Recently, I began watching the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. I had watched a few episodes several years ago, but didn’t quite get into it. Now I’ve tried it again and have gotten sucked in. I’ve been watching a few episodes every day and now I’m in the middle of the fourth and final season.
And as I watch this show, I can’t help but think about some other properties that have been in the news lately. There are two remakes/reboots in the works that involve properties very close to my heart, and which have drawn a lot of negative reactions from fans.
The first is Ghostbusters and the second is The Crow. Ghostbusters is one of the first movies I remember watching. Ghostbusters II was actually the first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater. Paul Feig is working on the next Ghostbusters film with an al-female cast of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon. Don’t think I’ve seen Jones or McKinnon in anything, but I thought Bridesmaids was one of the funniest movies to come out in the past few years, so if Feig, McCarthy, and Wiig are involved, I’m definitely onboard.
The second is The Crow. This is a franchise that has not had a single iota of luck since the first film. Even with how great that movie was, it cost us the life of Brandon Lee, who probably would have gone on to bigger and better things had he survived. The sequel, The Crow: City of Angels, was butchered by Miramax in the editing room, resulting in a film that was cut to mirror the progression of the original. And the less said about Salvation and Wicked Prayer, the better. So when this upcoming Crow film is going to be a remake, it’s understandable why some people would be irritated. Except here’s the thing—it’s not really a remake. James O’Barr confirmed that this film is going back to his original graphic novel and doing a closer adaptation of that. As great as The Crow was, it was more an adaptation of tone than of content. As O’Barr himself said, “Brandon Lee will always be Eric Draven,” but this isn’t going to be a movie about Eric Draven (the surname was added to the movie, he was just Eric in the graphic novel).
And this brings me back to Battlestar Galactica. The conventional wisdom of fans is that “remakes are horrible and should never, ever be attempted.” I think that’s short-sighted as hell. Are there crappy remakes out there? Oh hell yes. But there are also a lot of wonderful remakes in the world. If the fan mentality that “we should never had remakes” was followed, here is a list of movies we never would have gotten:
The Fly
The Thing
The Magnificent Seven
A Fistful of Dollars
Scarface
The Departed
Dawn of the Dead
3:10 To Yuma
True Grit
Ocean’s Eleven
Cape Fear
13 Assassins
The Birdcage
Solaris
Black Caesar
Fatal Attraction
The Fog
Godzilla (2014)
The Mummy
True Lies
Technically, we could probably add Casino Royale to that list as well. After all, if fans are counting a new adaptation of The Crow as a remake, then technically Casino Royale qualifies as well—there were two adaptations of that book prior to Daniel Craig’s first Bond outing. One was a made-for-TV movie that reimagined MI6’s James Bond as the CIA’s Jimmy Bond, and there was a comedy spoof of it in the 60s featuring David Niven. We could also count Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy as a remake as well. And also Captain America: The First Avenger, given that there was a Captain America movie released in the early 90s.
Remakes are just like any other type of movie—there are good ones and there are bad ones. But making a blanket statement that all remakes are terrible is like making a blanket statement that all sci-fi movies are terrible. There are remakes that can be just as good as the original. And sometimes, they can even surpass the original. Again, look at Battlestar Galactica. The original show was awful—a cheesy Star Wars knock-off mixed with Mormon propaganda (and FYI, the story of Star Wars was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, so technically there’s another one). But the remake is really smart TV. Well-crafted stories, fully developed characters, and content that really makes you think about the issues being addressed in the show. And if we had listened to the people who damn all remakes on principle, we never would have gotten it.
Something to think about. Now I’m off to watch more BSG.
I actually prefer the original BattleStar Galactica, as the second version was unrelentingly grim and lacked in any redemptive point of view. However, your central point is taken. Remakes are not necessarily a bad thing.