December 12, 2008

Remake hell

Dear Hollywood: Please, please, please do not remake Forbidden Planet. The original is fine; we don't need another one.

UPDATE: Inspired by the horrible reviews of the remake of The Day the Earth stood still. Which is another classic science fiction film which didn't need a remake. Also Invasion of the Body Snatchers didn't need one.

Sometimes they get it right the first time.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:51 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1

I saw an interview with Harlan Ellison where he talked about a studio exec offering him the chance to write the script for a Forbidden Planet remake.  Harlan told him that the film didn't need to be remade, but suggested that the studio (which owned the rights to the film) should instead do a "prequel" about the Krell, and how their invention ended up destroying them.  That idea might be doable, though I'd prefer that it be animated so that the Krell could be depicted as being non-human.

Posted by: Siergen at December 12, 2008 12:50 PM (r8Jwd)

2

What's that abou history repeating itself, the second time as farce?

Somebody tell Hollywood.  Please.

Posted by: ubu at December 12, 2008 01:40 PM (i7ZAU)

3 Just more proof that Hollywood is utterly and completely  out of ideas. Of course, they're starting to discover anime, so there's a whole other country full of ideas they can screw up. 

Posted by: EvilOtto at December 12, 2008 01:42 PM (X+4PK)

4 Keanu Reeves as Klaatu--they might as well have changed the title, too:

The Day The Earth Went "Whoa"



Posted by: atomic_fungus at December 12, 2008 03:16 PM (hK08M)

5 An old time screen writer and script doctor said that these days the better scripts are being turned out by TV writers instead of the movie guys........that is so broken on so many levels. Due to the big deflation dead wood is starting to get trimmed in Hollywood. It is predicted that money for new production is going to be tight since the recent average ROI on Hollywood movies has been so crappy. I wonder how many Hollywood name actors could make it as voice actors in Anime?

Posted by: toadold at December 12, 2008 04:03 PM (zcbXo)

6

Depends on how big a name "big name" is. Disney got some pretty big cannons to do voice-over work on the Miyazaki dubs. And there have been quite a few big-name actors who have done voice work for Pixar.

Plus, of course, our hero Mako, who made a big contribution to making Samurai Jack what it was.

Mark Hamill has done a lot of voice work. He got a taste for it when doing a radio-play version of Star Wars, and seems to have liked it.

And a lot of actors have done voice work for games, which is nearly the same. "Under a Killing Moon" had a very respectable cast. Most of them were working on film, but James Earl Jones was voice-only. (And he was absolutely awesome.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 12, 2008 05:14 PM (+rSRq)

7 Re:  Mark Hamill- and how!  There's quite a sizable segment of people for whom the definitive Mark Hamill isn't Luke Skywalker. . . its the Joker.

( though Heath Ledger seems to have displaced Hamill as the definitive Joker. . . )

Posted by: metaphysician at December 12, 2008 09:50 PM (h4nEy)

8 James Earl Jones, is the voice over king (This is CNN). Kathleen Turner can do it. I don't follow the game scene but considering the money available I shouldn't be surprised. I've listened to some of the voice work as the nearby teeners sneak in to play it on the King Kong big screen. The work on Gears of something seemed solid. Didn't know about Mark Hamil. I'm having a brain fart and can't remember who was in Spirited Away. I just have trouble picturing Tom Cruise doing it for some reason.

Posted by: toadold at December 12, 2008 11:53 PM (zcbXo)

9

Hamill became a big name in video game work because of the Wing Commander series. But he also did one of the Gabriel Knight games, and was in Full Throttle, and StarSiege, and just a bunch of other stuff.

I've heard that actors really do enjoy doing voice work. It doesn't pay as well, of course, but it's also not as wearing. No makup, no costumes, no hot lights, just you and a microphone in an anechoic chamber. It does mean you have only your voice to work with to convey what you're supposed to; no facial expressions or body language, but that's not really all that big a deal for a competent actor.

Hamill is also in Avatar. He did the voice of "Fire Lord Ozai", according to IMDB.

I wonder if part of why Hamill likes voice work is because of his face. He got in a pretty serious traffic accident once, and his face got all cut up, and now it's pretty seriously scarred. That happened during the production of Star Wars, in fact, and it gave the makup artists quite a challenge.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 13, 2008 12:04 AM (+rSRq)

10 If you've ever seen the "Star wars Holiday Special" (and I hope for the sake of your sanity you haven't), Hamill is wearing makeup that makes him look like a Ken-doll. Apparently it was made a year or so after the accident.

Posted by: EvilOtto at December 13, 2008 07:40 AM (X+4PK)

11

Stacy Keach also has a major face scar. And he has been doing a lot of narration for documentaries. I wonder if that's related.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 13, 2008 09:41 AM (+rSRq)

12 Another reason actors probably enjoy voice work is that they are trained to do it.  A lot of movie dialog is "looped" (rerecorded) in a studio after the film is cut.  So voice recording is sort of "acting lite"...just as you say.

Hammill got his mug bashed being dopey young kid on a motorcycle (not that I would, er, know anything about that).  He was driving from one parking lot to another and failed to noticed the two lots were not connected and in fact the one he was heading to was four feet lower than the one he was on.  They wrote the scene where Luke gets his face whacked by the ice cave critter into The Empire Strikes Back to proved a cover story for why he looked so different in the second film.  I guess they haven't developed plastic surgery in the SW universe.

Posted by: Toren at December 13, 2008 12:20 PM (1bftB)

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