A Movie That Actually Deserves to be Remade

Almost 2 years ago, I published an entry to my blog titled "Rise of the Planet of Silly Remakes" (which you can revisit by clicking here). In that edition, I more or less lambasted the film industry for its reliance upon remakes of previous works to sustain itself. It's been a trend of theirs for upwards of a decade now to take an aging property and put it in a shiny new wrapper in order to sell that product to a new generation of moviegoers. I continue to ask the question: Why do this? What's the point of overwriting an existing movie with an updated version? Is there something so wrong with those movies that they can't be left as is? What did they ever do to you, huh?

I targeted 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes specifically in that blog as it came off to me as being a terribly unnecessary effort seeing as how there had already been one attempt to relaunch the Planet of the Apes mythology ten years earlier with Tim Burton leading Mark Wahlberg into a film that some thought was okay but most felt was rather iffy at best. Burton's incarnation was strong, visually speaking, however the plot was convoluted as it involved concepts of religion versus science and the conclusion was an absolutely ridiculous try at recapturing the twist ending of the original film.

Here again I ask did the world really need either of these movies? No, it didn't, quite frankly, although I will admit that Andy Serkis' work in Rise is quite worthy of praise. There is a film from my childhood that could greatly benefit from a remake, though, as it is one that made significant use of computer generated imagery when that sort of technology was in its infancy. (Much like TRON, but the film I'm talking about believe it or not was released prior to Disney's tech-driven masterpiece.) With the kind of magic that modern artists can create using digital techniques, a director with enough passion to treat the project seriously, and a cast that's believable in their roles I feel like this could be an opportunity to create a true epic.

Hollywood, I humbly request that you remake - The Last Starfighter!

If you've never seen The Last Starfighter and you're in your late 20s to early 30s, I immediately want to question the quality of your childhood. I might go so far as to encourage you to call your parents and tell them they failed you, as a matter of fact.

For me, The Last Starfighter is a movie that is remarkable in that it represents the era of film making from which it came (meaning that it's still watchable even though the special effects aren't that fantastic compared to what's possible today) and because of the fact that it has all the makings of a great piece of science fiction. There were a handful of movies that came out around the same time as TLS in the mid-1980s that I, to this day, can sit down and watch with glee because they're just that awesome. TLS, Flight of the Navigator, Space Camp, Explorers - put me in front of a television with those films playing back to back and you can forget about me doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

The plot of The Last Starfighter revolves around a young man named Alex Rogan played by actor Lance Guest, who you may also know from such films as Halloween 2 and JAWS: The Revenge (I'm somewhat ashamed that I used to really like JAWS: The Revenge - I blame Michael Caine's small but poignant role in the movie for that). Alex is a small town teenager who lives in a trailer park with his Mom, Jane (Barbara Bosson) and younger brother, Louis (Chris Hebert). Alex is a handyman at the trailer park and because of his responsibilities to the tenants thereof he doesn't have the most superlative social life. When he's not working or at home with his family, he spends most of his free time either with his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) or playing an arcade game called Starfighter. Alex has become tremendously skilled at the game - his abilities have not gone unnoticed by the population of the trailer park, and a few other folks who aren't exactly locals have taken note as well.

As it turns out, Starfighter is actually a testing platform deployed by an alliance of alien races known as the Rylan Star League whose base of operations exists on their home world of Rylos. It's purpose is to identify any nearby players who may be qualified to pilot Gunstars - think an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet but intended for use in outer space. The Rylans are engaged in war with the Ko-Dan Empire; they've heretofore relied upon a defensive array of satellites which they refer to as the Frontier in order to protect themselves from the Ko-Dan armada. The Ko-Dan are being aided by Xur, a Rylan traitor who has given the Ko-Dan a means to circumvent the Frontier thereby endangering all of Rylos and its inhabitants.

Having displayed great aptitude while playing Starfighter, Alex is recruited by the Star League. At first Alex is reluctant to accept the great burden that's been put upon him - it isn't until his family are attacked by a shape-shifting Ko-Dan assassin that he realizes if these evil forces aren't stopped now it will only be a matter of time before they make their way to Earth.

There were two major problems with The Last Starfighter, as I see it: 1) Filmmaking technology of the time didn't allow for a fully realized interpretation of the story, and 2) there wasn't enough effort put into making the audience care about the Rylans. The former is something that can easily be remedied these days seeing as how I think most Art Institute students are required to do a project involving spaceships and various planetoids during the first semester of their freshman year. This is the sort of thing that's old bag by now, is what I mean to say, and what's more I don't think there's a whole lot that needs to be done in the way of re-imagining the Gunstar or the Ko-Dan armada. The designs themselves are unique enough to still be workable, but that's not to say that they couldn't use a little "beefing up" in order to take advantage of the kind of graphical rendering engines in use by Hollywood now.

An updated interpretation of a Gunstar

Regarding the Rylan's and the fact that I, for one, never truly cared all that much about them as a kid watching The Last Starfighter, I don't feel as though there was an occasion where we as an audience see how genuinely evil the Ko-Dan are. We're spectators to the action, meaning we need a visible and hopefully obvious reason to dislike a villain. We never get that in the original version of the film - for that matter, it isn't until the Ko-Dan show up on Earth that Alex, the would-be hero of the Frontier, seems to care all that much about what happens on Rylos. That's kind of a dick move (I will say that the Rylan's didn't exactly inspire Alex to join their cause by chanting "VICTORY OR DEATH!" as he and the other Gunstar crew members are being briefed), but it's not his fault that the movie was written the way that it was.

Casting this remake is the real challenge as there are several roles within this mythology that require younger players and quite frankly I'm not all that up on the who's who amongst the youth of Hollywood. That said, here's my ideal cast for a remake of The Last Starfighter.

Alex Rogan - Josh Hutcherson

Most avid movie-watchers will recognize Josh Hutcherson from his role as Peeta in the Hunger Games, a franchise which is as hot as any. His involvement there will no doubt secure him a position of adulation from fans of the series and create an opportunity for him to go on to bigger roles in the future, roles where he'll be the lead and not a supporting character.

He's an ideal choice for the part. He's the right age and he has that classic, all-American look about him in that he's handsome but without the overbearingly good looks of a model.

The issue that I can see erupting from attempting to cast Josh as Alex is the notion that he may not, as an artist, want to dedicate himself to the realm of science fiction by getting involved with another project that could potentially grow into two or three pictures. He may want to delve into more dramatic waters and I can certainly understand that. It doesn't seem like he's quite to that point yet, though, seeing as how he's been willingly attached to the Journey to the Center of the Earth series for the better part of a decade. Getting on board with this production of The Last Starfighter would be a big step up from that and a great shot for him to show his range as a potential leading man.

Maggie Gordon - Anna Kendrick

Have you ever watched a movie that you thought you were going to hate only to come away from it having thoroughly enjoyed the experience? That was me after having watched the 2012 musical comedy Pitch Perfect - a film about rival glee clubs at a university competing for notoriety and, of course, love. Anna Kendrick starred in that movie and I've been a fan of hers ever since.

The role of Maggie isn't a terribly involved one, or at least it wasn't in the original version of TLS. She was more or less an area of concern for Beta Alex, which was a robotic clone of Alex left behind by the Rylans that was intended to keep his family and friends from realizing the real Alex was gone.

If you ask me (and you inadvertently did by starting to read this blog), Kendrick is ideal for this role as it would get her out of the realm of musicals and into something with a greater scope. In this version of TLS, I'd like to see her part highlighted by increased involvement in some way. The trick is getting around a premise of the plot which really leads into the potentiality for there to be more than just one film here seeing as how the original version of TLS ends (*SPOILER ALERT*) with Alex and Maggie flying off into the twilight in a Gunstar bound for Rylos, which is still in need of defending.

Lord Kril - Ron Perlman

I don't know anyone who doesn't dig Ron Perlman. The guy is the quintessential dual-threat as he has been blessed with amazing acting abilities but also one of the most recognizable and commanding voices in Hollywood. Add to those the fact that he doesn't seem to mind roles requiring intensive make-up effects and you've got precisely the man need to play Lord Kril.

In the original version of TLS, Lord Kril doesn't do much other than stand around at a command module and look imposing. That's kind of the Ko-Dan as a whole, to be frank - you never see them doing much other than laboring away at their individual stations (although I guess that makes sense since they're a fleet instead of ground-based). That would change in my version of TLS as the Ko-Dan should be a genuinely frightening example of what an intergalactic alien military force could be, and Kril should be the absolute worst of them. Not in a sense that he's a slimy, misshapen creature, rather that he's an ugly, intense, intelligent, and driven being whose black heart (assuming the Ko-Dan have hearts, that is) is filled with the need to lay waste to those who would refuse to bow down to his might.

Perlman has the perfect combination of an already imposing look with the added bonus of being able to rattle the windows with his one-of-a-kind voice. Get him into some updated make-up for Kril (I prefer practical make-up as opposed to trying to do the character with CGI) and he'll be ready to go to the set.

Centauri - Jeffrey Dean Morgan

I am somewhat embarassed to admit that I tend to get JDM confused with Javier Bardem. They do have a resemblance to one another, you have to admit.

Regardless of my cognitive issues, Morgan is my pick for Centauri because of the fact that I would want to reconfigure the character so that he's more of a covert agent of Rylos, for lack of a better descriptor. I can see him getting involved in some grittier action with K-Dan assassins than his predecessor Robert Preston did (who was 66 years old when TLS was released; sadly, he would pass away a mere 3 years later after having developed lung cancer), and being able to pull off the physical aspects of the role thanks to his size and physique. While Centauri isn't necessarily the leader of the Rylans, in my mind for the sake of the story he's Lord Kril's foil in terms of being the Batman to his Joker, if you catch my meaning.

Morgan has established himself as being able to handle this kind of work thanks to his being involved with The Losers, a movie I got a real kick out of and have always thought was under-appreciated. People know him from Grey's Anatomy and various other TV projects, but in the realm of geek-dom he's most loved for having brought life to the Comedian, an essential character in The Watchmen.

Grig - Simon Pegg

I, like a lot of other folks, have been a huge fan of Simon Pegg ever since he and Nick Frost graced the screen together as a bumbling pair of English guys trying to survive the zombie apocalypse in Shaun of the Dead. Pegg has such a unique comedic delivery and a fantastic ability to emote - he's the only one I'd want playing Grig, a reptilian alien who's an engineer responsible for maintaining the vital systems on board the Gunstar he and Alex will be piloting. He's the R2D2 of TLS, if you will.

Grig is the kind of character that most studios would likely want to produce using CGI. I feel like a broken record here, but I think CGI would be a real waste of talent in regard to Pegg seeing as how his capability to breathe life into the character would be removed by way of not physically being involved. I don't want him for his voice, I want him because I want him to be Grig.

I have to take a moment to mention actor Dan O'Herlihy, who played Grig in the original TLS. O'Herlihy isn't a household name but he's been in a handful of movies that count among some of my favorites, those being The Last Starfighter and RoboCop 1 & 2. He also has the distinction of having been in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, a movie that gets brought up all the time as being one of the worst horror films ever made. It had nothing to do with Michael Myers, so in the realm of that franchise you've got 1, 2, 3 which is completely irrelevant to everything else Halloween, 4, 5, and what have you. It made no sense whatsoever, other than to try and take advantage of the Halloween name.

Xur - Benedict Cumberbatch

In terms of actors who reached "flavor of the week" status in 2013, Benedict Cumberbatch was close to the top of the list. His breakout performance as Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness was an astounding piece of work as he managed to do what few thespians tasked with handling the role of a villain can do, that being make the audience understand his inspirations thereby creating an antagonist who is identifiable and sympathetic but still terrifying.

Much like Heath Ledger did with his brilliant work as the Joker in The Dark Knight, Cumberbatch made moviegoers be at times more interested in the charismatic villain than they were in the heroes of the cast. Having said that, I don't want him to do that with Xur - quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. Xur is the kind of guy who is desperate for power and he's willing to do anything up to and including exterminating his own home world to get it. He's a slimy, backstabbing curse upon those who would've otherwise been his friends and family, all because of the fact that in his mind he should be the one running the show.

Much like the praise I gave to Ron Perlman earlier in this piece, Cumberbatch is worthy of recognition for his vocal abilities. His voice has a lot in common with that of Jeremy Irons, to my ears. This is the sort of God-given talent that you just can't develop and it adds so much to his repertoire as a performer.

An aspect of The Last Starfighter that I have always adored is the score. TLS was made at a point in time where composers like John Williams were crafting iconic themes for movies such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. In that same vein is the work of Craig Safan who has the distinction, in my eyes, of having been essentially a one-hit wonder when it comes to his career of making music for movies. He turned in a real masterpiece for TLS in delivering as classic a theme as any and has more or less done nothing else all that worthy of note since then. With that in mind, I do not think there's much that could be done in trying to improve what he's already assembled other than to refresh the arrangement. No, that doesn't mean translating it over to dub step - that would be the antithesis of what I'm trying to accomplish here. All I'm looking for is a modern take on the theme.

It goes without saying that I think this has the makings of a real hit. (Of course, I'm biased, but if ever there was an arena where cheering on the home team is to be expected it's here within the confines of my own blog!) To me, The Last Starfighter deserves a second chance - not to say that the original film is bad, rather that it could be better than it is without necessarily disposing of what's come before. There's a certain amount of hero worship in this, you see, because people like me care enough about the source material to want new eyes to see it just with a clearer sense of vision and a renewed purpose.

Rise of the Planet of Silly Remakes

Science fiction is a favorite genre of mine.

I enjoy it because the vastness of its scope is nearly unlimited seeing as how science is a continually developing part of our culture, which means that the boundaries of the genre are as far flung as the reaches of our own universe.  The premise of science fiction is that the primary source of creativity lies in some piece of scientific fact that is then toyed with in order to assemble an alternate reality in which a particular set of possibilities seem to be likely.  Where problems arise is when creators take an idea that's based in reality with theories to support it then they manipulate it so that it suits the plot they're trying to construct - the notion of taking creative liberties, as it were, is what puts the fiction in science fiction. (The willingness of the audience to suspend their sense of disbelief is key to the success or failure of the effort to try and distort reality as we know it.) This is how we've gotten such amazing pieces of cinema as the 2010 Syfy Movies production Mega Piranha, starring Barry Williams (better known as Greg Brady from "The Brady Bunch") as Bob Grady (because having him play a character named Breg Grady would've been too much of a stretch).

In Mega Piranha, a school of altered piranha are created through genetics research.  Needless to say, the experiments don't go as planned and before long there's a group of gigantic, blood thirsty piranha headed towards Florida - and, of course, it's the height of tourist season.

Before I go any further, let me ask the obvious questions: Why?  What purpose could better piranha possibly serve mankind?  We're talking about fish that are basically swimming razor blades with insatiable appetites that will eat anything they encounter.  Are they going to be able to function as personal bodyguards or willingly dip themselves into cornmeal before flipping into a deep fryer?  Those are the only situations where I can see a reason to actually pursue this kind of work.  It's material like this that has put a black eye onto the sci-fi genre in terms of it being taken seriously, but at the same time modern audiences realize that it's meant to be taken with a grain of salt.  Besides, if a movie is labeled as being the "Syfy movie of the week" or is in any way associated with Roger Corman, you can bet dollars to doughnuts that it's going to be a steaming dump of a film.

There are, however, plenty of quality works of science fiction where the plausibility of the scenario being presented is somewhat high.  A perfect example of this is Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (adapted from Michael Crichton's novel), which is an absolutely brilliant combination of film making and usage of science in developing an amazing yet still believable story.

 

On the opposite side of the spectrum is a movie that has drawn my ire for two reasons.  First and foremost, it is a remake, and we all know exactly how I feel about movie remakes. (Some media outlets are calling it a re-imagining instead of a remake as it isn't directly tied to the previous effort on which it's based.  Call it whatever you want - if it swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, and has feathers like a duck, it's probably a duck...) What's worse is that it's a remake of a movie that's already been remade once before (I guess Hollywood doesn't have a limitation on Mulligans). I'm talking about none other than Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Interestingly, there are two versions of the poster - one making Caesar
appear more sinister with the other posing him as a heroic figure

In the original Planet of the Apes film, a group of astronauts are set to go off in exploration of deep space.  After launch, the astronauts remain in a state of suspended animation for several thousand years until their craft crash lands in a body of water on what appears to be an unknown planet with soil that is found to be incapable of sustaining vegetation.  They soon discover that there are humans inhabiting the planet but that they exist in a beastly state with no sense of order or culture.  As it turns out, apes are the dominant species of the planet and these primates commonly hunt humans, either killing them or using them for slave labor and scientific experimentation.  By the end of the film a revelation is uncovered that this planet isn't some alien land but rather a version of Earth that exists in the distant future.  It's a classic piece of sci-fi that twisted the idea of man having evolved from apes as well as having taken advantage of growing fears of what could happen if full-scale nuclear war were ever to occur in order to create a desolate vision of the world to come.

The poster for Planet of the Apes (1968)
starring Charlton Heston

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (there should never be that many the's in a movie title) is more akin to Mega Piranha than its forebear in that the origin of the ape uprising it presents lies in scientific testing on primates, specifically that to try and reverse the effects of Alzheimer's disease in humans.  The study, performed on a chimpanzee named Caesar, inadvertently creates an ape that develops significantly advanced cognitive abilities.  Realizing that he and the rest of his lab-monkey brethren have been held captive and generally mistreated, Caesar leads a revolt against their captors as well as the rest of mankind.

Sounds like a fairly solid basis for a sci-fi Summer blockbuster, doesn't it?  I'll admit that in the grand scheme of things the idea of genetically modified chimps attacking the scientists performing tests on them seems more logical than a group of astronauts from the 1970s surviving a several thousand year trip into the future.  The point where my ability to suspend disbelief completely evaporates as it relates to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, aside from the idea that James Franco is a brilliant scientist, is the notion that what I assume to be a fairly small group of apes (I'd think it would have to be a relatively small group because: A) California is the setting of the film and last I checked there are no indigenous species of ape in that part of the world, and B) even if Caesar is super-intelligent the idea of him being able to replicate the serum that created him as well as develop the means to deploy it to a larger section of the ape population is ridiculous) is able to overthrow all the governments, all the police forces, and all the military outfits of the entire planet - not to mention all the hunters, gang bangers, and random gun owners out there who would love to stuff and mount the head of a silverback gorilla on the wall of their living room.

Caesar may be a smart monkey, but can he dodge a sniper's bullet?  Caesar may be able to do differential calculus, but can he survive sustained battery from artillery and carpet bombings?  The nail in Caesar's coffin comes in the form of four words: Navy Seal Team 6.

Keep in mind that I haven't seen the movie, nor do I plan to, and I've already put this many holes into the feasibility of its plot.  My reasoning for pointing these things out is that I am fed up with the lack of creativity that Hollywood has expressed over the past few years.  That along with the fact that the only films being remade are ones that really don't need to be remade. (There is one film that I do wish would be remade, but will not mention by name since I'm saving it for a future blog entry, because I feel like it could genuinely benefit from current special effects technology which was in its infancy when the film was made.) What was wrong with the original Planet of the Apes, I ask you, that remaking it a second time was a necessity?  You wouldn't eat a pizza that you'd already eaten (if you catch my drift) just because it tasted good the first time around, so why would you want to see a movie that's been done (and done well) before?

Studio executives want my money but in cases like this I refuse to give it to them - I cannot justify paying to watch a film that comes across as being this flawed.  Originality and ingenuity have taken a back seat to movies that are easily marketed and sold based on the public already being aware of a particular brand or franchise.  There are at least 4 more remakes being released this year - Conan the Barbarian, Fright Night, Footloose, and The Thing - with who knows how many more to be released in 2012.  Obviously just because something is novel in its approach doesn't automatically mean it's going to be good, but at least it's not a re-hashed product that's had a new coat of paint slapped on it in an effort to dupe audiences into thinking it's any different than what they've already experienced.

I Hate Movie Re-Makes

Creativity isn't like land, crude oil, or other finite resources.  Theoretically, it's something that we should never run out of, yet for way too many years now it has seemed as though that's exactly what's happened in Hollywood.  Sure, there are still new concepts being put into production on a regular basis that warrant getting whipped up into a tizzy over but the trend of bringing back what have been, generally speaking, already successful franchises with modern re-makes that don't hold a candle to their source material has gotten to a level of absurdity generally reserved for Saturday night SyFy (pronounced "siff-ee") Channel original movies (I'm pretty sure they only use the "originals" production tag line to let people know it was them who was responsible for the schlock-fest they're about to sit through and not a superior company).  Case in point, the trailer below released today for a re-do of 1982's "Conan the Barbarian", which originally starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the loincloth-wearing Cimmerian slave turned swordsman, Conan.

There's not much to criticize here in terms of the content of the movie itself seeing as how this is a teaser trailer which is intended to say to an audience, "Hey, look at me - I'm a movie you might like to watch in theaters...Or ignore in theaters and rent from Netflix a few months from now...Or ignore altogether...Whichever works for you!"  It could turn out to be a decent flick or it could be a theatrical turd - who's to say at this point?  My argument is the fact that it didn't need to be made in the first place.  I'm under the impression that a lot (read, most) of these re-vamps are done thanks to the argument being made that the original films look dated.  No kidding, a movie made in 1982 (in this case) with costumes, props, and effects cobbled together on a budget that wouldn't even handle the cost of Kraft services on a movie set these days looks dated?!

Isn't this art we're talking about after all?  The preservation of the original piece in question isn't only about maintaining its novel content but also because it reaches back into a bygone era and shows us a glimpse of where we were culturally and historically at that specific moment.  By the logic of certain Hollywood executives we should've torn down the Sistine Chapel and put up a newer, more hip version in its place years ago (you know, one with product placement - instead of God reaching out to touch His creation, Adam, we can have Him passing his new best bro a Bud Light and a bag of Doritos).  I guess since the Mona Lisa was painted in the 16th century someone should re-do that, too - that chick has got to have some lines in her face by now...

Another argument in favor of re-imagining (that's the cushiest term I've ever seen used to describe what amounts, in some instances, to the wholesale pillaging of some of my favorite childhood stories) these movies is that they have a fairly big upside advantage in terms of their being more likely to turn a profit.  They're easier to develop since there's plenty of existing material to draw inspiration from and they're also easier to market seeing as how people will recognize the title from its previous release. Lets face facts, here - making movies is as much a business as selling cars is.  Studios make movies to turn a profit, hence the reasoning behind why executives are more likely to green-light a re-make before they would n original piece written by an unheard of author and pitched by a director whose only prior experience is tuna commercials.  It's unfortunate that creativity gets squelched in favor of regurgitation, but that's the way bile flows sometimes.

As far as I'm concerned, unless the original film was decent-to-good but could've been great with a little extra effort, budget, technology, etc. that modern film-making can provide, re-treading a movie is a horrible idea.    Just because the original doesn't have a whole bunch of computer generated imagery or wasn't shot entirely with actors standing in front of green screens doesn't warrant a do-over.  A prime example of this is 2010's re-make of "The Karate Kid".  I'm likely to draw some heat for this but I didn't particularly care for it - and why should I?  I grew up with the original; Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita in a classic coming-of-age tale set around teen drama and karate tournaments.  The new version was horribly bloated, significantly more unrealistic than its predecessor, and plays like a tourism video intended to make communist China look like a great vacation destination.  Will Smith's a great guy for getting his son some work but I hate it came at the cost of soiling a set of movies I've always appreciated.

Lastly, my best reasoning for not re-making a movie as it applies to "Conan the Barbarian" specifically
 is the fact that if a new "Barbarian" is unleashed, the world might very well forget one of the greatest lines in the entire history of cinema.