Remakes and Battlestar Galactica

Posted by bencooper | Filed under General

Gareth L. Powell recently posted a nice little rant about the trend in Hollywood towards remakes (read it here), specifically in reference to the upcoming Star Trek “reboot”. I have to say I really do agree with him… mostly.

I was appalled to hear that Total Recall will be remade soon, and with an exciting new “twist”. I’m shuddering at the thought. Total Recall, based on Philip K. Dick’s superb short story “We Can Remember it For You, Wholesale”, is one of the greatest slices of sci-fi action ever commited to celluloid. It is very different to Dick’s story in many regards, and those ridiculous fans of literature who insist that film adaptations must be “true” to the original source (I’m thinking of the idiots who were moaning about Tom Bombadil being left out of The LOTR films) probably don’t like it that much. Nonetheless as an action sci-fi film it has it all, plenty of action, a believeable and immersive world and a little bit of depth (courtesy of the original story) about reality, memories etc. It doesn’t need remaking,  particularly in the sanitised format of modern action films which lack, for want of a better word, balls.

The tendnecy towards constantly remaking films is a worrying one. As Gareth says in his post, why not invest in good writers, new scripts, start something new. Unfortunately that seems like too much of  a gamble for Hollywood, after all if millions of idiots will line up to see a remake of a film, or an adaptation of a musical (not that I’m averse to musicals at all) or even worse the latest travesty in the Scary Movie spin off spoofs, then why bother possibly having a film that tanks at the box office,like Blade Runner or Brazil?

But remakes can be a good thing. No, hear me out please. Despite what I just said.

I’ve recently been watching the remake of Battlestar Galactica and it is awesome. The acting is good, the writing is tight and the characters believable. They are also tackling issues such as human/machine interaction, what is it to be human and other current concerns such as terrorism etc. It is without a doubt the best piece of sci-fi I have seen in some time, particularly TV sci-fi.

Now lets cast our minds back to the original. Yes I’m sure some of you get misty eyed about it but take a good hard look at it. It was a pretty poor Star Wars cash in for 70′s and 80′s TV. The acting was bad, the writing abysmal and the characters flat. Don’t get me wrong I loved it as a kid, but not now. So a remake was no bad thing.

So what about Star Trek. I loved Star Trek too, all of the incarnations were watchable (my favourite was DS9, which often sparks some controversy) and for many of us it was our first introduction to sci-fi. Recently I had a chance to rewatch some. One afternoon dogsitting at my parents house a cable channel had The next Generation, Voyager, DS9 and Enterprise back to back. I settled in for an enjoyable afternoon.

Wrong. The shows have dated very badly. Not only in terms of aesthetics which we can forgive of course but the writing, directing and acting (with a few exceptions) were pretty bad. Also each incarnation seems to have similar episodes and themes. Not a bad thing at all but it really felt weak. My rose tinted spectacles were shattered, luckily they had a two for one offer at SpecSavers so I’m OK for the moment.

So a Star Trek “reboot” could be a good thing, after all it did Batman wonders. Except nothing I’ve seen about this film makes me excited at all.

No thanks. I think I’ll go and watch The Wrath of Khan for the hundredth time, now that’s a classic slice of Trek! I’m also hanging in for a Buck Rogers remake, get rid of all those 70s discos with light up floors that seem to be so common in the 25th century…oh yeah and send Twiki to the trash compactor on the Death Star.

Later,

Ben

Permalink | March 2nd, 2009

3 Responses to “Remakes and Battlestar Galactica”

  1. Nick Says:
    March 3rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    While half way through season 2 of Galactica, and halfway through season 4 on sky, there’s gonna be a huge frakin’ hole in my life when it finishes!

    Personally I don’t mind remakes, just pick something that really needs one… so don’t write-off the trek one! (yet…)

  2. GLP Says:
    March 6th, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    I agree with you about Galactica. And I hope the new Star Trek film is as good as it looks from the online trailers. I just wish the industry would invest as much time and effort in coming up with something *new* instead of playing it safe with crappy remakes and lame superhero movies,.

  3. bencooper Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 1:04 am

    Hi Gareth,

    I’m also hoping the Trek film comes out good, all the ingredients are there…it’s just I haven’t seen a good Trek film in years!