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Movie remakes and the ethics thereof
Zombiemambo
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Registered User regular
Movies get remade quite often. George Romero's Living Dead series was just recently remade, I Am Legend was semi-remade (based on the same book as Omega Man starring Vincent Price), and Japanese horror remakes seem to be doing well over here in The States. These are all remakes I'm fine with.
But this one is not. Oldboy is a good film. Not incredible, but it was certainly different. Spielberg wants to remake this movie, which isn't even 6 years old, for American audiences. This raises a few questions for me:
Okay, so I could only come up with 2 questions, but I digress. This, to me, screams, "I want to get credit for remaking a cult film! Memememememememememe!" It's a 5 year-old film. Why, exactly, does it need to be remade? Tailored for American audiences, perhaps? If that's the truth, they're going to have to take a lot of creative liberties with it. Oldboy is probably most well-known for its controversial plot.
So how do you guys see this? I think it's a blatant attempt at getting credit for a movie made in another country. If Oldboy was 20 or 25 years old, it would be a different story. But it's not an old movie by any means, and in its current state it won't go over well with America.
But this one is not. Oldboy is a good film. Not incredible, but it was certainly different. Spielberg wants to remake this movie, which isn't even 6 years old, for American audiences. This raises a few questions for me:
- Why does he want to remake the film?
- Considering the content of the film and the person directing it, will it change significantly?
- Why does he want to remake the film?
Okay, so I could only come up with 2 questions, but I digress. This, to me, screams, "I want to get credit for remaking a cult film! Memememememememememe!" It's a 5 year-old film. Why, exactly, does it need to be remade? Tailored for American audiences, perhaps? If that's the truth, they're going to have to take a lot of creative liberties with it. Oldboy is probably most well-known for its controversial plot.
So how do you guys see this? I think it's a blatant attempt at getting credit for a movie made in another country. If Oldboy was 20 or 25 years old, it would be a different story. But it's not an old movie by any means, and in its current state it won't go over well with America.
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I also don't see why a remake is ever a bad thing. It might fail to be a good thing, but it's not like the very act of remaking something is inherently evil.
I do expect the ending to be retained, however, because I just can't imagine someone loving this movie but thinking that the ending has to be different. That said, I can't imagine anyone thinking they ought to remake Old Boy either, so who knows what Spielberg is thinking.
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Yeah, that's one of the main reasons we have remakes. The few foreign films that get wide releases in America are advertised on tv sans dialogue simply because people are put off by having to read. When I went to see The Orphanage, a group of people actually walked out upon discovering it was a foreign film.
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Honestly I'd rather seem them spend the time and money on remaking films that would be better served by an update or re-imagining (I've heard mixed things about I Am Legend, but haven't seen it myself). Cult remakes are usually interesting only when they retain their cult trappings, though. Can you imagine how horrible a Michael Bay remake of Scanners would be? Ugh. Ugh.
I don't really care that much about "respecting" the original work so long as the finished product stands on its own merits, nor do I care if the director "borrows" heavily from unrelated work. Lucas himself admits that the original Star Wars was basically The Hidden Fortress with magical space ninjas, and most of the fighter choreography was literally rotoscoped from old WWII films. Quentin Tarrantino has made a career out of co-opting other peoples' ideas and doing new things with them.
I don't really see how "ethics" apply to crappy film remakes any more than they do shameless licensed works or original scripts that get shit all over by the studio. A good movie is a good movie is a good movie, and many if not most good movies have elements lifted from other works.
For those of us who grew up watching foreign films, we may be comfortable watching something where the words (when translated) don't quite make sense, but it's part of the charm to us. To others, it's jarring, and ruins the movie for them. So I can understand wanting to re-make these movies. It's not like they're going to destroy the originals in the process.
Unfortunately, Oldboy is a movie that will have to be changed if Spielberg has any hopes of making a profit from the remake. I see no point in remaking it; it's a cult film that appeals to a small group of people, and changing the aspects that make it a cult film destroy it. I can't imagine American audiences would like Oldboy, whether it's in its original format or not.
Remakes aren't a bad thing in and of themselves.
Also, to suggest that there's some code of ethics surrounding a movie remake, aside from the laws surrounding copyright infringement, is preposterous. Even a remake is a creative vision. There's no rule saying that he has to preserve the entirety of the movie because the entirety of that movie has already been made.
People said the same thing about the Onryo movies, though, and look how well they did. The Ring was not only wildly successful in its own right, but it also turned an entire generation of horror fans on to J-Horror cinema. If you saw The Ring and liked it chances are the first thing you did was track down a copy of Ringu to compare it to. Same with The Grudge/Ju-On. Dark Water, Pulse, and One Missed Call were also J-Horror remakes.
You can't predict the success of a "cult" foreign film in a domestic market, and you certainly can't predict how a faithful remake will do. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a smashing success, but Hero fell on its face. Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke were the two most highly-acclaimed animated films since the Disney Renaissance, but Howl's Moving Castle had a limited release and Paprika wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. And if Kill Bill hadn't had Tarantino's name attached? Yeah cinephiles would still be humming that stupid 5-6-7-8's song to let other movie twats know how cool and "indy" they are.
If Spielberg remakes Oldboy and stays faithful to the original it will be a smash hit. If he doesn't it will still be a smash hit, but probably not as good. Hopefully he's smart enough to remember how to make good movies. Oldboy: America might suck nuts and totally flop at the box office, but it won't be because Spielberg was too outside the mainstream.
Protip: It's not really the type of movie that's going to appeal to the general public of the western world.
Why? Are we not smart enough, or something? American films do well enough in foreign countries, why can't foreign films do well here? And what's so awful about remaking a foreign film for a domestic audience, especially when people are going to respond by debating its merits WRT the source material, thus increasing awareness of foreign culture and media?
Anime was a "cult" phenomenon up until Pokemon introduced an entire generation to Japanese popular media. Pokemon fans grew up to watch Naruto, then Trigun, then Bebop with subtitles, then Akira and Ghost in the Shell and Laputa and Captain Harlock and lots of other respectable, legitimately artful Japanese animated cinema stretching back thirty years and more. But you know where all that started? In the 70's with Speed Racer and the 80's with Robotech, neither of which had much of anything to do with the original series they were based on.
So were we wrong for bringing over Speed Racer and cutting out the violence and destroying the scripts and reworking the animation to make original, safe-for-American-TV stories? That sure as hell wasn't respecting the source material, but its success demonstrated that maybe America was a legitimate market for this stuff. It took decades to reach its saturation point, but before the advent of home video (let alone the internet) there was no way to know how Americans would react to it.
There's nothing wrong with adapting foreign movies to domestic audiences. We're not putting John Wayne in Klingon makeup and trying to pass him off as Genghis Kahn. We're not suggesting that Jerry Lewis stuff chicklets in his mouth and tape his eyes and talk like a simpleton. We're talking about taking something different and making it slightly more familiar in the hopes that it will still be different enough to appeal to all sorts. This isn't cultural imperialism.
Don't be stupid. Have you seen Oldboy? It's not going to appeal to a wide market for any reason whatsoever. Unless, that is:
Cult films become cult films because they don't appeal to a wide audience, but a relatively small number of people enjoy them a lot. If lots of people liked them, they wouldn't be cult films. Nobody is trying to hide Oldboy from the mass market, it's out there and everyone is capable of knowing about it.
I don't know about the
These people suck.
I don't entirely understand this statement.
A: What's the point? As the OP said, the movie isn't old. Everyone who wants to know about it probably already does, it was big with critics, and everyone I know has either seen it or heard of it, and none of them are hardcore Asian horror/thriller nuts. It's available with subtitles and has been dubbed into multiple languages. If some big time American director wants everyone to see Oldboy, then tell them to see Oldboy. Why not just slap a "Steven Spielberg Presents..." onto the front of the box, add a few extras and then make some easy money?
B: Again, what's the point? Are you going be completely faithful to the original? If so, then why bother? Are you going to change significant parts of the plot? If so, why bother? Is it that people are going to hear about the movie and decide, "I can't relate to Koreans, at all!" or something, and really just need some white people to be involved in over-the-top revenge schemes?
The Host was a big enough hit around here, and it was a great movie with wonderful special effects. It could easily have been a target for a remake, but it was released with subtitles and later on DVD with a decent dub. There's nothing a remake could have improved on. Same with Pan's Labyrinth, Kung Fu Hustle (though it didn't do as well as it could have), etc. Even Lady Vengeance got a theatrical release and was widely praised by critics (and compared to Oldboy), and that was on the strength of Oldboy's DVD sales and critical success.
The only times I can think of a remake being worthwhile are when the original is really old (at least a generation) and maybe obscure, too. Or it's old and an updated version would benefit from better technology and production values. Or it was a good script or idea that just wasn't realized properly.
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Um, no? There are plenty of legitimate reasons why I wouldn't want to a see a foreign film.
I mean, i'm not trying to sound pretentious, the sum total of films I have seen at the cinema that have subtitles pretty much extend to pans labyrinth. But unless one is blind and/or not a quick reader (i'm sure i'd struggle in a film with quick paced dialogue of an Oscar Wilde variety), I personally cannot fathom why someone would leave a film they had paid money to see just because it was foreign, without giving it a chance.
Mostly regarding the OP:
THIS. Particularly the age thing. I have no problem with the borrowing of trappings of plot ala Pulp Fiction or Star Wars as has been suggested, but for direct remakes I think someone needs to set a decent, respectable time limit before things get stupid. Maybe at least 10, maybe 15 years for goodness sake. I don't want to see a remake of Juno in two years time, but at the rate things are going, this might be the case.
It's not ethics, but it would be nice to let a film rest on its own merits for a sufficient grace period before remaking it.
This is what I'm trying to say. Why does an American need to remake this film in order for Americans to see it? A cinematic release isn't enough? American films are played in other countries as they were made, perhaps with subtitles or even a dub, but you don't see a foreign country remaking our films so they are more "suitable" for their audiences. Respect the artist's work, don't fuck with it, and show it to the people as it was made.
To say nothing of the studio that owns the rights to the actual film and would probably tell you to suck it, it's theirs and they'll do what they want with it.
"I'm an illiterate dullard who can't be bothered to read a few lines of text, but don't you dare criticize me for it."
Hating reading isn't one of them, though.
Also, what about the artistic rights of Spielberg and Smith? It's not like they're retarded monkeys, they've both done quality stuff, and apparently think this is something they can do justice to. All I'm seeing here is you picking an arbitrary time for movies to be remade.
Spielberg is a hack, anyway.
[citation needed]
No, he's one of the most respected and successful directors in the history of cinema. He is occasionally involved in mediocre projects, but the fact that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was cheesy does not diminish the fact that Close Encounters and Jaws and Schindler's List were fucking brilliant films. To suggest otherwise smacks of cultural elitism.
It's a skill that one develops by watching subtitled works. One that is well worth developing.
Granting the premise that artists have rights, you can't really argue that Spielberg is being denied an artistic right.
Damien Hearst is an artist to some, but I don't think anyone would lose any sleep if someone said 'don't remake the mona lisa' - he shouldn't have a right to someone elses work just because he's been proven a competent artist in his own right.
Arbitrary time. Yes, just because there needs to be one so that the powerful directors don't get a monopoly on any film that proves itself decent. It creates a world where it is even harder for films to survive without a name, and good films get deemed good purely because a director chooses to remake it.
Ideally there should be some sort of time barrier before films get remade.
I don't like spending most of the movie looking at the bottom of the screen. I don't like knowing what the characters are going to say before they actually say it. I don't like substituting the sort of emotion I can hear in speech for the blandness of reading a character's dialogue. That doesn't make me an illiterate dullard, you ass.
bringing it to an entirely new audience sounds like a great reason to me.
Being a respected and succesful person does not make you any less of a hack. Jaws was not a brilliant film because Spielberg directed it, he took something that was already brilliant, turned it into a movie and got all of the praise for it. But there it sits, the idea that was not his, not getting the praise that made Jaws a good movie in the first place.
Spielberg is flashy special effects and a big budget. Oldboy was a good movie that isn't in need of a remake that's still getting one, being directed by a person who'd rather use someone else's idea than find his own. Tell me something; if Spielberg won't take credit for this movie, why remake it in the first place? What are his intentions? He's taking something that isn't his, with or without permission, and he's changing it. By doing that, he's put his name on the property.
Fair enough to point 1 and 2 but... they aren't silent films. Usually the subtlest of emotional nuance can be traced in another language, so the character dialogue is not going to be bland. And if you are watching an English movie for the second time, your brain anticipates what people say anyway, so the 'not wanting to hear what people say before they say it' surely only holds much weight on first viewing?
Really I can only fully grasp (1.)
But to fully appreciate some films the language barrier needs to be there, because often there is a sense of 'you can write this but you cant say it' when it comes to English IMO. So, whilst you will see more of the characters in an English remake, something will still be lost.
Ultimately, I don't see how either film, remake or sub could ever be fully 'whole' - you are always gonna have a divide between character emotion and origional dialogue.
Are you suggesting that Jaws was brilliant because of the source material? Peter Benchley's book?
Because guess what, chicken butt!
No, but the new movie will be. Being first doesn't make the original better or more important. It makes it first.
And redoing the camera shots and probably rewriting the dialogue and adding and removing scenes.
So now it's clear you're just a whiny fan boy.
You sure have foiled me! And all of this time I was praising the director of Old Boy and how good his script was that he wrote himself and- oh wait, no, I didn't do that. I said Oldboy was a good movie that didn't need to be remade. All credit goes to the author of the Oldboy manga for his idea.
Well damn, why even make it into a movie in the first place then. I mean, it was already there if you want it.
It doesnt make it better. In virtue of it being the origin of a remake that someone felt was important enough to remake... yeah, i'd say more important.
But alot of remakes does make it less timeless. Like Oldboy? Here, have 3, one for each of the next three years, slightly altered to make it more suitable for whatever audiences want.
This is mostly theoretical having never seen oldboy, but what I fear in constant tinkering of movies (like Star Wars) and remakes will devalue movies as a whole, as their unique voice will be shifted and molded to fit todays demographic.
At which point, why call it by the same name? Give it a different name and a 'based on' in the credits (The Departed, par example). Then it can truly be something different with a shared origin, and allow others to hunt up the original.
Retaining the name (to me) just seems like cashing in. If you are going to take what you like from a plot but still make it something new, then what harm can it do?
---That said... I enjoyed the Prestige, and apparently thats tremendously different from the book, so I guess i'm divided on this subject.