From another thread on here I was reading about 'House of Wax'. Why oh why dont they just let these stories be. The original, starring Vincent Price, yes he of Thriller fame, was a classic of its time, so why try to update it?

The same goes for 'Oceans 11' and 'Oceans 12'. The original was entertaining because it starred the rat pack, including Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. You could imagine these guys actually doing it, but the latest were non entities.

Just leave these films, and others, where they ought to be, not try and revamp them for a new audience. What say you?

The Italian Job remake is another example of what not to do.

My pet hate is song covers done badly by talentless new acts who only get away with it because most of their target audience arn't old enough to have heard the original.

Most of the time movie remakes are awful, but occasionally they're pretty good.

I thought the remake of Ocean's Eleven was much better than the original, where Sinatra et al couldn't have made it more clear that they really couldn't be botherred with the whole thing. Then there's The Magnificent Seven, The Fly, The Thing, Ben Hur...

Originally posted by BoppinBruce
From another thread on here I was reading about 'House of Wax'. Why oh why dont they just let these stories be. The original, starring Vincent Price, yes he of Thriller fame, was a classic of its time, so why try to update it?

The same goes for 'Oceans 11' and 'Oceans 12'. The original was entertaining because it starred the rat pack, including Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. You could imagine these guys actually doing it, but the latest were non entities.

Just leave these films, and others, where they ought to be, not try and revamp them for a new audience. What say you?

I ditched the idea of watching films whoes sole aim was to shift unit a few years ago.

There are some fantastically original foreign language film being produced.

Some of my favourite

1) Amores Perros
2) La Mala Educacion
3) Cidade de Deus
4) Todo Sombre me Madre
5) Le Fille sur la Pont
6) Y Tu Mama Tambien
7) Hable con Ella

One of the key features of the original "House of Wax" was that it was made in 3D. If you watch it on TV the effects are lost. One scene in particular (and it's a good few years since I saw the film, so apologies if I misquote) showed the couple going to the exhibition. Outside this was a bouncer trying to entice people in and using a couple of bats with rubber balls on elastic. In 3D these balls would seem to be coming towards the audience, hence the comment about a box of popcorn and the bouncer giving the impression of trying to hit it with his ball. Completely lost on TV, but when seen in the medium it was created for, very effective.

I'm waiting for the remake of the Marx Brothers' films although I wonder about Catherine Zeta Jones playing the margaret Dumont roles

Yes, whatever happened to 3D?

Originally posted by BoppinBruce
Yes, whatever happened to 3D?

It's alive and well at the IMAX cinema in Bradford. Forget the red/green glasses, this system uses polarising lenses and the effect is stunning.

IMO the remake of War of the Worlds will suck, typical Hollywood bastardry of the book.. :mad:

Good job there's another WOTW film coming out that's apparently true to the book...

I'm still planning to go and see the WOTW remake starring Tom Cruise though, I just don't think it'll be that good...

Originally posted by Rich
IMO the remake of War of the Worlds will suck, typical Hollywood bastardry of the book.. :mad:


it seems to be set in the US for a start.

Originally posted by nick2
it seems to be set in the US for a start.

So was the original 1954 film..

Pseudo 3D
This won't work for everyone.
If you place a dark filter over one eye and watch television through that, in some cases a very effective 3D image can be seen. However some scenes work better than others and not everyone will see the effect.

Originally posted by nick2
it seems to be set in the US for a start.

I think that somewhere in the book it mentions that a Martian cylinder did fall in the US....

I may be wrong there - of course, it's no excuse for the film being set there. I'm just giving Tom Cruise a get out clause!! :)

Joe

In terms of the lack of new ideas, blame production companies, financiers and.....audiences!! :)

Audiences often like to see what they know they're going to like - the 'try it' attitude is now applied more to TV, but even there people like to play safe to get audience share. There are few outlets (and audiences) for low budget films, despite the quality of many of them. It's all playing safe.

As a financier / bank / angel, if you're being asked to sink 50 million quid in to a film you want to be sure that you're going to make money on it.

Production companies will therefore seek projects that are safe and guaranteed (as far as anything can be guaranteed) to get funding. Film making is an expensive business - you can spend 50,000 just to get to the point where the financiers say 'No'.

There's also a 'me too' attitude in writing. Just look at the run of 'Brit Gangster' films that came in the wake of Lock, Stock.... . Look at the 'Me Too' books that have followed Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Or the 'Chick Lit' phenomena that followed Bridget Jones.

Joe

Originally posted by Rich
IMO the remake of War of the Worlds will suck, typical Hollywood bastardry of the book.. :mad:

Good job there's another WOTW film coming out that's apparently true to the book...

I'm still planning to go and see the WOTW remake starring Tom Cruise though, I just don't think it'll be that good...

Why do people consider the most vital aspect of an adaptation to be to keep as close to the original text as possible?

Cinema is a very different art form to written fiction, and things that work well in one don't work at all in the other, and vice versa. For example, an omniscient narrator that dominates a novel cannot simply be transferred to the big screen without audiences being very bored indeed; on the other hand, page after page describing in great detail a particular visual composition would get very dull very quickly.

I think you need to separate the two, and that way you don't have unrealistic expectations.

I really like the HG Wells novel, but I don't see any reason why a director as skilled as Steven Spielberg won't make a brilliant job of updating it into a spectacular summer blockbuster. It can't be any worse than the excrable Independence Day, anyway.

The trailer looks very promising, but we'll have to wait and see.