Why are they remaking Robocop?

[jmowreader]

There were three Robocop films:

Robocop: Alex Murphy gets killed, turned into robot, unleashed on cop killing coke baron
Robocop 2: Murphy still dead, unleashed on cop killing druglord
Robocop 3: Murphy still dead, Ann Lewis gets killed, Murphy fights evil corporation.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees...

Robocop 4: Ann Lewis turned into robot, teamed with Murphy against the Detroit meth trade.

[siligut]

1. I liked the first one

A study on what makes us human.

[Grantuspeace]

5. I'd buy that for a dollar!

Seriously, Hollywood has run out of ideas. So they made all those old TV shows into movies. Dukes of Hazzard, 21 Jump Street, Dark Shadows, McHales Navy etc.

And they have exhausted cartoons shows now too. Supper Man, Batman, Spiderman, Green Hornet, Green Lantern, Scooby Doo etc.

[Orrex]

14. I loved Supper Man

The salad course alone was excellent.

[LP2K12]

2. For the same reason they...

are rebooting Superman.

And the same reason they rebooted/remade Batman, Total Recall, Spider-man, 21 Jump Street, The Three Stooges, Dark Shadows, Judge Dredd, Red Dawn, Evil Dead, The Lone Ranger, etc etc etc.

$$$$$$$$

[TM99]

3. Well that and a

complete and utter lack of talent and creativity.

Why create something new and original when you can just rip off the great and not-so-great films from the past? Just plagiarize them but call it a 'reboot'.

I rarely go to the films these days.

[LP2K12]

4. Exactly!

I'd rather take my kids to see the anniversary re-release of the original Jurassic Park that's coming out than any reboot.

It says something when I'd pay theatre prices to see a film released when I was child over any of the new "reboots."

[jmowreader]

16. And they better release the thing in its original form!

You know they could make about five new versions of that...

Jurassic Park 3-d
Jurassic Park with Extra Dinos
Jurassic Park with Richard Attenborough getting eaten (this was his fate in the book - he was eaten by compys, which were the most vicious dinos even though no one realized it...they were created as shit eaters, but compys don't take shit off anyone)
Jurassic Park with sex scene between Sam Neill and Laura Dern

...and ultimately the best one:

Dinosaurs on an Island, where Samuel L. Jackson (he was chief engineer in the original) screams, "I have had it with these motherfucking raptors on this motherfucking island!" then pulls out the .50-caliber machine gun he brought to Isla Nublar without Hammond's knowledge or permission, mounts it on a gas jeep, puts Dr. Harding behind the wheel, and machineguns dinos at 50 mph until he finds the paleontologists and kids.m

[geardaddy]

11. Exactly.

That's why I watch independent movies.

[Orrex]

15. You mean for the same reason that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote more than one Holmes story?

And how many remakes of Jane Eyre or Hamlet or Frankenstein have there been, some of them dating back to the silent film era? And that's just the big screen: how many revivals of Guys and Dolls or West Side Story have we seen?

I'd love it if someone could point me to a time in the past, say, 100 years when the entertainment industry wasn't driven by profits.

The fact is that sequels and remakes are nothing new. If such a film can be made in an interesting and/or entertaining manner, then so be it.

That's not an argument against innovation, by the way; it's an argument against over-fetishism of novelty.

[jmowreader]

18. That's a big if there, Orrex

The remakes aren't as entertaining as the originals.

I can think of one movie that absolutely has to be remade: Breakfast at Tiffany's. The original has two problems: extreme racism and the look of a 1960s made for TV movie. If you watch the special features on the DVD you'll learn they regretted casting a white guy as Yunioshi while they were making the movie. You could go two ways: cast a Japanese actor as Yunioshi, or change the name and cast anyone you want. The superintendent being Japanese doesn't affect the movie; a Japanese superintendent played by a white guy is cringeworthy.

[Orrex]

21. The remake of The Fly is better than the original.

As is the remake of The Thing, and the Donald Sutherland version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Heck, the same is certainly true of True Grit. We can debate whether or not they "needed" to be remade, but the fact is that the remakes surpass the originals. As long a remake has the potential to bring something new and interesting to the telling, then I say that they should keep making them.

Absolutely can't argue with your point re: Breakfast at Tiffany's, though.

[TM99]

29. Ok, simple question

Name me one actress of this current young generation who is an Audrey Hepburn.

Yes, I will wait.

This film was a product of the 1960's and is a classic. Shall we go back and re-do every film and every story that does not fit with our more modern or post-modern sensibilities?

Of course not.

[TM99]

28. Well...

Hamlet is timeless. Sure, I expect writers, directors, etc. to attempt to create their own vision of it. Some work and are magnificent. Others don't and suck. It is like the stage where great plays are done over and over with new actors getting a chance to experience and express a role.

Doyle's works were not exactly sequels like Final Destination #5 now I believe. He wrote Holmes as a serial. Young Indiana Jones or Doctor Who are better comparisons to that.

But do we really need reboot after reboot of movies so of which aren't even 25 years old? Robocop? Seriously? B-grade horror films?

So yes, I agree innovation is one thing but we are pass that now. We are well entrenched in the over-fetishism of novelty as you put it. Everything has to be a blockbuster, whether it is a new film, a reboot of a film, a pop star, or the latest i-gadget.

[HughBeaumont]

6. When it comes to their movies, Americans hate change.

It's why everything keeps coming back like slicked-up yo-yos.

They couldn't even leave Clash of the Titans or Hairspray alone.

[LeftinOH]

7. Still waiting for the big-budget remake of 'Avatar';

the original was a long time ago, folks.

[LP2K12]

8. Nah...

I'm waiting on the reboot of 'Titanic'

[Aristus]

9. Yeah. And tip: This time, don't sink the ship!

Think of the franchise potential!...

[mythology]

10. Wouldn't that be the

reboat of Titanic?

[kentauros]

32. You'd have to

Das Boot the Titanic to re-boat it

[JPZenger]

12. First one was a classic, worthy of a remake

Unfortunately, the 2nd one was horrid. They tried to improve in later versions.

[jmowreader]

13. The third was worse than the second

It was so bad Peter Weller refused to be in it...

Rule 1 of making sequels: when your franchise is about a person, the same person needs to be in all the movies.

[Orrex]

17. I agree. Especially if the film series is about a British spy.

[jmowreader]

19. I got about halfway through one of those movies and left

James Bond does lots of fucking and fighting and little to no intelligence collection. Selling Bond as the last of the world's great adventurers would have been fun. They aren't looking to bring vast numbers of actual intelligence officers to the theater, because the last thing an intelligence officer wants to do is watch a movie about a spy - Hollywood almost always screws those up.(Red was good, but it wasn't a spy movie so much.)

[Orrex]

20. To be fair, they seldom target films so specifically

I can't remember the last movie that was marketed toward far-sighted, left handed jugglers who work in customer service, yet somehow I manage to find films that are entertaining. Worse, when they do portray far-sighted, left handed jugglers who work in customer service, they invariably get it wrong in some preposterous way,

At the risk of sermonizing, fiction is a synthesis of reality and not a 100% faithful recreation of it. If the end product is engaging and entertaining, then it's a success. If it misses the mark in some critical way, then it's a failure, though it might still score big at the box office.


Regarding the Bond films, they are not all created equal. Some are almost entirely unwatchable, but others are quite good. I won't say that you need to roll the dice on another, but bear in mind that you may have picked a lemon.

[jmowreader]

25. All Bond films have the same problem

Fucking and fighting but no spying.

True Lies was what Bond films should be: fucking, fighting AND spying.(Well, almost fucking if Jamie Lee wouldn't have kicked him in the balls when he tried it.)

[Orrex]

26. True Lies? Really?

Horrible film. Horrible.


And how can you be such an expert on the problem of Bond films when you claim only to have seen half of one?

[TeamPooka]

22. $$$$

[MicaelS]

23. Same reason they do any remake - Money.

Think about it this way:

They don't have to buy the script of a screenwriter who has written something entirely original, for which said screenwriter is going to want a cut of everything, including sequels. They don't have to pay some author big bucks for the rights to his brand new best-selling book, and give him a percentage of everything.

They already own the rights to the characters, the scripts, the original films. They have a "product" with public knowledge of the characters. Saves money on publicity right there. "Oooh, Robocop, I watched that a bunch of times when I was a kid. I'd like to see a new one." All they have to do is hire producers and a director, who will probably do much of the re-imagining and script themselves, hire a writer or three to polish the script, hire some actors and go make a movie.

BTW, ever seen all the versions of Ben-Hur? 1907, 1925, 1959, 2003, 2010? Both versions of The Maltese Falcon? 1931, 1941? Remakes are nothing new in Hollywood.

[Yavin4]

24. In Defense of Hollywood...

Making a big budget, action movie takes a considerable investment, any where between $20 and $100 million. So, those movies that have a track record and/or an audience that will show up on opening weekend get the green light. RoboCop has some brand loyalty, and if the reboot is well made, then it will be a good investment.

In contrast, look at the movie, John Carter, a big-budget sci-fi movie without a strong brand. That movie tanked on its opening weekend.

[CJCRANE]

27. They should just re-release the original.

I'd go and watch it again on the big screen.

Most of the big sci-fi movies of the 80s are worthing again as is.

[jmowreader]

30. As long as they don't make it 3-d, I'm with you

And they should release the version that's now on Blu-ray, with ALL the violence intact.

[Odin2005]

31. Because the bean-counters rule Holywood, now.

Remakes and sequels are less risky than creativity and originality.

And the bean-counters are the kind of people who couldn't recognize creativity even if it slapped them in the face.

[datasuspect]

33. i know, right?

the original ones sucked already.

why come we need more suck?