The Death of Original Thought

The Rec) It's difficult to wake up every day to write about the goings on in Hollywood. Unless my topic is the rapidly decomposing body of Anna Nicole Smith or the latest sociopathic drug rampage of Britney Spears, any story coming out of (ahem) Tinseltown involves one word that has started to make me throw up a little: REMAKE. In recent days, studio dumbfucks have released breathless press statements describing the newest remake, reimagining, reiteration, or regurgitation of previously released material for a motion picture. They somehow do this without any hint of irony, shame, or greed. And then all of the movie blogs around the world report it, repeating the news ad nauseum and inadvertantly fueling interest. Sure, sometimes they express disgust at the latest necrophilia by the studio system, but they mainly discuss how "it might work." No, it won't. It rarely ever does. Once upon a time, Hollywood realized that true blockbusters were the ones that came from left field, those out-of-the-clear-blue-sky wonders that caught people by surprise and blazed a new path in movies (whew - that's a lot of cliches in one sentence!). Films like "Wizard of Oz," or "Citizen Kane," or "Gone With the Wind," or "Jaws," or "Star Wars," or "E.T." Yes, the production of these classic films was risky at the time, but they paid off handsomely. Additionally, they provided prestige for the studios, a name film that they could call on to boost their image and respect both inside and outside of the system. Remakes, on the other hand, were far from common. The first fifty years of Hollywood's history contained almost no remakes, and the few made were usually remakes of previously written works, such as the Exodus account from the Bible, or the likes of "Dracula" or "Frankenstein." After that, a remake was attempted because the original source material could not be fully realized due to technological deficiencies or restrictive standards of the time. For example, remakes such as "The Thing" and "The Blob" were able to fully flesh out the source material with special effects that were not possible in the fifties. A remake like "The Fly" could not only bring further advances in science and special effects into the story, but also layers of adult situations that were not possible to explore in the fifties. But now, remakes are all the rage. Did you know that there are at least 35 major remakes in various stages of development, such as a remake of Scanners as reported by Obsessed With Film? This number does not count direct to DVD remakes such as the Weekend at Bernies remake reported today by Cinematical, or direct sequels in production like Die Hard 4, Indy 4, and Fantastic Four 2 as reported by First Showing. It's digusting. The films require very little planning or actual original thought, make a quick buck off of the name recognition, and then disappear. The movie studios of Hollywood have become the equivalent of a local produce market, where they put their rotten bananas up front to sell quickly and make a couple of cents. Meanwhile, audiences continue to drop at the theater, and no phenomenons like "Star Wars" on the horizon to fill them up and keep them interested. Sure, "Transformers" will make a Fort Knox-sized killing on its opening weekend. But it will take something more original and fresh to transform the sickly, brain-dead state of Hollywood's diminishing returns.