stupidest remake yet...Miss Marple, the hot babe!

[scotpens]

^^ The fact that Jane Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in a small English village and acts as an amateur detective is her defining characteristic. It’s what gives her her charm and sets her apart from other fictional detectives. If you’re going to make her American and in her thirties, why even bother using the name “Miss Marple”?

 

[SpeedRacer]

Okay, so let's say that they were going to keep her British but she's in her mid-thirties. Would the butthurt stop then? If not, why not?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, the suits have had huge success doing this sort of thing to Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes and so on, so it's no surprise they'll keep doing it. As long as low standards sell, no-talent hacks will get rich.

The only way they could screw up Jane Marple more than this would be to make her a man and call her John Marple.

Or Captain Marple.

 

[cardinal biggles]

This idea came from one of the volunteers at my library, and I think it has some merit:

If Jennifer Garner is going to play Miss Marple, then Ben Affleck has to be Hercule Poirot. Then they can fall in love, get married at the end, and be the new Tommy and Tuppence in the inevitable sequel.

 

[Harvey]

Well, the suits have had huge success doing this sort of thing to Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes and so on, so it's no surprise they'll keep doing it. As long as low standards sell, no-talent hacks will get rich.

Sherlock Holmes may have turned the intrepid detective into an action hero, but it didn't alter his essential character. The same can be said for Star Trek, but I'm not about to begin arguing with you over that movie again.

Turning Ms. Marple into a young detective, by contrast, is just lazy. As many others have noted, her age is essential to the character. I'd go as far as to say that it is what makes her interesting. I'm reminded of that aborted series about Dick Grayson and his family before he became Robin. He's just a kid in the circus, so, what's the point?

 

[CaptainCanada]

That sounds like a parody of bad movie ideas. Yeesh.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Young Miss Marple.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, the suits have had huge success doing this sort of thing to Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes and so on, so it's no surprise they'll keep doing it. As long as low standards sell, no-talent hacks will get rich.

Sherlock Holmes may have turned the intrepid detective into an action hero, but it didn't alter his essential character. The same can be said for Star Trek, but I'm not about to begin arguing with you over that movie again.

Turning Ms. Marple into a young detective, by contrast, is just lazy. As many others have noted, her age is essential to the character. I'd go as far as to say that it is what makes her interesting. I'm reminded of that aborted series about Dick Grayson and his family before he became Robin. He's just a kid in the circus, so, what's the point?

Actually, I was referring to the Sherlock Holmes TV show-- or maybe that was just Sherlock. That changed essential elements of the character such as time period, world's first consulting detective et cetera. And nuTrek changed essential elements of the concept such as theme and the characterizations of the characters. In both cases, this was done to make the character/concept more "accessible" to the lowest denominator, so it's all part of the same laziness trend. And we can expect to see more.

 

[Starkers]

But Sherlock was still Sherlock, the basic nature of the character wasn't changed one iota as far as I could tell, it was just updated for a modern world.

Same with Kirk, he was still a natural leader and a ladies's man, an unconventional tactitian. The world around him might have changed, elements of his own history may have changed, but he was quite clearly still James T Kirk.

Ask what Miss Marple's defining characteristic is and 99% of people with any concept of the character will say its that she's a little old lady...I mean what's next? A Monk reboot before he got OCD?

 

[barnaclelapse]

Of course, but that doesn't make it suck any less.

Well, don't buy a ticket. No problem.

Yeah, obviously, this is not a big deal, but I'm pretty sure individuals have choices beyond consuming or not consuming. Spending money is not the only kind of interaction we can have with art. We can discuss it, we can feel passionate about it, we can be outraged when we feel it's not as good as it should be, or uplifted when it's better than it has any right to be. It's not just a matter of "buying a ticket" or not. Oh come on, you know that. Why are we having that conversation?

I was wondering the same thing. The implication I'm getting is that it's as simple as buying into something or not buying into something. In a way it is, but I don't think that disqualifies me from having an opinion behind why I'm going to buy a ticket or not buy a ticket.

I actually like Jennifer Garner, and I certainly don't hold it against her for taking a gig. I'm just not thrilled about why she was offered that gig in the first place. I'm not going to lose sleep over it (I have enough things in my life to take care of that), but I reserve the right to be annoyed.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I'm going to pitch a new version of Philip Marlowe, but he will be a teenaged boy working the mean streets of Eastbourne.

 

[Greg Cox]

"Does Lassie have to be a dog?"

 

[Captaindemotion]

^She'll be a chihuaha, to get that whole Paris Hilton demographic.

 

[J.T.B.]

Sherlock Holmes may have turned the intrepid detective into an action hero, but it didn't alter his essential character.

I guess it depends on the scope of "essential," but I'd say it did alter it. While Holmes as Conan Doyle wrote him was quite able to defend himself, he was also somewhat lazy and tried to push the "brawn" requirements on to Watson as much as possible. Holmes would not get physical with a bad guy except as the very last resort, and would resent the necessity. The Jeremy Brett Holmes had that quality, the Downey one, not.

--Justin

 

[Harvey]

It was a change, surely, but beneath the fisticuffs, it was still Holmes. I like the Monk example. Yes, the character did exist before he suffered from serious OCD, but what would be the point of using the character at that point in his life? The same can be said about Ms. Marple, I think.

In the end, it won't matter one way or another to me. I've never been that partial to Ms. Marple--I prefer Poirot when it comes to Christie sleuths. It just seems silly to me.

 

[ClayinCA]

My wife pointed out that in The Murder at the Vicarage, it's revealed that when Miss Marple was young, she fell in love with a married man who was going to leave his wife for her, but he wound up getting killed in WWI.

I wonder if that will play into the plot of this movie in some way.

That's not from the book, though--it was added (along with a whole bunch of other nonsensical changes) for the TV adaptation starring Geraldine McEwan a few years back. As far as I'm aware, Christie never gives us all that much information about Jane Marple's early life.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm going to pitch a new version of Philip Marlowe, but he will be a teenaged boy working the mean streets of Eastbourne.

Philip Marlowe, teen vampire/detective.

Send me 15% of your profits.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Deal.

 

[RJDiogenes]

But Sherlock was still Sherlock, the basic nature of the character wasn't changed one iota as far as I could tell, it was just updated for a modern world.

Same with Kirk, he was still a natural leader and a ladies's man, an unconventional tactitian. The world around him might have changed, elements of his own history may have changed, but he was quite clearly still James T Kirk.

Ask what Miss Marple's defining characteristic is and 99% of people with any concept of the character will say its that she's a little old lady...I mean what's next? A Monk reboot before he got OCD?

Well, your mileage may vary; I think the elements I mentioned are just as essential as Marple's age and Monk's OCD. Obviously, others disagree.

 

[Professor Zoom]

But Sherlock was still Sherlock, the basic nature of the character wasn't changed one iota as far as I could tell, it was just updated for a modern world.

Same with Kirk, he was still a natural leader and a ladies's man, an unconventional tactitian. The world around him might have changed, elements of his own history may have changed, but he was quite clearly still James T Kirk.

Ask what Miss Marple's defining characteristic is and 99% of people with any concept of the character will say its that she's a little old lady...I mean what's next? A Monk reboot before he got OCD?

Well, your mileage may vary; I think the elements I mentioned are just as essential as Marple's age and Monk's OCD. Obviously, others disagree.

then you would be also against a modern day Miss Marple or a Monk set in Russia.

Holmes being in the Victoria age is a location, but, I don't think essential to his character. Perhaps essential to the STORIES, but maybe not the character. YMMV