowboys lived like cowboys, after all. Try and work in something about the last frontier. Oh, and cast unknowns, as Robert Redford was at the time.
Otherwise, cast Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Those two could really use the money, you know, and they DO seem to get along. That's a remake I would proudly slide onto the shelf next to the original.
What do you think? Any remakes that you thought really worked? Or drove you crazy with their blatant wrongness?
I can't hold my tongue any longer. Tom Cruise is planning a remake of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and..well, there goes my last vestige of hope that my childhood would survive the New 'Aughts unscathed. Oh, and it gets better: John Travolta is set to take Paul Newman's part.
Yeah. I'll let that sink in.
Look. This isn't anything against Hollywood and their annoying tendency to throw money at bad ideas. This isn't even anything against Tom Cruise or remakes in general. This is a protest against trying to improve that which cannot be improved, AKA the Greatest Buddy Film Ever Made(tm).
This may come as a shock, considering the shiny purist hat I'm known to wear on occasion, but I don't think remakes are an inherently bad idea. I think that, if done with the right intent, remakes can be an amazing gauge for the fluid changes within a society. I've had a pet theory involving Invasion of the Body Snatchers (ask me more!) and the fact that every time it gets remade, it takes on the subtle paranoias dominant in culture at the time. There's been three or four versions so far, and every time, the tenor of the aliens doin' the snatching changes, evolving from Commie fears to hippie hatred to...well, whatever conglomerate it is that troubles us in the 2000s. I don't know, Nicole Kidman's pristine, creaseless forehead maybe? Anyway, the point is, it's like a Tabula Rasa that a filmmaker can use to overlay the concerns that pulse underneath the surface of a culture.
Remakes can be a handy tool, but usually only if there's a point to making them. As much as Disturbia bugged me as a pale imitation of the perfect Rear Window, it was still kind of neat to see the classic storyline interpreted using technology that probably spies on us more than we spy on each other. I've heard rumors of an upcoming remake of The Birds starring George Clooney and Naomi Watts, and I was excited, even with Michael Bay's name attached--it wouldn't be hard to update the "nature's revenge" in a way that resonates the same way it did in 1963, considering the hypocrisy that's found in a society that drops off the weekly recycling in the back of a gas-guzzling SUV. Plus, the caliber of the attached stars (Clooney and Watts) made me hope for a smart reinvention rather than a lame grab for money.
Anyway, back to the main point: what is the real purpose behind remaking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the 2000s, especially in its current Cruise/Travolta incarnation? I've gotten pretty good at reading the writing on the wall and I don't like what I see: Meet the Parents with cowboys. Cruise has already admitted he loved the movie as a kid, which literally makes him the worst possible choice to helm the remake.
That's not to say a remake couldn't work: give it the Deadwood treatment, and grunge up the already grungy lives of two affable outlaws. The original was admittedly light on the revisionist history angle, so you could play that up: not even cowboys lived like cowboys, after all. Try and work in something about the last frontier. Oh, and cast unknowns, as Robert Redford was at the time.
Otherwise, cast Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Those two could really use the money, you know, and they DO seem to get along. That's a remake I would proudly slide onto the shelf next to the original.
What do you think? Any remakes that you thought really worked? Or drove you crazy with their blatant wrongness?
2 comments:
This and the rumoured Videodrome remake...
BAH, I say.
IS NOTHING SACRED?
Wouldn't it cost more to make the remake than the entire domestic gross of the film the first time around? To recreate the trippy 80s graphics will cost BILLIONS in their redundancy alone!
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