Fact: I am a massive fan of nostalgia. Born in the ’80s, I grew up in the golden age of movies, cartoons, comics, and toys. Yeah, I know everyone feels that way, but my era is the best. It’s like Saturday Night Live. Ask any fan what the best era is and it’s a lock they mention the era of which they were in junior high.
For as much as I love nostalgia, a fine line exists. I don’t want content just repackaged and sold to me over and over. I more prefer the “Stranger Things” model. Everyone is upside down with excitement over the latest season. Internet sleuths worldwide are bombarding Reddit and other sites with fan theories, breakdowns, and enough Easter Eggs to get Peter Cottontail hopping. It has consistently found that sweet spot that pulls on all our heart strings from that era. I do hate that our uber-health-conscious society kind of made “Stranger Things” quit it with all the cigarette action though. I tried to quit smoking about a bakers dozen times or so. I’m not even a big smoker, more like a social smoker, but still at some point I figured I gotta give ‘em up. Seemingly, it’s a lot easier for the “Stranger Things” folks than us in the real world to cancel the Marlboro Man.
Now I know what you’re saying. Smoking is a dirty, disgusting, unhealthy habit that not only harms you and anyone around you but is also just plain off putting to the uninitiated. And while all this is no doubt true, I gotta say, I love it! But thanks to nicotine lozenges, even Professor Binx successfully quit his two-a-day cigar habit. The last time I used nicotine lozenges, I doubled down and had two at once and to cut a long story short, I woke up three hours later hanging upside down from a New York skyscraper staring at my reflection ala Peter Parker in “Spider-Man 3.” Which brings us back to my point. I even kind of lost it there for a second. But remakes! Why!
Not the Hero we Need nor Deserve
How many Bruce Wayne’s – or Jokers – do we really need?
Riddle me this: How many Batmen do we need? How many men of spiders? “Spider-Man: Homecoming” proved we could have all the Spidey’s we can handle and more; but in an era of film so absolutely dominated by super heroes, it’s like let’s find one character we love and just try to make whatever work. Look at the Joker. Jared Leto and Joaquin Phoenix and now Barry Keoghan are all now kind of circling the role, having appeared in films as the character over the last three years. It’s madness. The Dark Knight literally has a hundred villains but we just keep giving you the clown prince.
Thankfully the MCU has not hit the remake button yet. But would it be so odd for another actor to play Iron-Man? We got dangerously close with the latest Doctor Strange. A bunch old dudes living in their mom’s basement on a steady diet of Mountain Dew and Doritos (not all heroes wear capes) swore up and down Reddit “The Multiverse of Madness” would generate these new takes…but it was not to be. And it’s probably for the better.
Scare me Once, Shame on You
Riddle me this: what does “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Last House on the Left,” “Black Christmas,” “When a Stranger Calls,” “Friday the 13th,” “Halloween,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” all have in common? Bad, bad remakes.
Remember the aughts? Did I spell that right? While rock music was dying, horror remakes were the all the rage at the Box Office. Everyone of your favorite horror movies was remade during this time. Okay, okay, yeah so “The Fly” wasn’t, but that gory glorious masterpiece is a remake itself! Boom Roasted! Sometime around 2008, the network that brought you “The Real Housewives” aired, “The 100 Scariest Movie Moments.” Around this time every producer watched this. Like Jaws smelling blood in the water, they swarmed and attacked and made some unbelievably terrible movies.
Does Hollywood Need Remakes?
Jared Padalecki and Derek Mears (as Jason) in the “Friday the 13th” remake. (Photo: New Line Cinema).
Like these remakes are trash. It’s like they thought because people love nostalgia, we could take these movies and make them for the modern age and voila! Well not exactly. Nostalgia is great. It’s 2022. Let’s look at life in 1985. That is cool. What isn’t cool, taking a movie from it’s setting in the ’80s, now setting it in the ’10s and expecting it to fly. Like “Back to the Future”…wait. I’m not even going to say anything further. Do not touch “Back to the Future,” Hollywood! Stay away!
We need original concepts and original ideas. You know what is an insanely wild idea? Solar freakin’ roadways. If you’re not familiar, you really should check them out. What makes this concept so amazing — other than the insane list of benefits to our society, our community, and economy, is that it could provide us with said future from these films in reality, multi-colored roadways and all! Like “Tron” come to life! Wouldn’t it be nice to see this future that the big screen teased come to life in real life? And wouldn’t it be nice to see life imitate the aesthetics of art instead of seeing these concepts repackaged for a modern era on the big screen in the form of a bland remake? And wouldn’t it be nice…wait, I’m sounding like Mike Love here. The Beach Boys over The Beatles. There I said it. But seriously, wouldn’t it be nice if Hollywood would lay off the remakes. For the love! What happened to originality?
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