What on earth has happened to cinema? What was the last, truly original, groundbreaking and (this one is the clincher) completely imaginative film that you went to see? And if you can actually think of something that fits all of those categories, was it any good? Probably not. Cinema has become a bit stagnated; cinematic imagination has apparently gone completely down the pan in a sort of Channel 4's-attempts-at original-fictional-programming-type void of creativity.
It's not just an issue that audiences have noticed, either. Screenwriters and staff for recent action-packed flick The Bourne Legacy have claimed in a recent Alex Zane interview that the film industry is in the middle of an age of reboots, remakes and prequels. And apparently The Bourne Legacy is the closest thing a film-goer will get to an original, wholly new film this year. The sad thing is, they're right. And even then, it's a bit of an overstatement considering that Legacy is pretty much proverbially sellotaped to the Bourne series of films. Not exactly original, but that's not the issue. The point is, if even those who create huge blockbusters have noticed this, then there's obviously a problem somewhere.
So when did this all kick off? Personally, I think it was with J. J. Abrams's reboot of the Star Trek franchise in 2009. It was a hit, a really big hit. Directors and screenwriters, among others, probably watched in awe as the age-old, and very tired series got a well needed kick up the backside and became, suddenly (and almost impossibly) 'cool' again. Ever eager as people are to jump on the nearest bandwagon that will make them the quickest dollar (call me cynical if you like, I still think I'm right), remakes and reboots have been popping up left, right and centre ever since. Just after the Star Trek reboot, suddenly there's a reboot of the A Team franchise. More recently, whilst I was watching the aforementioned The Bourne Legacy in the cinema, at least 80% of the trailers preceding it were for remakes of old franchises. For example, classic Schwarzenegger action film Total Recall is back with a vengeance, which prompted a few groans from the audience. Plus, murderous, armour covered executioner Judge Dredd makes his reappearance on the big screen, which prompted even more, much louder groans. Thirdly, whilst it's not a remake or a reboot, I am still also quite irritated that Liam Neeson is back in a new Taken movie - I'm not sure why they're doing that, but leaving it this long before releasing a sequel smacks of creative desperation, borderline starvation.
What really got me going, though, was the fact that underpants-clad hero Superman is back. Again. Why?
Don't get me wrong, all of these films could be fantastic. They might end up being complete triumphs of cinema, and I might have to end up eating my own words for breakfast, alongside the fried egg on my face, on a plate made of my own embarrassment. It might even be great for a new generation of film-goers to experience the same feelings of wonder and awe that the older generation felt over the same films. It's also great to see just how far special effects have come since the originals, how much more realistic things look and how much cinema has progressed.
Maybe I'm living in the past. But, the point at the end of all this is that once a film is done, finished and released, it should be left well alone for people to enjoy. Especially if it ends up being a classic, because remaking it will only detract from it. In fact, remaking classic films is kind of the same thing as a boy-band from The X Factor (I won't pretend I know what any of the bands are called) re-making and re-releasing The Beatles hits. Sure, we can up the production, throw more money at it, clean up the sound and modernise it a bit, but it still won't be as good as the original, it's less imaginative, less creative and, in some cases, it's sacrilegious.
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To sum up in the same way many people do not like the X Factor they produced no fewer than FIVE christmas number ones in a row. I may be wrong but I don't think any record company, much less individual artist, has ever acheived this. I don't like the music just like there are some remakes I don't like or don't like the idea of BUT you can't deny the financial benefits there are and, in the case of the film industry at least, new films and those making them are bound by rules that they did not create and are not always responsible. It's unfair to blame the film industry as a whole for these rules, it would be fairer to blame the people illegally downloading films, financially hurting the industry and leaving them no choice but to resort to proven success formulas.
Love Vince x
This can equally be applied to remakes, the original films (with the exception of Judge Dredd) you mentioned were a hit in the box office, so much so that they are still popular today. As for Dredd you just have to read a quote from Wiki to understand the attraction in a new film :"Judge Dredd is amongst the UK's best known home-grown comic characters. So great is the character's name recognition that his name is sometimes invoked over similar issues to those explored by the comic series, such as the police state, authoritarianism, and the rule of law.Judge Dredd was named the Seventh Greatest Comic Character by the British magazine Empire. In 2011, IGN ranked him 35th in the Top 100 Comic Book Heroes.". It's also unfair to assume these movies will be bad before even seeing them, I've actually heard nothing but good things about Total Recall and the trailer looks amazing and as such I want to see it.
Furthermore it's unfair to say that this 'age of the remake' began with Star Trek. This attitude to films is part of the business side of things, the same business side that gets any film it's financing. Thanks to film piracy and sites such as youtorrent and piratebay the film industry is taking a big hit to profits on new films and this is making studio executives reluctant to invest in potentially risky new franchises instead of simply going with what they know works. As an example many people criticised the sequels to Shrek calling them inferior and asking why more money was not being put into new ideas. However Shrek 2 was and still is one of the largest grossing animated of films of all time, why wouldn't someone attempt to make a sequel to that, especially compared to putting money into a completely unproven film idea.
I disagree. 'That's not an original story' is an outdated argument, not just when referring to movies but to any creative medium with a storyline. There's only a finite number of basic plots, to be exact 7 (see The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories by Christopher Booker), and all any movier maker, artist, or author can do is dress them up in an entertaining way and hope that's enough for their audience. Also since The Bourne Legacy is part of a franchise and follows on from a series of films (not to mention books) it is inherently less original than, for example, Ted, a film with no previous instalments and that is not based on any previous artistic work.
(response is split over 3 comments due to word limit)