Now they've gone TOO FAR!!!!

[ct_project]

I might as well warn you now - there's probably gonna be some grumpy grownup words in the cut....

First, the headline:

Disney taps Robert Zemeckis to remake Yellow Submarine in performance-capture 3D.

Now, the response:

Comments

[doctorpinkerton]

You know as well as I do why they pull this crap... it simply makes cents! Lots of cents. Sure it's disgusting, but believe me it has NOTHING to do with notions of 'art' or 'shame' or 'integrity' ... it's just the investors' way of leveraging 'pre-existing mindshare' for commercially viable projects. In other words, if a product was successful once, betting that it'll be successful AGAIN is less of a gamble than, say, an ORIGINAL IDEA! And that makes the investors happy, because gambling is a sin, you know?

Let's extrapolate. 'Star Wars: A New Hope' remake WITHIN OUR LIFETIMES. Wanna make a dollar bet?

[ct_project]

They're doing it for the money. Such... insight. Sure, they'll have their opening weekend take, but that'll be it. And I guess all that 'original idea' stuff is what killed Pixar... oh, wait... they're doing really well with that, aren't they? Remakes don't do well, especially if they're cult movies (see the Rollerball, Death Race, Thunderbirds, and Rocky Horror Picture Show remakes). And what's the biggest reason people are fans of Yellow Submarine? THE ANIMATION. Replacing the Peter Max-inspired Pop-Art style with the dead-eyed corpse-puppets of Zemeckis is NOT an upgrade, it's an evisceration. And who is this aimed at? Kids? They don't know who the Beatles are, nor do they care. Boomers? Their children are grown, and if they care enough about the movie, they own it. Same for Gen Xers, except for the "grown children" part. Gen Y? Please. There is nothing here for that demographic. And don't use the "They're cashing in on all of the Beatle hoopla going on" excuse, cause they're trying to have this ready for the

[doctorpinkerton]

Gawd how I wish the rest of the industry would take a cue from Pixar... but then, remember what Hollywood did after the success of Star Wars - by and large, they didn't suddenly start funding the development epic, fleshed out universes - they quickly rushed out a bunch of cheap space flix. That's the entertainment industry's assessment of the public - wring 'em for all they've got while something's 'hot'.

Another relevant case in point - the current oversaturation of 'vampire' crap.

On the other hand - who's it aimed at? It's going for that 'dual market' thing - where gen X'ers feel nostalgic about something and figure it's safe for their kids. See also: X-Men, new Star Trek, current Star Wars TV stuff, etc.

As for remakes NO-ONE wants, at LEAST they seem to have killed the 'Rocky Horror' one ... for the moment...