^But remakes aren't trying to be in continuity with the originals; they're alternate versions. So canon or continuity isn't even a relevant question. The only question is if the remake is good enough to be worthwhile.
When did canon become such a hot-button issue?
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It's somewhat relevant. Discovery adds a lot of high tech like holographic messages and the spore drive, which we wouldn't have thought would exist in a pre-TOS era but it does have continuity in a lot of other areas such as the general behavior of the known alien races, the locations and certain characters from other series. Granted, if they had decided to make a totally new sci-fi show and adhered to nothing but it still turned out to be good, I would enjoy it, but I don't know if I would call it Star Trek. For example, if you're going to make a Mexican food dish there are certain ingredients that you would use to make it Mexican, but you still have a lot of liberty which is why we have Tex-Mex.
You keep changing the subject. Discovery is not a remake. It's a prequel (and a sequel to Enterprise and "The Cage"). Greg and I were talking about something like True Grit, which is a remake, a completely new telling of the same story. They're two entirely different things -- one purports to be a new story in the same continuity, while the other is a new version of the same story in a different continuity. It just confuses the issue to treat them as interchangeable.
On a side note, does the title of this thread make anyone else think of Kramer saying “I didn’t know Communism was such a sensitive issue!”
Those are all interesting points. And Greg and Christopher are right. There are tons of lousy movies across the board.
I guess in my case, I'm a little more critical of a movie that's a remake and stinks. Like not only did you make a lousy movie, but you couldn't even create something on your own. And sometimes it almost ruins the original because you can't 'unwatch' the remake.
But if it's an original story, I might give a little more leeway. "Hmm, I didn't care for it, but I give them kudos for some originality".
Of course these days it's hard to make something truly original. It's sort of like how we sometimes speculate when an episode of Star Trek has similar traits to another episode---or even a Star Trek novel. Was it a case where the show writer was inspired by that previous work...was it just coincidence....or somewhere in between?
You can tell it's a hot topic. The thread just started Tuesday and we're already up to 16 pages. I love talking about continuity, and like I said it's one where fans are all across the board.
I guess in a sense a showrunner will never be able to please everybody. Make it too consistent and you tick off people who want something wholly original. Make it to different and you tick off purists. No matter what they do some Trekkies are going to be like
Discovery has its flaws but it’s frankly way better than what I expected two years ago.
It’s had some visual and technological continuity issues but it clearly respects continuity. It’s within the boundaries of writer’s license.
It’s had some visual and technological continuity issues but it clearly respects continuity. It’s within the boundaries of writer’s license.
You can tell it's a hot topic. The thread just started Tuesday and we're already up to 16 pages. I love talking about continuity, and like I said it's one where fans are all across the board.
I guess in a sense a showrunner will never be able to please everybody. Make it too consistent and you tick off people who want something wholly original. Make it to different and you tick off purists. No matter what they do some Trekkies are going to be like
Threading the needle between "Hey, this isn't like the old stuff!" and "Hey, this is just the same old stuff!" is always tricky.
But that's not a valid definition of creativity. It's like criticizing an artist for painting a real landscape or model rather than inventing an imaginary one. Lots of creativity is about doing your own version of an existing subject.
Remember, before there were recording media, the only way a performed work like a play, opera, ballet, etc. could survive over time was to be performed anew by different companies. Remakes were normal and essential. Redoing older works is what allows a culture to have a memory of its past, its artistic heritage.
Or it increases your appreciation for the original by contrast. Gus van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho was widely hated, but it hasn't destroyed the popularity of Hitchcock's film. Ditto for the bombed remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still from a few years back.
Originality is in the execution, not the concept. Often a nominally "original" work is a blatant imitation of something else, like how Mac and Me was an attempt to copy E.T. or Street Hawk was just Knight Rider with a motorcycle, or is just an unimaginative capitalization on a well-worn formula, like a lot of '50s monster B-movies or '80s slasher films. Conversely, often a remake is highly original and innovative compared to its source material, like Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica or Noelle Stevenson's She-Ra.
Usually coincidence. There are only so many ways to put a meaningful narrative together, just as there are only so many ways to put a meaningful sentence together. You can change the words, but the structure remains. And the words need to be ones that are familiar to the audience, or they won't convey any meaning. So it's always (not just "these days") been normal for different stories to have common themes and structures and ideas. It's not imitation, it's just parallel development.
An interesting take on a non-humanoid version of Klingons: https://www.deviantart.com/abiogenisis/art/Klingon-Concept-763545207
I can understand most of this, but I cannot understand this specific point. Maybe I'm weird, but when I'm watching movie I'm not going "Hmm...you know, that other movie did it better." If that happens I'm not in the film. So, films are not ruined for me because, well, each film stands apart for me, remake or no.
Canon's been a touchy issue ever since the Reichenbach Falls business.
I get what you're saying. And you're right. Van Sant's Psycho was a pointless remake, but I still can watch Psycho and not even think of the remake.
I guess in some cases I wonder why remake a movie. Let's take Psycho. It is practically a flawless movie. Why remake it? Usually when you seem people talk about remaking a movie it's because there was something missing. Or some flaw. But Psycho had an excellent story, excellent execution and well, it was excellent. What did Van Sant hope to accomplish? Making Psycho in color (Hitchcock filmed Psycho in B&W on purpose--partly for money but also partly because it created the mood and atmosphere he was after---still amazed Paramount didn't want to even make it but I digress)? That was about it. Otherwise it was always going to be inferior. Why set yourself up for failure before you even film a shot?
On the other hand lets take Friday the 13th, another remake--in this case I actually liked the remake. There were ways to improve the original (shocking, I know). And the remake accomplished some of that and provided a bit of backstory. So a worthwhile remake. Now they want to remake it again--which I feel would be overkill. The remake was well done, actually got the franchise a few good reviews in fact. There doesn't seem to be a point now.
I guess it's like what one of you guys noted earlier. That we are more familiar with recent movies. And right now there does seem to be a lot of reboots/remakes and so forth. And part of it for me is I'm more old fashioned with how I like my movies. I really don't care for this whole shaky camera, documentary style gritty filmmaking prevalent in a lot of action films. As much as I liked Star Trek (2009), if I leave the movie with a headache it's going to affect my enjoyment a bit. STID and Beyond still had all that, but at much more manageable levels which helped me enjoy those movies more.
But I'm going off on a tangent a bit. That's really nothing to do with originality (except for a lot of directors seem to want to replicate that technique). I prefer Steadicams, softer lighting and less lens flares (though rocking camera and lens flares do have their appropriate places--just not the entire freakin movie).
One, they don't assume failure right from the getgo. Two, it's like an opportunity to be creative with something that is well known. Yeah, it's probably not going to break new ground, but that isn't the point. The point is the opportunity to have a creative expression in something that might have inspired you to get in to film production in the first place. Call it passion projects, call it reimagination, call it a new take but I would not call it a failure.
Yeah, I know. Sometimes I don't even know what point I'm trying to make. I just type whatever pops in my head and sometimes, well
I was trying to think of an example where something new affected enjoying the previous and well, I'm drawing a blank.
The closest I came was a sequel, Beverly Hills Cop III. It was awful. And it sort of tainted the franchise for me. A friend of mine warned me not to watch it, but I had the 3 movies in one set and like Alice in Wonderland it was staring at me saying "watch me" so I did. All I kept thinking is it was basically I and II if you took all the funny parts out.
If you've never seen it. Don't. Remember Beverly Hills Cop the way they were.
Another truly awful sequel, Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure. I wanted to sue the studio for my 2 hours back. I can't believe I saw it at the store for sale on DVD. They should pay you money to take it off their hands. In fact, the person that thought it was a good idea to put it on DVD should be fired and exiled to some island in the Pacific. I'd rather be trapped watching "These Are the Voyages" for eternity.
It was that bad
That's funny because I like 3. But, I'll freely admit that there are few films that will ruin things for me. I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I don't know. Maybe. But it just seemed most remakes that are successful were originals that may have been good, but lacked in something. For a sci-fi film maybe it was just the lack of technology for special effects. For a drama, maybe it was production codes of the time.
But for a movie like Psycho it just seems like there is nothing you can do to make it better. There's nothing you can point to and say, hmm, maybe if I do this I can improve it just a bit.
Plus it didn't help that he decided to do a 'shot for shot' remake. I think that would be pointless for any movie.
It's the same reason I hope no one ever gets it in their head to remake 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Well, I like Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan so I have no right to judge. Oh and Exorcist II: The Heretic. I say I'm one of 10 people that liked Nemesis. Well I think Exorcist II probably has 3 fans....if it's lucky.
And yeah, I can't really think of any originals ruined by future installments. I guess maybe I was overstating things a bit.
Oh and believe it or not, while I saw Christmas Vacation 2, I think I might be the only person in America that's never seen Christmas Vacation. Somehow I never got around to it. Now I'm afraid to watch it. Once I watch it I'll die or something. I know it's bizarre but I'm afraid to tempt fate by watching it now.
I admit I sometimes wonder that myself. Like when I heard recently that Spielberg is trying to remake West Side Story, my first thought was, "Why?"
But then I thought about it more, and I realized it's the same thing that drives a lot of creativity. The thing about creative people is that, when we see or hear a creative work by someone else, we often think, "How would I have done that differently?" We're aware of the creative process, so we put ourselves in the mindset of the creator and think about how they must've done it, and that leads to speculating about what we would've done instead. And sometimes we come up with answers to that question that we think are worth acting on. Not necessarily because we think our idea is better, but just because it's different, or because we want to undertake the creative challenge.
Not necessarily. It can just be that you want to try a different approach. Different doesn't have to mean better or worse.
My best guess about the Psycho remake is that they were just too reverent of the original and didn't try hard enough to do something new and different with it. They apparently wanted to update it for modern audiences, make it accessible for a new generation, but they did so in superficial ways while otherwise being too slavish. In a less extreme way, Superman Returns had that problem -- it was too reverential to the previous movies and so didn't innovate enough to be effective. This is what I'm saying about originality being in the execution.
See, I don't see them as working from a "Can I improve this?" point of view. I think it's just a desire to be creative with a familiar, perhaps inspiring, work. And, I see no harm in them trying it out.
I'd rather them try and fail spectacularly than not.
You are missing out. That's all I have to say, until I find out your address and mail you the film, as my parents own like 20 copies and we watch it in July and at Christmas time.
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