h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>I suspect we tend to look at old movies like that through rose-tinted glasses at times<

Absolutely. In actual fact I'd go so far as to say;

'Yes, some films are too good/individual/whatever reason you want to be re-made, but The Dambusters isn't one of them.'

Which shouldn't be confused with 'If you are going to re-make, or more accurately re-tell, the story of The Dambusters, can we at least have an historically accurate film which includes the s*dding dog and all the other warts?'

Again the lack of faith in peter jackson to get something right does confuse me - barring the lord of the rings (because to make a film like that with all the logistics involved is impressive in itself) take a look at heavenly creatures - a real story as it happens, and one he gets pretty much on the nose from what I've read.

As regards zulu
http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/myths/myths.htm

Okay having not researched the Dambusters mission excuse my blind ignorance but...
Suppose there was an american airforce man involved somewhere along the line - either in the planning stages or working at the base or whatever. Now if his role was increased, not to epic proportions but enough so he has a repore with various key cast members, would it be bad?

But I again ask the question - The original Dambusters isnt going anywhere, so why not make a new film based around the same events?

Thinking about it, the old and new Dambusters will be comparable to the two Capote films recently released - same core story, different angle, different information..

If I had my way theres tons of things I'd do again. Fortress is a good example; not a great movie, but a good enough idea to warant a second bash. Seven Samurai - a fantastic film I'd usually be up in arms about touching, but on the other hand it would bring those characters to a whole new audience who might just consider watching the original and thats the point.

Peter Jackson isnt doing remakes of films randomly, hes doing them of the films he loves and bringing them to a new audience.

Come on how many times has a niece, nephew or cousin gone 'Whats *insert favorite old film here*' to your utter dismay? Wouldnt it be better to them go 'Oh Yeh, but I've not seen the old one'?

One hates to point it out, but Seven Samurai has been re-made. It's called the Magnificent Seven, and a very good film it is too.

>Peter Jackson isnt doing remakes of films randomly, hes doing them of the films he loves and bringing them to a new audience<

Speaking personally, I'd rather he'd left Kong alone - the reaction of the modern audience is to want he monkey to die so you can get out of the cinema and stop your bum from being numb.

But then I have no patience whatever for those to stupid, idle or gormless to watch balck and white films, subtitles or something with signs of age.

>how many times has a niece, nephew or cousin gone 'Whats *insert favorite old film here*' to your utter dismay?<

Not that many, and if they did I'd generally refer them to the original, which I loved, rather than an artless, frankenstein like re-make (cf Italian Job/Get Carter).

"Again the lack of faith in peter jackson to get something right does confuse me"

It's down to personal preference. I like my movies to be a distraction on a lazy Sunday afternoon to kill an hour, maybe two tops. Peter Jackson seems to make epic endurance tests which are annoyingly padded with wide angle background shots of a hill in New Zealand, and things staring at each other in a loving/confused/longing/angry (delete as applicable) manner. If I needed someone to make a film of the Oddessey I'd get him to do it, because that could fill three hours. If I needed someone to make a film which is generally "Big Monkey Hit Things" I'd like someone to get the job done in 90 minutes.

We've already had a Dambusters remake of sorts. Surely I can't be the only one who remembers the classic Carling Black Label advert!?

http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=24268 Enjoy

But The Magnificent Seven isnt a remake of Seven Samurai as such - Seven Samurai is a Jidai-geki (basically period drama), whilst The Magnificent Seven is a western. Same rough plot, little else of similarity - mainly due to the translation of ideaology between the two.
Its like throne of blood - its not a remake of Macbeth, its an interpretation of it thats actually rather good.

>Not that many, and if they did I'd generally refer them to the original, which I loved, rather than an artless, frankenstein like re-make (cf Italian Job/Get Carter).<

If my 11 year old cousin asked me what Seven Samurai was, I wouldnt show it her - I'd reluctantly point her towards The Magnificent Seven first. Shes a bright kid but something like that does take stamina to watch you have to admit (I like that Kurosawa films take stamina to watch - there rewarding to those who make the effort). Magnificent Seven whilst a pile of cack, is a viable alternative. What I was trying to get at is that you could convince someone if they enjoyed the remake to watch the original anyway.

Ill ask bluntly - have any of you seen Heavenly Creatures? If not then you simply dont get Peter Jackson as a director I'm sorry to say. Lets face it, your basing the marathon films thing on four films - the LOTR trilogy which fair enough does need a good half day to tell the story, and King Kong - a project he probably loved so much he added everything he wanted in as much detail he wanted and to hell with the costs. Heavenly Creatures is so well timed as a piece that it removed any doubt as to his abilities as a director.

Okay put it this way. If you were making LOTR, Kong, or even Dambusters, and you were a big fan of them, with a budget of around half a billion dollars (aka, do what you want for as long as you want) then wouldnt you make the film in as much detail as possible, with every conversation and sequence that you could ever want?

Look at Oliver Stone with Alexander, a film that has a quality about it amongst the chaos. He was on TV this morning saying hes re-cut it to 3 hours 45 minutes or something like that. GOOD! He's finally got rid of the producers (who probably slashed the original to bits), ignored his audience (who probably dont want another Alexander film), and made the film how he wanted it made.


I'd like to raise La Jetee as an example of a good film that was remade even better. You either love La Jetee or you hate it. Personally I detest it, but I'm thankful that 12 Monkeys was the eventual result of it. If you havent seen La Jetee then go have a look around the net it'll be about somewhere as its only a short film. Watch it, then think back to 12 Monkeys. Its a better film by far.

To be fair, people have praised PJ's low budget work. Both Master B, Bluesshark and myself have said we quite like Braindead. Heavenly Creatures, again, was low budget. I assume logically it'd cost more to make longer films, so perhaps some small part of his timing can be attributed to the limitations of his budget? The small criticisms I have of his films are length and long stary scenes.
Taking your example, if I was handed an unlimited budget to remake my favourite film 'The Italian Job' I'd want to make bits longer. Not true. The temptation to make a 6 hour chase scene through Turin would be there, but it'd get boring quickly. Maybe I'd want to resolve the ending the way I'd imagined Caine resolving it? On both counts I'd be being selfish. I'd be boring the audience with the long chase scenes and my adding of un-neccessary scenes would make the film even longer, thus destroying the frantic pacing of the original.
When handed Kong, Jackson lengthened the film by a horrendous amount. Did we need a 15 minute fight scene between Kong and a dinosaur? No, it got boring. Did we need to develop the relationship 'twixt woman and ape? Not really, it added more time to a story that dragged. Did we need a scene of Kong and the girl ice skating in New York? No! I practically cheered aloud when the tanks broke that scene up! He just added un-neccessary bits which further lengthened the film and destroyed the pacing of the original.

In response to your question, yes I have seen Heavenly Creatures and a fine film it is too. However, seeing that film has not made me 'get' Peter Jackson as a director. You can't use one film that was made over a decade ago as justification for mediocre films that were made in the very recent past. Whatever way you look at it King Kong was a long film, much longer than the original. I understand that Jackson loved the project but a film maker with the kind of budget he had should make the film with the audience in mind (whilst of course trying to retain artistic credabilty). To include every 'conversation and sequence' that they want to is self indulgent and arrogant. It totally ignores the audience who have to sit through the masturbatory fanboy tribute.

Also, in reference to your Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven Vs Macbeth/Throne of Blood argument...isn't a remake just someone elses interpretation of pre-existing material?

And there comes the crux of it - what film makings all about.

"I'd be boring the audience with the long chase scenes and my adding of un-neccessary scenes would make the film even longer, thus destroying the frantic pacing of the original."

Right, firstly you dont get to make those choices as director. The Producer will sit on your shoulder (not literally, although...) and tell you to keep the scenes long because its his/her money (or there bosses money) that your using, or remove them entirely because 'they dont work'. Secondly, whilst to a degree you do think of your audience, its a fine line. I've noticed in the recent batch of student films at our uni that when people try and make something for there audience ('they'll like this') it never works and falls on its rear. The flip side of this is of course people doing exactly what they want to do which whilst occasionally throwing up complete stinkers actually throws up some lovely gems of very personal work (Pauls film about two men going up everest but actually staying in the back yard, or Liams man in a horse costume were both brilliant films, where as the film about bringing big acts to blackpool fell on its rear).

Film making can be a great bit of self indulgence - I know that from doing my animation (was suppose to be a documentary, ended up having batman sliding down a rope as shoes danced around to M83). Is it a bad thing? Well no.

So far in my films I've never coped out and thought of audience. I thought of what I'd like to see - this has resulted in a Katana coming within three inches of the camera lens, and me sitting in the middle of a busy road with cars passing less then a foot from me.

"I assume logically it'd cost more to make longer films, so perhaps some small part of his timing can be attributed to the limitations of his budget?"

Logically yes, but practically not always. It cost the the society I run 200 quid to make 5 minutes of footage, and cost me about 20p to make three minutes worth for the course. Its limiting to an extent, but not as much as you'd think (You could make a series of monologues span three hours Rashomon stylee on less the a few grand - welcome to the world of DV). As someone pointed out in the short film intro 'Short films arent necessarily cheep - you could make a film lasting two minutes where everything was made of solid gold for no other purpose then art... the flip side is you could get a ten pack of DV tapes, strap a camera to your chest and film the next ten hours of your life for a couple of quid'.

What I'm trying to point out is that theres numerous reasons for length of a big budget film - maybe no one told him to trim it, maybe he refused to trim it, maybe the scenes that needed trimming simply cost too much for the studio to trim it ('Yeh thanks for Kong fighting the dinosaurs, we know its taken you months to create but actually.. well.. were gona loose the whole dinosaur thing.. we're making it about ten seconds long instead'), maybe he shot all the scenes mentioned for choice (reasonable assumption) but then the producers liked them so much that hes had to use them all.

Simply saying that PJ makes films that are too long is horribly inaccurate, and the pacing on Heavenly Creatures isn't simply down to a low budget - 5 million is a hefty figure when you consider films like Lock Stock (980,000..), Four Weddings (4 million), Run Lola Run (1.25 million according to XE converter) were all done cheaper and in some cases made more whilst if you double that figure you open up to films like Pulp Fiction (8 Million) and Amelie (7.5 million according XE) and various others I cant be bothered trailing IMDB for.

Perhaps its a personal thing.

Seven Samurai (made for 2 million allegedly) is a slog to watch - its 190 minutes long but due to Kurosawas style feels longer then that.

Now I know I could shave an hour roughly off that film, show it to someone who'd never seen the original, and they'd be non the wiser. In fact, they'd probably enjoy it more because it has the pacing of a modern film (which tend to be at increasingly break neck speeds) with the sheer quality of film that you always get from Kurosawa. Yet I wouldnt do it, and if were to remake seven samurai I would add more to it (theres not a lot of exposition for one of the samurai, he could do with a scene, as could the raiders to show them as truely carnivalesque villans, and perhaps a scene showing the villages before the attack similar to that at the end of the film).

The sames been done with 2001 - someone re-edited it into a thirty minute film that works quite well, having all of the pace needed for a modern film and non of the chaff you've spoken of in King Kong.

But in doing those changes to a film your ruining the original image and its simply not the same film; you've ruined the makers lovingly crafted piece of art. At the end of the day all films (from Honey to Festen) are a form of art, except the audience is half as intelligent and twice as demanding. If the same were true in painted art there be a bunch of people looking at the sistine chapel right now and saying 'Gah look hes missed a bit, and that Whites rubbish he should have used some dulux. Whose that suppose to be? Who? Oh God. Yeh I always imagined him bigger then that, and shouldnt Jesus be black?'.

"Perhaps its a personal thing." I'm sure I said that and then justified why I thought so. I re-iterate, I think Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong is too long.

Perhaps being the opperative word. And didnt I mention something about producers and all that? Something about possibly lack of choice, about how to say 'he' made it too long is perhaps the wrong part, and if its not then so what its his piece of self indulgance...

Ahhh the joys of film making and the never ending struggle to keep the audience happy

Why does it seem that peoples personal opinions don't seem to count to you unless they correspond directly with your own personal opinions?

Personally, i think 3 hours is too long for any film, especially one with a big ape (who you dont even see for the first 40 mins or so). As for the original topics, some films can benefit from being remade, but the vast majority dont. Take my personal vendetta against the Americans remaking foreign films eg The Ring (Ringu). Its badly written, badly acted, in fact just plain bad. Now i know its nice to not have to read subtitles, but if it comes at the price of atmosphere and enjoyment of the film, i would rather have some Japanese pratlle I cant understand, than words i could understand but that pull all the life from the film.

I also hate remakes that seem like shameless moneyspinners. Take Dawn of the Dead. The 1979 ( i think) original was a wonderful social commentary (as are most George A Romero films), but the remake was too much of an action based film, missing out some of the original intended poignance.

Okay maybe I havent explained myself correctly.

When a film is remade there are several factors that are taken into account;

- The original
Whats worth keeping, what needs ditching, does the language need updating etc etc

- The context
Have new facts come to light (in the dambusters case), can digital effects make it better (Snow White being a great example of this, where the original celluloid was returned to the correct colors), whats the political situation like (releasing a film about suicide bombers a week after 9/11 isnt a good idea*)

- The bank balance
If the film is not independantly financed (e.g. Tom Cruise spending his wealth to make a film, with no other money investment), then how do you keep those investors happy? After all there not going to keep there money in a project they don't like.

- The Editing
Removing/adding scenes to get as low a certificate as possible (or high in some cases)/keep the producers (and in some cases the writer and director) happy.

- The Producers...
The crux of my point. Go click on any major director, and you'll see that there Producer credits are longer then there directing credits (actors too) because they know the buisness - this is why the major studios will quite happily employ themselves*** to go down to the set for maybe a few days every now and then to steer the film in the right direction, mainly because its there necks on the line if it goes wrong rather then the directors

- The reviewers
Keeping stum about a film either works or doesnt. It worked for snakes on a plane barely (and because samuel L Jackson has been on every chat show talking about it), but letting a magazine like Empire spend a day or two on the set of say the matrix sequel, will usually result in half the magazine turfed over for it rather then against it.


Its easy to look at Kong, say 'Yep, Peter Jackson made it too long', but thats not the case unless he got final cut - and its rare for that to happen these days.

Actually looking at the Producers list its his usual bunch - most have either cut there teeth on Lord of the Rings or have been with him for years. Perhaps this one was a case of them not tightening the ropes..

I found a quote about contempt in/for films that made me think of this thread so I'm going to throw it out there and see what you all think:
'To these directors we really are what Barthes describes as 'soporific', dazed and unthinking before the screen and wholly deserving their brutal condescending tactics'


I again return to my original aguement through this. If a film is remade, or done in a new way, then it doesnt take away anything from the original; it brings the film to a new audience - in other words, wheres the harm? No ones yet made an arguement strong enough to discount the fact that the original film is still there and survives any effect of a remake (The Italian Job being the best example, with Batman being a good example of how a more successful film only raises awareness in the original - I saw Batman begins and Batman in new packaging side by side at HMV).

In addition to this, what if the remake is a peice of self indulgence. Looking at my DVD collection now theres at least 14 films there I'd be happy to see remade (either to brethe new life into it as was done with Batman - such as in the case of the Addams family and Highlander - or to simply improve the original - Screamers, Stargate**).

Whats lost to the audience of cinema film making is that is an art for, and you can make a film purely for yourself. The fact that it happens to get shown to an international audience in order to get made shouldnt be factor, but it always is and your vision suffers for it.

How do I know this? Because for the next 9 months I'm going to be telling your directors who want to do all kinds of craziness that they cant do it and if they try they'll get no money from us. I didnt want to do that; I spent the last three months giving in to the director and the team, and were now 200 or so quid in the red without a finished film...


*Spiderman 2, as some might know, was postponed for several months due to having a scene featuring the Trade Centre towers.
** Although this is already being redone with the TV cast if the rumours are true.
*** Go look for 'Plan B Entertainment'. Thats the company I think Jenefer Aniston and Brad Pitt established - look at the titles, and then look at each actors credits. They've each got a fair few quality credits to there name.

now could you imagine some one trying to follow Clint Eastwood in "Josie Wells" Or indeed trying to remake any Clint Eastwood film????????

>Magnificent Seven whilst a pile of cack, is a viable alternative<

Sorry. I had assumed from your lecturing that you actuaqlly knew something about film and cinema. I see from the above comment that you have no idea at all.

>trying to remake any Clint Eastwood film<

I can easily imagine that. For all the fact that he is an icon of cinema, he made some pretty poor movies throughout the late 70's and 80's. All the Dirty Harry sequels are absolute sh*t*, for example.

And I think 'Dawn of the Dead' needs defending as well - like Romero's own re-make of Night of the Living Dead, it has a definite point to make, albeit a different one from the original movie. Some of the imagery is very subtle and there are moments of brilliance.

Magnificent Seven is cack - something was lost in translation in my opinion from Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. HOWEVER, a child is more likely to sit through the magnificent seven rather then the 3 hour slog that is seven samurai. Its as simple a fact as that.

Gah I give up. I know I'm write but I've got too much to do to day to keep discussing the point

Maybe I haven't made myself clear. Im my personal opinion, which last time I checked I'm perfectly entitled to, Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong is TOO LONG.

You can quote all the theory that you want, and quote whomever you want, the fact remains that I think Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong is TOO LONG.

Oh, and because my English teacher at High School drummed the "rule of three" into my skull....

I THINK PETER JACKSON'S REMAKE OF KING KONG IS TOO LONG!!!

By at least an hour and a half, by my reckoning. I realised that when SLG leaned over and said 'Bored now. Where's the f'ing giant giant monkey?'

As for Magnificent Seven being cack, perhaps you'd klike to ofer some way in which you know this to be true? And if, as you stated it isn't a remake of Seven Samurai I fail to see how anything could have been lost in translation.

Oh, but hey, you *know* you're right so it's the rest of us that have the problem, yeah?