Tag Archives: remakes

July 29, 2023

Movies: Alien Visitors

Last Saturday, thanks to Amazon Prime, I screened a theme-related science fiction double-feature: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) and Arrival (2016). Both are fairly recent films about aliens visiting the Earth on mysterious missions.

The former, of course, is a remake of the 1951 same-named classic — a film good enough to have stood the test of time. Which, for science fiction films, is saying something. The remake suffers in comparison (and because it’s a remake) but considered on its own is an okay SF movie.

Arrival is generally a better film, but I do have a few issues with it.

15 Comments | tags: adaptations, Arrival (film), Denis Villeneuve, Keanu Reeves, remakes, science fiction, science fiction movies, SF Movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday

May 28, 2023

Revisiting the Well

By Wyrd Smythe

This post’s title is a bit vague. Someone familiar with my interests might suppose it has something to do with the Well World series by Jack L. Chalker — I’ve posted about it before. I won’t draw out whatever suspense you might have — the well in question is humanity’s wellspring of stories.

The revisiting is our love of nostalgia in all the sequels, serials, remakes, reboots, adaptations, borrowings, homages, parodies, and pastiches. To name but some. And make no mistake, all stories have elements of other stories. Boil stories down enough and the reductions begin to look similar (the infamous seven plots).

But I find myself bemused by how obsessed we get about drinking from the same well over and over when there are so many other interesting wells.

22 Comments | tags: adaptations, reboots, remakes, sequels, storytelling | posted in Books, Movies, TV

August 29, 2016

BB #53: Fan Bubbles

By Wyrd Smythe

In its early days, circa 1990, social media provided a ready platform for fan communities of TV shows and movies. I spent a lot of time in a group devoted to Star Trek. We fans believed the creators were aware of our groups, that they even silently monitored them, but it was very rare that they ever engaged us.

Today the power and allure of social media has broken down the wall. Artists of all stripes use these public platforms to reach, and be reached by, fans. The visible connection between artist and fan has never been stronger.

And as always, there’s a Yang to the Yin…

Leave a comment | tags: fanatics, fans, Ghostbusters, Harry Potter, infantilization, internet, interweb, Leslie Jones, remakes, sequels, sharing, social media, tyranny of the majority | posted in Brain Bubble, Movies, Society, TV

February 19, 2015

Remaking the Classics

By Wyrd Smythe

The Day the Earth Stood Still It started out as conversation about how Edge of Tomorrow is the best big screen SF movie to come along in a good long while. That led to a ranking of recent SF movies with very high marks going to Elysium and Ender’s Game. It also touched on that Tom Cruise has made four — no, five! — SF films, at least two of which are very good.

Of course that led to talk of actors and how Jodie Foster and Matt Damon seem (unlike, for example, poor Sandra Bullock) to have excellent taste in what scripts they accept. If either of those two — let alone both — is in a movie, it’s probably pretty decent. Talk of actors in SF films naturally lead to Keanu Reeves whose ancestry and acting style make him such a perfect choice in certain roles.

And that lead to what a damn shame it is they tried to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still.

8 Comments | tags: Edge of Tomorrow, Elysium (movie), Ender's Game, Forbidden Planet, Gone With the Wind, Hamlet, Jodie Foster, Johnny Mnemonic, Keanu Reeves, Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier, Matt Damon, Philip K. Dick, remakes, Sandra Bullock, science fiction, science fiction movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Tom Cruise, William Gibson | posted in Movies