George Lucas Stole My Childhood: Remake Mania

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Originally Posted by Cassini90125

If you're going to do a movie based on a TV show or movie series with history, by the stars don't ignore that history or change the premise. It's part of what makes the original special, part of why it's considered good enough for a big-screen remake to begin with. And they shouldn't play around with character design too much, either. Updating the designs is one thing, but it often goes too far; the characters can become almost unrecognizable.

The most common reason producers don't continue from where stories leave off is because they have to worry about being constricted into the confines of the original story that was left behind by the last film. Which I can see how that'd be upsetting, but you can't just totally push away so much story so easily.'

Look at Batman's movies. Batman Beings basically is saying "yeah everything from 1989 up to 2004 does not exist anymore", that's BULL CRAP! How can you so carelessly and ignorantly discard so much hard work? Do you know how hard the writers, director, make up artists, and actors probably worked to make those movies only to basically say their story existence is wiped out?

Godzilla however does it WAY too much. After 1995's supposed "Last" Godzilla movie "Godzilla vs. Destroyah", continuity in the movies was completely ignored and for some stupid reason every movie after Destroyah was made to be a direct sequel to the original 1954 Godzilla movie "King of the monsters". Each time a new Godzilla movie was made, ZIP, everything before is ignored.

It's like this: Godzilla 2000 is a direct sequel to King of monsters ZIP! Sorry change that, Godzilla vs. Megagurius is the direct sequel ZIP! Sorry again GOD that is so annoying. The character revamps is also another big issue, I don't mind a tweak here or there but sometimes it's just revolting.

Dr. Doom for example from the FF movie looked JUST like Dr. Doom, he had pretty much the same powers, looked and acted just like the comic book Doom was. They didn't make him an alien from another planet or say he was bitten by a radioactive dung beetle, they kept majority of him in tact.

Leading back to relaunching movies and Batman Begins, this brings me to the new Joker portrayed by Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" and how they have already made the Joker a shallow shell of his character's history. Heath Ledger's Joker has the make up come off, as in he's NOT a "super" villain.

He's not the bleach skinned maniac we all know and loved, no, instead he's just another crazy villain who wears make up, that was one of the whole points of the Joker that he DIDN'T wear make up, it was permanent. Revamps usually can only be as good as the way the director envisions them.

Christopher Nolan made a beautiful movie with "Begins", I don't doubt that, but he made a totally stupid envision of the Batman series by making it more "realistic" and changing Scarecrow's gas, Ra's Al Gul, and Batman's gadgets into something more scientifically plausible. Batman is hardly what I call realistic so why bother whizzing on such a great super hero by making him more "real" when he never needed to be more real in the first place?

[AerostarMonk]

Dr. Doom wasn't really intact if you want to go by actual comics. He's more of a weak amalgam of Ultimate Fantastic Four's Victor Van Damme and Marvel-616's Victor Von Doom, and not really the best of either of them. Not to say he's not a good villain for the movie he was in. But he was a very weak representation of the character he was based on.

As for the reboot of the Batman film franchise, it was something that was needed. By the time Burton and Schumacher got done with it, while still representative of various eras in the Batman mythos it wasn't really reflective of the comics today. Something which both the studios and a lot of the fans wanted. You can argue about the changes made, but I think we can agree that changing Gotham back from a Neon-Glo East Coast city of sin to a city with a shiny exterior hiding a seedy and cancerous underbelly in some places better than others was a good direction. Not to mention that this is actually a second reboot in the past 10 years even. Whether people want to admit it or not there was absolutely no relation to Burton and Schumacher's Batmans. So instead of choosing which to go with they decided to start from scratch.

What I will say is that I'm not fond of what I've heard about Nolan. Apparently, like Burton, he also has no interest in Batman in the comics. He wants Batman to be more reminiscent of James Bond. I think they really should stop hiring directors who have no true respect for the sourrce material and only want to put their own spin on things. There's nothing wrong with having different interpretations. By all means that's what these re's are for, but at least respect your source, whether it be a comic, book, movie, song, whatever. Otherwise why bother to re-anything?

[Mr. Marshmallow]

However there's nothing in Batman Forever or Batman and Robin that disapproves or "cancels out" any of the material that was laid down by Batman and Batman Returns. So it could easily correlate. Gotham City's "look" is more of a "whoop dee do" factor for me. Like I said, it's when they go totally species change that upsets me.

Dr. Doom is at least closer to Doom in the comics then Legder is as the new Joker since we know he's no different then any other yahoo who puts on a purple suit and clown make up. Yes, I imagine Ledger will do a great job playing a psychotic villain, but his new design makes it easy for anyone to duplicate his appearance.

Which is why I loved Joker's permanent bleached skin. One of the things I loved so much about Burton's Joker was the fact he put human make up on himself and when he washed it off, you saw his real skin, the bleach white skin. I just loved seeing that effect done that this change with Ledger is really insulting.

Not to mention I want to go on record that I said it was STUPID from the beginning to redo the Joker in the first place, he's one of the LEAST realistic Batman characters ever, he falls into a vat of acid and turns ghost white and goes nuts! That's hardly what I call a plausible situation to see in a realistic world.

Since Batman begins is already getting a 3rd, I pray to god they STAY AWAY from "mutant" villains of Batman so they don't butcher apart their genetics like they are doing with Joker. So Clayface, Bane, Mr. Freeze, Man-Bat, and Poison Ivy are out. Unless of course they drown them in a vat of realism like they did Ras' Al Gul.

[emperor26]

Originally Posted by AerostarMonk

Dr. Doom wasn't really intact if you want to go by actual comics. He's more of a weak amalgam of Ultimate Fantastic Four's Victor Van Damme and Marvel-616's Victor Von Doom, and not really the best of either of them. Not to say he's not a good villain for the movie he was in. But he was a very weak representation of the character he was based on.

As for the reboot of the Batman film franchise, it was something that was needed. By the time Burton and Schumacher got done with it, while still representative of various eras in the Batman mythos it wasn't really reflective of the comics today. Something which both the studios and a lot of the fans wanted. You can argue about the changes made, but I think we can agree that changing Gotham back from a Neon-Glo East Coast city of sin to a city with a shiny exterior hiding a seedy and cancerous underbelly in some places better than others was a good direction. Not to mention that this is actually a second reboot in the past 10 years even. Whether people want to admit it or not there was absolutely no relation to Burton and Schumacher's Batmans. So instead of choosing which to go with they decided to start from scratch.

What I will say is that I'm not fond of what I've heard about Nolan. Apparently, like Burton, he also has no interest in Batman in the comics. He wants Batman to be more reminiscent of James Bond. I think they really should stop hiring directors who have no true respect for the sourrce material and only want to put their own spin on things. There's nothing wrong with having different interpretations. By all means that's what these re's are for, but at least respect your source, whether it be a comic, book, movie, song, whatever. Otherwise why bother to re-anything?

I agree with you about the Batman franchise going through the reboot process.

Honestly, I always thought that Batman was like that before Batma Begins, but after looking up its original source (especially Batman's character), I was surprise that, not only the movies I have watch weren't true to the source at all, but the directors themselves didn't seem to realize what Batman really is.

As much as I like Tim Burton's film, I just wish he pay more attention to the source itself (Joel Schaummer, on the other hand, made the films more akin to the 1960s Batman).

For Nolan's version of Batman, I have to say I'm glad he took the time to research what Batman is really about (including respecting and being true to the Batman mythos), as Begins makes it clear that the Dark Knight will not kill any criminals, no matter how cruel they are (most of the time, he tries to convince them to turn themselves in or seek help), as well as establishing that it was Joe Chill, not the Joker, who killed Bruce's parents. I'm also glad that the film went with the dark and grim atmosphere, boosted with a great plot.

Overall, I prefer Nolan's versions over the Burton/ Schaummer films (as well as looking forward to The Dark Knight and the third untitle sequel).

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Yeah, the only problem is Joe Chill was NEVER CAUGHT. I can see why Burton would put Joker in his history to tie Batman and him closer together, but Nolan didn't do a much better job considering they caught AND killed Joe Chill.

From what I recall, one of the biggest things about Batman's parents murder was that they never found Chill and that to me sounded pretty important to keep in since it seemed Nolan was "supposedly" being more accurate but he wasn't.

How he handled the Scarecrow is proof of his "accuracy". I don't mind how they changed Scarecrow's look or his weapon that delivers his gas, but was it too much to ask to keep his gas a "phobia hallucinogenic" since fear is his trademark, and not goofy gas?

[AerostarMonk]

His gas still was a phobia hallucinogenic. It wasn't just goofy gas. People saw some of their worst fears realized. Reality literally shattered for those who took in a whiff of the gas. No, the only thing changed about Scarecrow other than his appearance is making him director of the Arkham Asylum instead of a professor at Gotham U.

I do agree that Joe Chill should've never been apprehended. That was as big of a botch job as Gordon driving the Batmobile.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

It made people see cocaine drug inducing crap and weird stunts but it wasn't at all what I call phobia. Batman was probably the only one I ever got the distinction of his bat phobia coming out, and that's not much evidence considering he still suffered from "Bat freak outs" in his dreams/nightmares.

I remember in the old cartoon show when Scarecrow gassed people and you saw a guy afraid of spiders, afraid of heights, like actual clinical fears that people suffered from and I liked that alot better then just seeing a bunch of freaky stuff from this drug. Most of it was just super imposing or blurry images of faces.

In fact, most of the fears most powerful effects came from if people were looking at Scarecrow or Batman because they had scary masks. Otherwise, the gas really didn't do anything else but slightly distort reality to make things look freaky where as his old gas actually made a person's personal fear come to life.

It was still a cool effect none the less. Like I said though, sometimes remakes can pay off and others don't. Invasion of the Body snatchers for example. The Invasion I heard sucked, but the 80s one with Donald Sutherland was also a remake and I saw that one and thought it was absolutely fantastic.

Those alien screams, the haunting music, I heard many people say it surpassed the original black and white one. In opinions of course.

[jekylljuice]

I for one would like to see an end to these live-action adaptations of retro cartoons, particularly wherein you get the main character played by some CGI creation. With films like Garfield and Scooby Doo, they were clearly aiming to make the titular characters look cartoony enough in their computer-generated guises so as to sufficiently resemble their original animated selves, yet also add "realistic" details like fur and irises to help them blend in a little more aptly into their new three-demensional environs. Problem is, they came up woefully short on both sides of the spectrum. Neither character looked enough like their cartoon counterparts for me to accept them as such, and yet they looked so fake and cartoony that the interactions going on between themselves and the rest of the live-action world seemed terribly ungainly. The decision to render Garfield in CGI whilst having the rest of the local menagerie portrayed by real animals, though obviously a lot more cost effective, worked out rather dismally in practice - having him neck-to-neck with flesh-and-blood felines only accentuated just how artificial the leading kitty was (as if it wasn't blatant enough already). It wasn't helped by the fact that NONE of the real animals they'd chosen looked anything like the characters as they appeared in the strip/cartoon. Couldn't they even have found an actual silver tabby to play Nermal? Not that "Nermal" as we saw him in the film had anything in common with the Nermal we know, other than actually being a cat.

The rather frustrating thing about the Garfield movie was that it wasn't--actually--that--bad. It was perfectly passable, if very bland and undemanding, family entertainment (at least when compared to the Scooby Doo movie, which I personally found just plain painful to watch - sorry, Cass), and had it been about some different, original cat character I might have been a little better disposed toward it. Trouble is that it wasn't Garfield. The characters, particularly Jon and Liz, were just so vexingly washed out. Stocking the soundtrack with such flavour-of-the-month groups as the Black-Eyed-Peas (as opposed to Lou Rawls or Desiree Goyette, who had been the staples in the animated series) kind of betrayed the sad probability that this film had been churned out not for the sake of providing pleasant nostalgia for life-long Garfield fans like myself, but rather to make the character and franchise more marketable to the current generation of kids. Which actually kind of hurts.

I've heard whisper of this live action Wacky Races adaptation they're currently trying to get off the ground - no doubt, if it goes ahead, Muttley and Saw-Tooth would also be portrayed by ugly masses of digital pixels. Warner Brothers, if you're listening, kindly can this idea before it's too late. You know it makes sense to do so.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

I can relate and understand how people feel towards these recent LIVE toon movies and how fans feel they are losing something precious to them. However, I regard these films just like I regard any other film I think looks bad: if you don't want to see it then don't see it, it's as simple as that.

No pain, no problem. No one forces people to go see movies, and if you think its crap then call it crap, ignore it, and get on with the rest of your day. People will always make bad movies and nothing you do or say will change that, so what if they butcher ideas or things from your childhood? Just brush it off.

No matter how piss poor of a job they do on these movies, no movie's crap factor will be powerful enough to truly remove or damage the memories you gained growing up with these toons. I grew up on Alvin and the Chipmunks and I think their new movie looks like crap, but then I just decide not to go see it.

Garfield, Chipmunks, and Underdog were all made by the same company or CGI team or whatever you want to call it. I feel those movies truly are in bad taste and are not worthy mentioning of the toons names, however, I very much disagree about Scooby Doo's live movie as I felt that movie was amazing.

Truth be told, I hated Scooby as a child, I didn't get raised on his cartoon show so a live movie of it didn't seem to interest me. But I watched it on cable TV one day and I just totally loved it. The thing I liked about Scooby Doo was it was true to the toon's heritage in more ways then one.

The movie kept the characters quirky personalities and exaggerated them in ways that both parents and kids could recognize them in both levels. Scooby never had fellow toons to hang around with like Garfield and Alvin did, he had the monsters and of course Scrappy Doo, which were BOTH CGI animated as well.

The movie really did bring their world of monsters and magic to life, the amusement park, the island bar, the scenery was absolutely amazing and it looked like a real Scooby Doo setting brought to life. I have never enjoyed such scenery in a movie before and I felt it captured the mood of the show.

Furthermore, the best thing I loved about this movie was the fact they even poked fun at their own inside jokes, revelations, and references. From the fear of dark castles and shifty eye paintings, to Shaggy and Scooby lapping up some deliciously hilarious pot head references, there was at least 3 in there.

Not to mention the agreed annoyance regarded towards Scrappy Doo. That to me showed that this movie really stayed true to the material, to the point of enhancing it, mocking it, and making it funny for children and adults to enjoy. The sequel (while no where near as fresh as the first one) enhanced even more TV authenticity.

I'm saying this not to defend or intentionally bash the CGI movies like Garfield and Underdog, I just wanted to make it clear where I stood on the Scooby Doo movie above all others because I truly feel this movie is one that deserves some appreciation for bringing a kids show to life properly (and more importantly) comically.

[Cassini90125]

Wow, that pretty much covers how I felt about Scooby-Doo as well. I watched every episode at one time or another and loved the show so much that I eventually taped them all. I had very high hopes for the movie when I heard it was being made, but there was a sense of dread, too; what if they butchered the show, turned the movie into something completely unrecognizable? That could very easily have happened - it's happpened to other cartoon adaptations often enough - but happily it didn't. I ended up seeing it in the local theaters four times. I still don't think that Sarah Michelle Gellar bears any resemblance to Daphne at all, but other than that I have no complaints. It was a great movie.