No Escape From Remakes

So why is it that Aristeo and I have all these great ideas for movies, and yet Hollywood keeps coming out with the cash in rehash? You know what I am talking about. Horror seems to be the victim genre of choice nowadays. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Friday the 13th,” and “Rob Zombie’s Halloween.” Wait. Rob Zombie? Wasn’t it “John Carpenter’s Halloween?” Not anymore. This is Hollywood we are talking about here. Classic such as the films listed above are all being remade for a new generation of moviegoers. Instead of renting the original and appreciating the old school (and for the most part only good) classics. I am sick of all the remakes coming out. It won’t be long before we are awaiting the remake of “The Matrix Trilogy,” or “The Star Wars Saga.”

In all of this, you would think the original creators would be furious. Well, all of them save for John Carpenter. That man has really stopped giving a shit. The main literally sits at home, plays video games, and eats fried chicken. Then, occasionally, he might sell the rights to one of his classic films. He did it with “The Fog,” which sucked so much ass compared to the original. Then he did it with “Halloween,” and sold the rights to Rob Zombie. Now, the biggest sin of them all is upon us. New Line Cinema has purchased the rights to remake “Escape From New York” starring “300s” Gerard Butler. This has to be one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. The original “EFNY” is a fantastic movie. Kurt Russell’s performance as Snake Plissken is awesome. If any performance can be compared to the badass Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood), it’s Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken. No disrespect to Gerard Butler, because the man was badass in “300,” but nobody can play Snake but Kurt Russell. Hell, I even like the often misinterpreted “Escape From L.A.”
For the last few years, Carpenter has been talking about the idea that he had for a third film, starring Kurt Russell. While plots details have been scarce, the title was “Escape From Earth,” and could have easily been a badass swan song to the franchise. Instead, the studio was not interested in bringing Snake Plissken back to the big screen. Thus, it falls under the “development hell” category never to see the light of day. Since “300” broke box office records and Gerard Butler’s star power is on the rise, studios were fighting over the rights to remake “EFNY.” This is bullshit. There was actually a bidding war (that New Line Cinema eventually won) over a film that last year nobody wanted to see. The worst part of this is that Kurt Russell and John Carpenter own the rights to the character, so not only did they know about the remake but they gave their consent to use the character.

New details have surfaced about the film in a recent interview with John Carpenter. While talking to The Suicide Girls, Carpenter said “I don’t know that it’s a remake. I think it’s a lot about Snake before he gets to New York.” Oh, so now we are going into the back story of the character? Well he’s fucked now. The reason that “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” was scarier because of Sheriff Hoyt (not Leatherface) and the reason why “Rob Zombie’s Halloween” will fall flat is because they delve into the character’s back story and try to explain the mystery behind the mask. The reason why Snake was so cool, or why Michael Myers was originally so scary, was because they had a mystery about them. Things that were never fully explained and the audience never seemed to mind. I personally do not care why Snake lost his eye, who the fuck Fresno Bob is, what happened in Cleveland and why everyone in New York thought Plissken was dead. They are answering questions that nobody seems to be asking (much like why Leatherface uses a chainsaw. Fuck you, Michael Bay).

At this stage I am almost positive that “Escape From New York” will be a huge hit. The fans will hail Gerard Butler and his star power will increase while everyone forgets that the original ever existed. The film will be a box office smash and then they will make sequels. But wait, they won’t be sequels starring Kurt Russell. Oh no. We’ll see sequels based off of the remake instead. Snake Plissken will be escaping from quite a few places, and the inevitable punch in the face will come when Kurt Russell has a cameo in one of the sequels. Maybe as Snake Plissken’s father. Okay, I’m getting pissed just thinking about it.

The end all and be all quote this week comes from Clint Morris, who works over at Moviehole.net. The man put it bluntly when he said, "To remake “The Hills Have Eyes”, “Black Christmas”, “Weekend at Bernies”, “Spies Like Us”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Birds”… that’s fuckin ludicrous if you ask me – and if they had of asked me, we wouldn’t have been having this conversation; ha, who am I kidding? – Because they’re films that not only hold up well, but the studios don’t want to do anything different them besides make every character in the film under 20 and straight from The CW. The storyline, the twists, the turns… and the endings… are usually pretty much the same. It’s lazy fuckin’ filmmaking."

Amen.