An Upcoming Remake Of "Total Recall" - Why?

[Kegg]

Only movies (or TV series) that should be remade are ones that were never good to begin with.

Then we'd be spared remakes like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

However, Total Recall does have an idea which could be done better (and is of course based on a short story which could be adapted better), so there's definitely real potential for a remake.

As for Shia LaBeouf, I'll remind people the original film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. How is this not an improvement?

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

You're gonna be Hauser's babe!

All those oozingly assholish lines and Ronny Cox still made Cohagen sympathetic on some level.

That's the great thing about Paul Verhoeven's villains: They are complete assholes, but they also have a lot of charisma. The same applies to "RoboCop" with Dick Jones (also Ronny Cox) and Clarence Boddicker.

 

[Shazam!]

I think the "remake mania" has finally gone too far.

Finally? It went too far years ago.

 

[Shazam!]

As for Shia LaBeouf, I'll remind people the original film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. How is this not an improvement?

WTF?

 

[Kegg]

As for Shia LaBeouf, I'll remind people the original film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. How is this not an improvement?

WTF?

Well it's hypothetical on their part, but even still, Schwarzenegger was a pretty godawful actor ('actor' would be generous, it's mostly just some musclebound guy saying lines). I remember with great anti-fondness the crappy Schwarzenegger performances of yore.

 

[Shazam!]

I think Schwarzenegger has more natural charisma than Shia though - you'd literally watch him in anything (especially back then) whereas Shia isn't quite there yet in terms of single-handedly carrying movies.

 

[JoeZhang]

John Huston is doing a remake of The Maltese Falcon and it's staring Humphrey Bogart !!

What a pair of hacks, Hollywood is all out of ideas!

 

[Mike Farley]

John Huston is doing a remake of The Maltese Falcon and it's staring Humphrey Bogart !!

What a pair of hacks, Hollywood is all out of ideas!

Yeah, next thing you know they'll be remaking THE TEN COMMANDMENTS or BEN-HUR! Like silly gimmicks such as "sound" and "color" could improve those masterpieces!

 

[Truth_Seeker]

I can understand the reasons why Hollywood remakes some classic movies from the 50's such as "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", but we're talking about the 90's here. It's absolutely unnecessary to make a new version of a great movie that came out just twenty years ago.

Does that mean that we should expect a "remake" of "The Matrix" nine years from now?

 

[Base_Delta_Zero]

I'm boycotting this if there's no Kuato.

"Open your mind, Quaid. Open your miiiiiiinnnndddd!"

 

[Truth_Seeker]

I'm boycotting this if there's no Kuato.

"Open your mind, Quaid. Open your miiiiiiinnnndddd!"

And the background music of that scene is just awesome!

 

[EnsignRicky]

I can understand the reasons why Hollywood remakes some classic movies from the 50's such as "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", but we're talking about the 90's here. It's absolutely unnecessary to make a new version of a great movie that came out just twenty years ago.

Does that mean that we should expect a "remake" of "The Matrix" nine years from now?

The Day The Earth Stood Still is an update of a classic movie from the fifties? Hell, and here I thought I was watching a crappy remake of Starman.

 

[Vonstadt]

I think this sums up what I think about this remake ...

Vons

 

[Kegg]

I can understand the reasons why Hollywood remakes some classic movies from the 50's such as "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", but we're talking about the 90's here. It's absolutely unnecessary to make a new version of a great movie that came out just twenty years ago.

The first remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is brilliant, was made in 1978, while the original was 1956... hmm. Yeah, that sounds like around twenty years to me.

And Total Recall honestly is the sort of film I'd pick for a remake, were I to do so. There's room for improvement, and the possibility of a completely different tack that could also work as a movie.

 

[MyCylon]

As for Shia LaBeouf, I'll remind people the original film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. How is this not an improvement?

WTF?

Well it's hypothetical on their part, but even still, Schwarzenegger was a pretty godawful actor ('actor' would be generous, it's mostly just some musclebound guy saying lines). I remember with great anti-fondness the crappy Schwarzenegger performances of yore.

Personally, I enjoy Schwarzenegger a lot more than I do LaBeouf. The latter may be a better actor (which, obviously, isn't saying much ) but I honestly don't know why he's as successful as he is. I find him painfully bland, to be honest. Arnold, on the other hand, as someone else said, has great presence and can simply be great fun to watch. And I will say that I actually think his performance in Total Recall is quite strong and one of the reasons (I think) the movie works as well as it does.

 

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

Only movies (or TV series) that should be remade are ones that were never good to begin with. I don't mean ones that some people hate, like "Firefly", but legitimately, universally despised ones.

See, a lot of people say that, but can you imagine what would happen if someone announced they were remaking a film like Ishtar, Leonard Part 6, Battlefield Earth, or Waterworld? The outrage would be off the charts. Why are they remaking that?!? It sucked!!

 

[23skidoo]

I can understand the reasons why Hollywood remakes some classic movies from the 50's such as "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", but we're talking about the 90's here. It's absolutely unnecessary to make a new version of a great movie that came out just twenty years ago.

Actually, this is nothing new, because while you're referring to the 1990s remake of Body Snatchers (there was also one in the 2000s with Nicole Kidman, too), you forget there was a very well-regarded remake made in 1978, only 22 years after the original. They even got the original actor from the first movie to make a cameo.

20 years is actually pushing it when it comes to how often stories are remade, especially if they come from literature (I don't know about Day the Earth Stood Still, but Body Snatchers was based on a Jack Finney novel). Total Recall was originally a piece of literature. Every few years someone does a new version of Hounds of the Baskervilles, or Jane Austen's novels, and A Christmas Carol gets redone every 18 months it seems. I don't mind so-called remakes if they're new adaptations of literature. It helps establish that the literature in question is considered a classic. I get annoyed when they do things like, say, announce plans to remake Battlestar Galactica mere weeks after the last remake ended. And isn't the Death at a Funeral film coming out a remake of a movie from a couple years ago?

Alex

 

[David cgc]

...and A Christmas Carol gets redone every 18 months it seems.

Wouldn't that have it coming out in the middle of July half the time?