Whateley here with another "bored while the wife is asleep" blog.

It finally happened today, I am officially over this remaking movie craze that Hollywood is in. I could feel the nails start to slide into the coffin back when Keanu did "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Which if you are into classic film, you really owe it to yourself to see the original. Sure it's good all the B-movie Sci-fi trimmings, a theremin, a flying saucer, a big giant robot, and a "Gee-golly" kid to boot. But the acting is pretty good, especially out of Klatu (Michael Rinnie), and its message is actually topical today, and must have been downright scandalous back in the 50's. But the remake was this hippy dippy enviornmental message that completely missed the point of the original, or of it's own movie. For somebody opposed to killing as Keanu-Klatu claimed he was, he sure did murder a ton of people.

Anyhoo I wasn't upset when they started remaking old TV shows, because we got "The Brady Bunch Movie" out of it which was a piece of ironic genus. I wasn't upset when they started remaking horror movies, "Dawn of the Dead" was quite styilish even if it had nothing to do with the original beyond a mall. I wasn't upset when they started redoing classic Sci-fi, that has it's roots going back to the 80's with the big screen non-porn emergence of Traci Lords in "Not of this Earth." I also was ready to be mad but very charmed by "Star Trek" even though in a way it invalidates my two favoriate Star Trek movies, Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan, and Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country.

Basically I wasn't upset when they were taking the classics and trying to do something new and interesting with them. But it's gone to far. Every week on my usual Sci-fi sites I hear a story about how they are redoing this, or booting this franchise back up. Enough is enough. There was a reason why "A Nightmare on Elm Street" was popular back in the 80's, do we really need to see Freddy hyped up to the new generation played by "The Watchmens" Rorschach? Does "Hellraiser" need to be redone with new F/X that are created by a non-drunk director? Most of the reason these classics (and yes they are classics damn it) sunk anyway wasn't because the original movies or the 3rd sequel were really that bad. It was because the 4th, 5th, 6th etc sequel was bad. Hollywood sucked the life out of these movies like Edward wants to suck the red groovy out of Bella. And now they are standing up over the drained corpses and saying "these need to have a fresh start." Damn it! Just let it go! They are classics because they said something about another time and scene, and hooked into something. Instead of looking back (as people love to do with their rosey colored glasses), why not look forward and try to create something new?

But alas, I expect to much out of Hollywood. Why try something new which could (and probably will) fail. For every "Jeepers Creepers," or "Dog Soldiers," we have twelve dozen crappy horror movies that nobody will watch. Also as sad and pissed as I am I know I'm going to end up seeing the "Predator" remake (probably because it's very likely it will be made in Austin), and I will rent "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Hellraiser." Hell I'm probably going to buy "Star Trek," especially if they make a version with all the deleted scenes. Why try something new, when an old hit is a sure thing. It's probably why you find so many covers to Beatles songs out there.

Anyway this is my silly little voice saying to Hollywood, please give filmmakers a chance to do something new. I don't want the epic experiences of my childhood remade with computers and young hot stars. If I want to relive my childhood I will pop in the DVD I already own. Give me something new. Sure people are going to experiment and fail, but if you give them money to do this, but every so often they will build the new franchises that you can drain dry 10 years from now. But thats just my opinion I could be wrong.

/rant