As editor of the film and TV side of the Entertainment Section, I was especially drawn to Simon Quartey’s article in last week’s edition of the Bulletin titled “Really Hollywood?: A Rant of Epic Proportions.”
First off, Simone raises many good points in the article, from the bashing of Hollywood falling back on many remakes to adapting stories that should simply be left alone. A perfectly good point. I for one (and I know how much hate I will get for this) was not partial to The Hunger Games movie. After reading the book, the film just couldn’t encapsulate the source material accurately, and what made the novel so compelling was lost to shaky-cam shots and Katniss hanging out in trees.
However, I do see a point in remaking certain films. Many films that are being remade are so terrible it just makes you want to put a foot through the screen. The original Judge Dredd? Horrible. However, the remake that came out this year so phenomenal, supported by great action stunts and some great violence. John Carpenter’s The Thing was a remake of the 1952 vehicle by Howard Hawkes with the same title, and that film is still terrifying to this day.
Some others include Scorsese’s The Departed, The Coen Brothers’ True Grit, and Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Yes, some remakes should not happen to movies that were perfectly good the first time around (looking at you Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes and 2012’s Conan the Barbarian). However, there’s no reason not to remake a movie that wasn’t good the first time around.
What this spree of remakes and adaptations can be linked to is us, the movie-going public. We eat these easy cash-grabs up. I mean, look at the Saw franchise or the Paranormal Activity Series. At the end of the day, most companies are more interested in making money at whatever way is easiest, no matter what the quality of what they put out. So what would stop them from making a sequel to a movie that everyone went to see, even if it is garbage? As long as we go out and see it, we are the ones at fault because we are saying “Yes, keep making this crap. We don’t care if it’s good. Here, take all of our money.”
So how can we alleviate these issues? Go out and see original filmmaking. Like Simone said, go see Django Unchained. Multiple times. Because Quentin Tarantino makes movies worth seeing, movies that are original and are necessary editions to a cinema’s box office. Instead of going to see the newest installment of a franchise that lost any creativity it may have once had, see movies by filmmakers who make movies for their art, not for their money. This year alone has brought many wonderfully creative films that are very original (Paranorman, Looper, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, and Cloud Atlas are just a few in what has been a fantastic year of film).
As long as we support these poorly made movies, they will exist. So take a stand and save your money for a movie that was made with love and passion from its creators.
