Flop of the Meatloaf

[filkertom]

That was how my old friend Peter Christian used to refer to the 1980 Harryhausen film Clash of the Titans. I think the flick is a lot of fun myself, although with a fairly dumb script and a few scenes too derivative from Harryhausen's earlier works.

Why should anyone care? Because, for reasons which escape me completely, they're going to remake it.

Okay, which lame-to-okay SF/fantasy film would you like to write a new script for? Can't be a good one -- no reason, for instance, to update The Day The Earth Stood Still besides minting new money. I mean a movie that really could use a decent buff-and-wax job. Besides the fact that I'm actually working on Manos: The Musical of Fate, I'd happily take a crack at an update of Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster.

Comments

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

Manos: The Musical of Fate

Torgo approves. :)

[solarbird]

A local theatre group did a Plan 9 From Outer Space musical. Funniest thing I've ever seen in a theatre. The only sad thing was that they never released a CD of the songs. I'd have bought it in a second.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

There have been a couple of, luckily, still born attempts to remake "Day The Earth Stood Still", "Forbidden Planet", "When Worlds Collide". These are all just about perfect films, no need to remake them.

As to Japanese Giant Monster Films, they're still working on those, there's a new Gamara film in the works, so you might see that.

I'd love to see something in the vein of "Destination: Moon" or "Moon Zero Two" but I don't know if we can make films like that after 1969.

I'll have to think about this...

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Actaully Destination Moon could be remade pretty easily. Basically the big Macguffin is still the atomic drive, and our heroes the intrepid Dot-Com billionaire funding the thing, the Ex-NASA engineer who develops the drive, a crusty old general, and The Guy From Brooklyn who asks all the stupid questions.

Instead of the Communist Menace threatening to shut down the project, its NASA defending its entrenched spaceflight monopoly. Instead of the goal being just getting to the Moon, it's getting to the Moon to prove anyone can do it, not just a honking big government agency. You wouldn't even have to change the problem at the end. Cutting apart the spaceship to save weight would be visually pleasing enough for the big screen still.

[solarbird]

This Island Earth, in its current form, has a brilliantly creepy first half hour, slips a bit in the second real, and the third real is kind of just a mess. I'd love to see that made with a script that holds together the whole way through.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. a good remake of "This Island Earth" could work. While it has some of the great icon imagery in science fiction history, it could be ripe for remake.

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

Maybe Circuitry man...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099271/
--
It came so close to being Great...

[youngcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

Star Trek: Nemesis or TMP. Or Episodes I and II. (And if you gave me a crack at a certain section of Serenity ...)

[eleri.livejournal.com]

OMG! Clash of the Titans was my Favoritest Movie Ever as a kid! It just won't be the same without cheezy special effects, though.

Manos: Musical of Fate? You scare, me maaannn (hides her half finished script for Principia Discordia: The Musical)

[hughcasey.livejournal.com]

Assuming they can be done well (and that's a big assumption these days)...

A new "Sinbad" movie.

The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

THEM!

Colossus: The Forbin Project

I'm sure I'll think of others...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Now, y'see? For all its cheese, I think the original Creature from the Black Lagoon is a truly good little film. Good script, good acting, good direction, and most of all creepy atmosphere being cranked again and again and again and again until you're ready to frickin' shriek.

And Julia Adams in a white one-piece didn't hurt, either.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Well, it all depends on what you call a "bad" movie. I loved Clash of the Titans when I was a kid, but cannot watch it now for the many, many reasons already discussed to hate it. In that light, Disney's The Black Hole was another movie I enjoyed when I was young and think they could do wonderful things with now, but was it truly "bad?"

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. With a good script and no cute robots, that one could rock.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Krull?

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Oh good grief - the film that strove to set a record for the most Dues-ex-machina solutions within a 2 hour period?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I'm not real happy about them re-making Clash of the Titans. It's from my childhood, and as silly as it is it still registers as perfect in my mind. But I do know one Harryhausen flick that could use a good re-write:

Jason and the Argonauts

Now before you scream heresy, bear with me. The film has a marvelouslly creepy beginning, as the invading general seals his fate with his own hubris in typical Greek fashion. The middle is great, with Hercules and Jason, and the Argonauts having a fine adventure. But then the film just stops after the great Skeleton Fight. We never see Jason come home bearing the Fleece to bring justice to the land and defeat the general. There's literally nothing left after he jumps that cliff. It left me a bit cold.

[nubianamy.livejournal.com]

Tron?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

See the video game Tron 2.0. :)

[wouldyoueva.livejournal.com]

The Phantom Menace, with decent writing

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Those two don't go together, I think. You'd have to have a totally new script, not just a rewrite'n'update.

Besides, TPM wasn't lame-to-OK. It was absolutely horrible!

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Attack of the Beast Creatures

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I would like to create a studio called "B Back" that does nothing but remake those classic movies like "The Crawling Eye" with new effects and new scenes. It would bring back the old reasons we watched movies - just to be entertained. No heavy messages. No deep meanings. Nothing but an excuse to get out of the house for an afternoon and eat popcorn with friends.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Isn't that what "A Sci-Fi Original Movie" is all about? Cheezy monsters to be laughed at on a Saturday afternoon?

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

CLASH 0F THE TITANS seems to have a curious cult following. The people who are jumping up and down saying "That was my favorite movie as a little kid" really make me feel old, since I was privileged to visit that movie set and I wasn't exactly "little" at the time. My new assistant at work is one of these. Pass the Geritol whilst I don my Serenity undergarments.

Maybe these new screenwriters are going to actually OPEN a Greek Mythology text or two? One can only hope.

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

Hey! This is a great idea for a panel at DucKon ... and since you came up with the idea, would you like to be one of the panelists?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'm not averse. Find out the rest of my schedule, and e-mail me about it.

[djonn]

Dungeons & Dragons would be a candidate, easy -- that one badly needed a smarter script, and I kept seeing Justin Whalen as Jimmy Olsen dropped into a spaghetti fantasy.

The Last Starfighter may be slightly too okay to qualify for this category, but is worth thinking about.

If we stretch the mandate to allow a theatrical remake of an old TV series, my first pick would be, hands down, Man From Atlantis.

I second the motion

[paulk54321.livejournal.com]

Dungeons and Dragons gets my vote too, as well as a complete reworking of all three Star Wars prequels. What else? Let's see... Armegeddon, and King Kull starring Hercules, um, Kevin Sorbo.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

They've also announced a remake of "Revenge of the Nerds".

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

Head-splodey.

[hughcasey.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ooh! Just thought of another one!

The Valley of Gwangi!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065163/

Dinosaurs and cowboys! What more could you want!?

[tnatj.livejournal.com]

Popeye with better music and a stronger script.

Does Robin Williams have a son?
Does Shelley Duval have a daughter?

Oh, well. Cast was great, execution execrable.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'd go for, perhaps, a funnier script. Jules Pfieffer was a huge fan of the original Thimble Theater, and it showed in every line, but he wrote a clever script, a witty script, and you know how I feel about clever and witty vs. actually funny.

And, yeah, the music was beyond awful. Thanks, Nilsson, you shmuck.

[farnex.livejournal.com]

How 'bout...

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom...very low budget film I liked as a kid
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090333/

The Wizard...Basically just a commercial for Nintendo but with PS3 coming out we are due for a blatent film like that.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098663/

Again I second Krull

Young Sherlock Holmes was and still is one of my favorites so I don't know if that one should be remade. That film was one of the first to use digital effects.

loved Clash of the Titans but I understand why they might want to update it

oh...and they are remaking the Fly again...just 20 years after Cronenberg remade it in 86. Hollywood is creatively bankrupt. It is like we need the last story on earth to save it. Maybe a musical about a guy named George who tries to be a hero called the Waffle. Nah...that'll never happen. They'll remake Gigli before that happens. Too bad.

[romlc475.livejournal.com]

While I'd love to see an updated Day the Earth Stood Still, as it doens't qualify, I'd shoot for one of the following:

Dark Star (http://imdb.com/title/tt0069945/)

Donovan's Brain (http://imdb.com/title/tt0045699/)

or

The Brain from Planet Arous (http://imdb.com/title/tt0050210/)

[sifractusfortis.livejournal.com]

Dark Star is a brilliant work of art that needs to be left just as is. Future generations will look back on it as a turning point in cinematic history.

No, really. I'm fine. Put the straitjacket away...

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

If I got insanely rich, I'd film When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide. The version that got made sucked, but I'd love to see a good version made.

It'd be kick-ass. Especially when Bronson Beta almost misses the Earth, which gets stretched out like a hard boiled egg. Or the scene from the line "...or at the last horrible moment, finding themselves falling into the sky..."

[farnex.livejournal.com]

Um....They are making When Worlds Collide. Look for it later this year.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455856/

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

I stand by my remake of Manos as follows: written and directed by the Coen Brothers, starring John Goodman and Frances McDormand as Michael and Margaret, Bruce Campbell as The Master, Johnny Depp as Torgo, and a special appearance by Mike Nelson and Bridget Jones as the couple necking in the sports car.

[fraggedone.livejournal.com]

Santa Claus VS The Martians