There are certain stories that just crop up over and over and over.
17 Again is a new film starring Zac Efron – he of the screaming girls, photoshopped smile and unlikely High School career. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out the plot; I was able to guess the entire logline from the title and I’m sure you will too. After all, we’ve already seen the film when it was made as Freaky Friday or Peggy Sue Got Married or Like Father Like Son or even 18 Again (the new movie is NOT a remake of this George Burns vehicle). We’ve also seen the reverse plot device of a magically aged teenager with Big or 13 Going on 30 or many others.
Let’s do the Time Warp again!
Hollywood is obsessed with adults reliving their teens or teens exeriencing adulthood. Something about the ability to see the world through the eyes of a different generation fascinates the US screenwriter. Trouble is, there’s not a great deal new to say within this bizarre subgenre. I don’t think anyone ever really expected teen bodyswapping to become a virtual genre all by itself, but the continual return to this theme must say something about the American psyche.
Sure, there’s humour to be gained in that age gap, with plenty of material squeezed out of quaint ideas of what each generation considers ‘cool’. Sure, these scripts contain really easy character arcs as maturity is learned or stuffy discipline is unlearned. But surely we don’t need to see the same film again. And again.
Scary remakes
This constant harkening to old stories is not restricted to ageist melodrama. Hollywood is currently going through a revival of ’70s and ’80s popcorn, recycling all those classic horror movies as bland remakes for the modern teen audience. My Bloody Valentine came out this month, attempting to outdo the original version with the inclusion of 3D. According to critics – it doesn’t. This follows similar remakes like Halloween, Prom Night, The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror and more – each critically panned by movie pundits old enough to remember them the first time round. A Nightmare on Elm Street is currently being reheated ready to be served unceremoniously to a new audience who wouldn’t have even been alive when the franchise started over twenty years ago.
Why this constant desire to dredge up perfectly good films and turn them into wholely unremarkable wastes of celluloid? Don’t today’s teens have DVD players? Can’t they hire or download the originals? It is a fallacy for Hollywood to think that the box office audience has a short enough memory to get away with this lazy plagiarism. Constantly chasing the teen dollar (for they make up the bulk of horror audiences) fails to cultivate an interest in original cinema that harkens to the future instead of always looking back.
Immitation as the best form of flattery?
The studios know anyone over the age of 25 doesn’t need the hype of a new release to enjoy a well-produced movie. That’s why we’re not inundated with remakes of Casablanca or… Hang on. This year sees the production or release of The Taking of Pelham 123, The Birds (yes, I know!), Straw Dogs (eek), The Dirty Dozen, Death Wish (with Stallone standing in for Bronson!) and a host more. So yeah, Hollywood is determined to recycle virtually every hit from 30-40 years ago in a bizarre attempt to strike gold twice in the same spot instead of digging in fresh territory.
But, with remakes almost condemned to failure by comparison with the classic originals, the tactic can only ever be seen as a cynical ploy. Ther quality or worth of the remake is not the issue – merely a familiar ‘brand’ attracting enough bums on seats to make a profit. Evven if the audience decries the film as a stinker and even if critics tear it to shreds, if the box office is recouped with a profit, you can bet Hollywood will continue to trawl through the archives for other classics available for desecration.
The answer is clear. I am starting work right now on my new screenplay – set in the early ’70s, featuring a supernatural psychopath who is cursed to relive his teenage years and learn the meaning of fun by murdering his high school class mates.
…under “Scary Remakes”……
Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!
And “lazy plagiarism” it is. It can’t be just “plagiarism”, it’s got to be “lazy” as well.
All the hype about people stealing others’ intellectual property is just that — hype! One day Hollywood will be nothing because of the tech advantages that keep on ticking…. and Hollywood not abiding by its’ own rules, i.e. insisting on being paid handsomely for originality! Kudos to all Indie filmmakers out there who keep doing what they do. One day we’ll all feast on THEIR (the Indies’) brilliant originality! Until then, I suspect we’re in for a whole bunch of fatted calves that Hollywood keeps insisting on slaughtering.
Jonathan, thank you for your website, CopyWrite. I very much enjoy it!
back when i was a young, impressionable bureaucrat, and older, wiser and more cynical bureaucrat who i looked up to told me that with any policy i wrote or implemented or just stumbled upon i should take a copy, stash it in my desk drawer, and pull it out ten years later – people will no doubt think it is new and fresh, and hence think that you are the prince of all bureaucrats. turns out he was right. my career however was short-lived, because as it turns out i was more of an independent film-maker style of bureaucrat and i had too many new and original ideas that people didn’t wanna hear.
hollywood’s no different – politics, media and mainstream entertainment all pander to the same lazy, populist audiences.
imhfo, anyways…