Baseball — you know, America’s pastime before we invented the Superbowl — has three strikes before the batter’s out. And now it seems Hollywood has taken up the same idea when it comes to films.
Movies used to be released and then (and this is a novel idea) not tampered with. Not many early directors thought, “Yeah, this is a good movie, but I’ll come back and make it even better when some cool new technology comes out.” Other than George Lucas, of course.
Speaking of Lucas, why can’t he just leave the original “Star Wars” alone? He already did enough damage with his so-called special edition that came out in the ’90s, but it seems he didn’t ruin it quite enough for his liking. But what’s left that he could destroy, you ask?
Simple: He could go back and redo everything — again — but this time he could do it in 3D. Yes, all six Star Wars movies are going to be released in theaters in not one, not two, but all three dimensions in a couple of years. The Mayans were right; 2012 is the year the world ends.
But Star Wars isn’t the only movie franchise to which the three strikes rule applies. Apparently Sony Pictures thinks that Spider-Man wasn’t good enough on the first few tries — even though the first two are some of the best comic book movies ever (we won’t talk about the third one.)
But no, now they’re rebooting the franchise with a brand-new cast and director, and guess what? They’re doing it in 3D too. The first “Spider-Man” came out in 2002; less than ten years later it’s getting remade. What’s next? Are we going to see Harry Potter with another cast next year?
Not to be outdone, “King Kong” has been remade not once but twice — once in the ’70s and again in 2005. Peter Jackson may be good when he’s leading Hobbits around Middle Earth, but he definitely has another thing to learn when it comes to other movies. “King Kong” was too long and just overall not very good; maybe someone could do it again — but do it, you know, better.
And Spider-Man isn’t the only series to get another fresh coat of paint. No one remembers the absolutely awful “Captain America” from 1990 — at least, I hope not — but he’s getting another movie that’ll be out next year. The Hulk was redone, too, and it took even less time than Spider-Man; Ang Lee completely messed it up the first time, so they got Edward Norton to make it right just five years later. These previous two movies were actually in need of another movie, if just to do the characters justice, but it shouldn’t take two (or three) tries to make a multi-million dollar idea come to fruition. More planning, more scripting, and more focused directing makes rebooting unnecessary. Case in point — anyone think Christopher Nolan wants to remake “Inception” or “The Dark Knight” any time soon?
So when it comes to remakes, the jury’s verdict is clear. Don’t do it — and make sure the movie you’re currently making doesn’t completely suck.
