A Rant About Hollywood Remakes
Alright, everyone that talks to me on a regular basis knows that I like movies, and I’m a sucker for my classic 80s animated shows that I grew up on as a kid. I would love to see a revitalization of some of those properties in film, or a new series, but unfortunately Hollywood seems to only know how to reinvision them.
They’ve been doing this for years, and failing miserably. This was encouraging to me, as I thought that maybe they would learn a thing or two and eventually switch up the formula or give up. Sadly, since Transformers will soon be the #1 movie in the country, this will not be the case.
Like Godzilla, I know that I would enjoy Transformers more if they had simply changed the title. I mean, there hasn’t been a movie about giant robots kicking the crap out of each other since Robot Jox. And like Godzilla, I would love to see a big budget version of my favorite robots in disguise…but, I want it to stay true to the source material. I don’t want the character to be indistinguishable and unidentifiable from each other, and I don’t want to be confused by their motivations (what the fuck is the AllSpark? They never talked about that in the G1 Transformers…and it makes me sad that I have to refer to it as “G1”). I don’t want Starscream to look like a monky, I don’t want Bumblebee to be a Comero, and I don’t want Optimus to be a blue truck with red flames (could you combine Optimus and Rodimus any more, people?) And I simply hate their designs.
I won’t go into more detail here, but reinvisioning classic properties isn’t something that gets me excited enough to cough up the dough to go see them destroy my childhood on the big screen. Apparenlty, some people feel the same way as I do. The Penny Arcade gang posted this comic today, and it sums up how I feel pretty well:
Now, I had a good chuckle at this comic, and moved on. However, I was taken aback when I visited my faovrite forums, and discovered that they were making yet another property that has no business being redone:
All I could think of when I saw this poster was a flash video I had seen years previous, where the chipmunks make their comeback through rap music…. Funny to watch at the time, disturbing to discover upon the announcement of their featur-length live-action movie. And yes, to answer your question, that is Jason Lee as Dave….
I’ve always said it, but I’ll say it some more: Hollywood is officially retarded.
