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The Day the Earth Stood Still

Star Trek is technachly not a remake.

It's an update of a 1960s TV show with different actors playing the characters. How is it any less of a remake than the movie versions of Lost in Space or Wild Wild West?

I don't think it is a remake. If they had completely ignored existing Trek continuity, then I would have said yes. But they didn't. That's why I don't think it qualifies. It's very specifically an alternate reality based in the old Trek universe.
 
Extinction to prevent significant collateral damage seems like a pretty extreme remedy. Again, the original Klaatu seems to regard it as natural to destroy humanity for its sins. This fits with the Christ motif (dropped in the remake, another reason the remake is better in my opinion,) but I just wanted to emphasize both movies didn't look too closely at the consequences. And it is a weakness in both.

What I wanted to see, but didn't, is somebody confronting Klaatu over this robotic police force. If it is as Klaatu says, then his people live in a dictatorship, a police state, with no freedom. An army of Gorts, even if it could be trusted, would be brutal. Nobody ever thought to call him on that. Nobody asked him if the Gorts could ever malfunction, or go rogue...
 
The remake had some great trailers that made it look promising, but the movie itself was pretty bad.

Plus, the behavior of the aliens makes no sense.

If the goal is to preserve the planet because Earth-like planets are so rare, then perhaps poisoning the surface, water, and atmosphere with industrial dust from disintegrating all of mankind's artificial constructs with nanites isn't the best way to go.

If you're collecting biological samples from most of the species on Earth, doesn't that mean you're planning for the rest of the animal life that was not collected to die? How exactly is eliminating most of the animals that help preserve the ecology supposed to benefit the Earth? They'd end up killing off more species than the humans are.

When you shut down all of humanity's technology with a global scale EMP, what exactly do they think is going to happen? Humans are going to rely on burning lots of wood, coal, oil, etc. to stay warm and cook food. And they're not going to be cleaner burning fuels from centralized power planst any more, it's going to be a bunch of individuals burning whatever they can to stay alive. How many power plants had accidents or spills after power was shut off? How many planes and trucks and trains crashed, spilling hazardous cargo? Unlike the original Klaatu, no mention was made of preserving power to hospitals or flying aircraft. Tens of millions would die instantly. Any new machines that get built at first are going to primitive and polluting industrial age stuff. Then you have the wars for resources in the aftermath, which would cause untold devastation. Plus, the Eastern Seaboard of the US was pretty much vaporized. I'd say the Earth is about to get f'd up royally thanks to the alien EMP, so great job guys. Lesson learned.

The aliens say that they survived their own ecological disaster. So, why not use the benefit of your vast technological superiority and experience to, I don't know, help mankind eliminate pollution and repair any damage to the Earth? Instead they came to at the very least make threats, and at worst follow through with them in full by destroying humanity and much of the planet. Nice.
 
When I become benevolent dictator of the universe, I will ban remakes.

Remakes are neither bad nor anything new. They've been going on since the earliest days of the movies. The classic Humphrey Bogart movie "The Maltese Falcon" was the third version of the movie released within 13 years. And while the middle version, based upon the book with changed details, may not have been that successful....the first version was.

Yet that version is forgotten because the third was even better......by your logic, we'd have never gotten that third timeless classic.

Remakes are not bad....bad remakes are.
 
Yes, yes, I know, we've been over that before. I didn't think I needed to be insanely specific. I should say I'd ban remakes of beloved, classic, definitive films that don't need remakes. Especially if they're gonna suckl.
 
the remake

I actually found it to be a decent little movie, albeit vastly inferior to the mood, energy and performances of the original.

I also don't think Reeves is as bad an actor as some people say he is. He's average and tends to make a lot of dumbass choices, but that's just my view of it.
 
^Not always. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 remake comes to mind.


And THE FLY and THE THING . . .

I disagree with both The Thing and Invasion. I thought the originals were much better.
Of course, I quite agree re The Fly, but I don't know if that can be considered a classic.

:eek: WOW! You must be the only person on the Internet who agrees with me about the remake of "The Thing"!

That movie has a massive cult following online and I've been arguing with people about it for years. I really don't see what the big deal is. I loved the over-the-top gore (in fact, it made me laugh hard, but with affection for how crazy and imaginative it was), but I thought aside from the scenes of the creature taking all these weird forms and causing gory mayhem, it was boring. I really didn't see any interesting characters or the so-called deep messages that others perceive in the movie.

I think both the 50s and 70s versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and the 50s and 80s versions of "The Fly" are awesome and classic, but each in their own unique ways.

P.S. Oh, and 'A Beaker Full of Death', I'm still waiting for you to tell me where you got your amazing avatar! :cool:
 
And THE FLY and THE THING . . .

I disagree with both The Thing and Invasion. I thought the originals were much better.
Of course, I quite agree re The Fly, but I don't know if that can be considered a classic.

:eek: WOW! You must be the only person on the Internet who agrees with me about the remake of "The Thing"!

That movie has a massive cult following online and I've been arguing with people about it for years. I really don't see what the big deal is. I loved the over-the-top gore (in fact, it made me laugh hard, but with affection for how crazy and imaginative it was), but I thought aside from the scenes of the creature taking all these weird forms and causing gory mayhem, it was boring. I really didn't see any interesting characters or the so-called deep messages that others perceive in the movie.

I think both the 50s and 70s versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and the 50s and 80s versions of "The Fly" are awesome and classic, but each in their own unique ways.

P.S. Oh, and 'A Beaker Full of Death', I'm still waiting for you to tell me where you got your amazing avatar! :cool:

I thought the remake of the Thing just made it a slasher/monster film...and I didn't care for it.

I thought the Invaison's 80s version (Donald Sutherman/Nimoy) was really well done...

And a for Jeff Goldblums' Fly? I thought he should have been nominated for an academy award...that movie is one of my favorite scifi movies of all time..

Rob
 
I thought the remake of the Thing just made it a slasher/monster film...and I didn't care for it.

Exactly. A friend of mine who loves the movie got into a passionate debate with me telling me I'm missing the point of if I just see it as a monster movie, but I just don't see anything else there. I don't know how others are seeing substance in it.

I thought the Invaison's 80s version (Donald Sutherman/Nimoy) was really well done...

The movie came out in 1978 and thanks for reminding me it was one of the few times I saw Nimoy in something besides a Star Trek production, and that was part of its novelty. I think it has one of the greatest endings of all-time too. And nobody does freaking out better than Veronica Cartwright, from her screams in "Alien" to this movie to the "The X-Files" on television. I think casting has a lot to do with why these re-makes were so excellent and the some of the 2000s ones were not.

And a for Jeff Goldblums' Fly? I thought he should have been nominated for an academy award...that movie is one of my favorite scifi movies of all time..

Absolutely. His transformation is so convincing, not just because of the wild, yet plausible make-up but because of so much of his body language, which is at some times subtle and at others incredibly expressive, but always believable and fascinating.
 
I thought the remake of the Thing just made it a slasher/monster film...and I didn't care for it.

Exactly. A friend of mine who loves the movie got into a passionate debate with me telling me I'm missing the point of if I just see it as a monster movie, but I just don't see anything else there. I don't know how others are seeing substance in it.

It hardly qualifies as a slasher film, but as for being a monster movie, how is The Thing from Another World any different? Carpenter's version of The Thing at least retains the paranoia of the original short story without having to resort to a crazy scientist. Not that I don't like the original. As far as 1950s science fiction goes, it's one of the best, worth it for the scene when they try to burn the creature alone. I could go either way on the romantic elements (I prefer the remake, which drops them totally) and find it rather annoying how dumb some of the characters act. The electric blanket gag, for instance, stretches credibility.
 
You beat me to the punch. I like both versions of THE THING, too, but they're both basically monster movies, so I'm not sure what the objection to 80's version is. If anything, the Carpenter version gets points for being closer to the original short story.
 
You beat me to the punch. I like both versions of THE THING, too, but they're both basically monster movies, so I'm not sure what the objection to 80's version is. If anything, the Carpenter version gets points for being closer to the original short story.

Oh..GREG!!! The original had JAMES ARNESS!!! Matt Dillon/Zeb McCahan!!! That alone makes it better than Kurt Russell and friends...

Rob
 
You beat me to the punch. I like both versions of THE THING, too, but they're both basically monster movies, so I'm not sure what the objection to 80's version is. If anything, the Carpenter version gets points for being closer to the original short story.

Oh..GREG!!! The original had JAMES ARNESS!!! Matt Dillon/Zeb McCahan!!! That alone makes it better than Kurt Russell and friends...

Rob


I'll see your Matt Dillon and raise you Snake Plissken. :)
 
You beat me to the punch. I like both versions of THE THING, too, but they're both basically monster movies, so I'm not sure what the objection to 80's version is. If anything, the Carpenter version gets points for being closer to the original short story.

Oh..GREG!!! The original had JAMES ARNESS!!! Matt Dillon/Zeb McCahan!!! That alone makes it better than Kurt Russell and friends...

Rob


I'll see your Matt Dillon and raise you Snake Plissken. :)

I'd take Matt Dillon over Snake. Snake had 'character' flaws and Dillon was the fastest draw ever. And don't forget, Captain Sheridan (bab 5) is Matt Dillon's nephew!!

Rob
 
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