Happy New Year, n all that……..
So I’m back in an airport lounge again, up since 5 am and on my way to a battery of meetings in a foreign land – which is to say, 2011 begins much as 2010 ended.
And so, with typical no-real-sleep crankiness, here’s something that struck me as I was blundering through a bunch of brightly lit media punts for the next generation of mindless wank-fantasy screen entertainment: riddle me this:
In all seriousness, which of these two tattooed fictional women impresses you as the most dangerous.
See the problem?
Doesn’t give you much hope for the American re-make of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, does it.
My daughter totally agrees with you – an American re-make of anything sucks, not just the casting but Americans usually miss the entire point of whatever was the original. Her latest gripe is a preview of the American version of Skins, which btw, she sees while watching Nikita. (A show that she “makes” me watch.) Your link to the promo pic of Nikita is nothing like what she looks like in the couple of eps I’ve seen, anyway. In fact, I can’t quite put my finger on it, and I’ll have to take a re-look at the comic, but something about the Nikita photo reminds me of the Black Widow.
Hope you get more sleep…
Even remakes of american movies are typically awful. I wonder how bad “The Mechanic” remake is. The 2009 “Pelham 123″ was painful.
An American re-make of anything sucks, not just the casting but Americans usually miss the entire point of whatever was the original.
My response: True Grit. ’nuff said.
apart from Nikita (La femme Nikita, that is), there were quite a few other french movies they totally ruined by remaking them. Vide “Taxi”, which was a mindless yet brilliant french action comedy. And then they did their thing. Yuck. At least they left The Transporter alone (which was, in the end, french).
Hollywood does suck but until Europe starts doing it even near the same zip code of our ball park you are stuck with 99 percent bullshit and 1 percent spectacular. (i.e. true grit)
Here, here on Pelham 123 – the original was superb. The remake had me tearing my hair out.
Actually, Hollywood doesn’t suck per se (Coen Brothers, anybody? Michael Mann? Scorsese? Bigelow?). It’s just that facile and superficial aspect of Hollywood that seems so drawn to blockbuster and re-make territory -presumably because both hold out the same (often illusory) promise of easy cash for minimal artistic effort.
Interestingly, La Femme Nikita is actually a Canadian production (though targetted pretty solidly, I think, at onward sales to US networks).
I’m Glad the Only Aussie “Classic” Tarnished thus far with the American Remake is “Kath & Kim”…
And my Sweet BBQ’D Dingo was it absoloute Tripe..
Such a Great peice of Australian Comedy Tv….
You would be hard pressed to stuff up the movie-version of the Millenium trilogy any worse than Niels Oplev did with Dragon Tattoo. One of the most disappointing book-to-film projects I have EVER seen. Boring, boring, boring. I am actually looking forward to the US version if only in the hope that it is a second chance at redemption.
For reference, here are the recently released photos of Rooney Mara in Dragon Tattoo costuming. http://www.wmagazine.com/celebrities/2011/02/rooney_mara_girl_with_the_dragon_tattoo_film
This is the American version of lisbeth salander:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hongkonggarden/2753890413/
I don’t watch this show (ncis) but I noticed this character on the tv at my in-laws’s house and it caught my eye as a crass, Americanized rip off of Larsson’s character. The pigtails, short skirt, goth affect, and she’s a brilliant forensics expert! Ug.
@ Koops
Have to agree to disagree on that one – I loved the movie, I thought it was exactly the return to gravitas in thrillers that I’ve been jonesing for the last decade or so. Then again, I couldn’t get into the books at all, I hated the style pretty much from page one, and bailed out early. So I had no points for comparison or expectations to be disappointed.
@ Jason
Yep, looks to me like they’re barrelling down exactly the wrong road – though I supose it’s a bit unfair to judge on an article written for a celebrity magazine. But if this is accurate, they appear to be heading for that good old substitute for genuine dramatic intensity, lots of ennervating blood and gore – perhaps to cover for the fact they’ll almost certainly cut or abridge the rape and revenge sequences, which to be honest are pretty central to the whole point of the film. Blood, blood, blood. Yawn. The horror in the Swedish film was conveyed – brutally effectively – with barely any visible blood at all.
Are you kidding? I couldnt be more confident about the remake of dragon tatt for one simple reason: David Fincher. He is about as far from your typical hollywood hack as its possible to get. Has the man made a bad movie yet? (apart from Alien 3-not his fault-studio interference) The guy is the real deal-true visual and narrative artist through and through.
As for the next big mindless wank fantasy I already told you about it months back: Suckerpunch. Except hopefully it wont be mindless. If “wank fantasy” were a genre though I think it would fall squarely within it if the trailer is anything to go by:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrIiYSdEe4E
I’m unfamiliar with the gwtdt but the 2nd one is a no-brainer to your question.
I’m pretty positive the American version will bomb. Anything mainstream h-town touches turn to shit, but there are some talented filmmakers here who hover below the radar.
And on a private note, the girl in the first picture looks about as real as the plastic case wrapped around my cell phone.
Asian Cinema’s more up my alley and probably the majority of people who read this blog.
@ David Lynch
I think you’ve undermined your case for optimism there with those two fateful words: studio interference. I’m also a big fan of Fincher’s work, and yes, he’s certainly capable of carrying the same dark intensity of the original movie. But will they let him? Studio interference ruined Alien 3, studio interference pretty clearly tacked an incongruous feel-good ending onto The Game, and if Hollywood scuttlebutt is to be believed, only Brad Pitt’s refusal to star in Seven unless the ending stayed as it was prevented studio interference from doing the same thing there.
With the best will in the world, I simply don’t believe the mainstream Hollywood machine has the stomach for the original film’s examination of misogyny, nor for its realist portrayals of human bodies and sexual relations. So we’ll get Daniel Craig’s airbrushed actorlete physique in place of Mikael Blomqvist’s well-built but slightly flabby over-the-hill male, and if the original Lisbeth Salander’s hairy underarms, flat chest and scrawny physique survive the transition I’ll be gobsmacked.
I saw Alien3. I’m a huge fan of the Alien franchise. His bit was mind blowing. And I loved it even more once I saw the director’s cut.
When I first saw Seven, a while after the buzz had subsided – I believe I watched it on DVD – I remained nonplussed. Impeccable acting, great camerawork and directing, but I’m not that much of a noir fan. Everybody had raved about it, I got why, I simply didn’t join in.
I still don’t understand how The Game works, because even though I’ve seen it many times, I still find myself wondering, watching it, if something hasn’t actually gone very wrong for Michael Douglas’ character. I just get hooked in.
And Fight Club… is, in my opinion, a masterpiece, because of the subtlety of the layers, and the sheer mastery it displays of everything that goes into a movie.
Then, alas, not unlike Virginia C. Andrews, Fincher died, and was replaced by someone else who kept the same pen name for franchise purposes. Seriously, what else could explain, after four in four amazing works, the feeling you get while watching a camera pan through a coffee pot without the social critcism it implied in Fight Club (Panic Room), the painful minutiae of recreating how boring the seventies could have been (Zodiac)? The only talent I felt in Benjamin Button was actually neutering the vibrant emotions that Brad Pitt and Cat Blanchett, two masterful actors (well, when Pitt gets his mind into it) could generate. The Social Network has a great music score. I forget if the movie was actually running or on a pause while I listened to it.
You say Fincher can carry the dark intensity needed for the film? I say he has been capable of it. I say he was capable of it. But his franchise-ghost cannot. I don’t think Hollywood or the studios will damage Fincher’s remake. I don’t think they will need to. I think he has gone native, now.
Interestingly, Mann, Scorcese AND the Coens all did pretty great re-makes of either their own material (Miami Vice) other, older, American movies (True Grit, Ladykillers) or of movies that were far from needing a “remake” other than them not featuring characters / actors John & Jill Doe American Target Audience could identify with (The Departed – though I have to admit that I personally really don’t know why that Jack Nicholson parodist had to be in this otherwise pretty great movie).
I still believe in Fincher’s ability to pull it off.
Although I must say the trend of remaking perfectly up-to-date European (or Asian) movies as Hollywood strikes me as very odd.
But maybe being German and having grown up with nothing but dubbed movies where the country / language of origin doesn’t make much of a difference on how to market a film might impact on my view of the subject.
PS: Shame on me. The original Ladykillers was of course a British movie, not American.
I still am baffled that any producer or studio exec ever, anywhere, could have thought: “Hey, let’s remake ‘Get Carter’ with Sylvester Stallone instead of Michael Caine. It’ll be even better.”
Still, I think that remakes are indeed a mystery to us foreigners (i.e. non-english natives) because, well, we are kinda used to seeing movies not made in our mother tongue (being French, I tend to avoid a lot of French movies). I fear that is not the case for the main audience of US movie studios.
The saddest examples I’ve seen were movies remade by their own director, at the same time, or nearly enough, as their original movie, but with US actors. “Bangkok Dangerous” was a terrifying illustration of why it shouldn’t be done.
PS: Of course, even though I don’t say it at the beginning of every other sentence, we are talking about art, and so deeply subjective opinions and judgements. I don’t expect for a second to hold the Truth here, in the comments I make on movies. I do believe I am right and agree with myself on this, me usually seeing eye to eye with the first two, but that’s all. No attack on anyone intended.
They are going to remake ‘Let the Right One In’ as well. God, why? I know that in the UK people will watch European films with subtitles, but it’s clear that there seems to be some sort of baulk for US audiences to do the same, but I’m not sure why.
Let The Right One In has been remade and according to critics turned out great. We’ll see I guess.
I’m really not a pessimist in this area since a remake doesn’t really detract from the fact that there is already one version worth looking. Maybe it will be two, maybe not.
I prefer books anyways, though movies are relaxing where books are not (to me anyways).
They are also remaking the epic Total Recall…weird. And The Thing ia gettingna prequel on ‘The Norwegian Camp’. Also not a remake but epic; The Mountains Madness from Del Toro. Cool.
I went to see “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in the cinema when it first came out. As soon as it started and the first subtitle came up two people immediately got up and started to walk out. Sure enough some aspiring comedian shouted out “Haha-cant read” as they left. Cheeky Irish bugger for you.
I have no idea why they did that ridiculous Maggie Q pinup for Nikita- that’s not at all how the character dresses in the show. She’s actually usually a pants, flats, and t-shirt kind of girl. It’s especially sad because Maggie is a genuine badass with actual martial arts training. I’m going to go out on an unpopular limb here and say I like Nikita, or at least feel that the cringe-worthy writing to coolness ratio is starting to tip in coolness’s favor.
Y’know, this reminds me of something I read awhile back- I think it was a New York Times article, but I could be wrong. The writer was talking about how awesome it was that there were all these tiny girls and women kicking ass in movies and tv shows, and it gave me pause. He/she/it was right, but I think it’s a touch disturbing rather than awesome simply because it’s _so_ pervasive. There seems to be a new(ish) unspoken rule that if a female character is badass, she has to be physically tiny to balance it out on some bullshit femininity scale. To just skim the surface: Buffy Summers, Princess Leia, River Tam, Nikita (original and current tv version), Shu Lien (Crouching Tiger), Lisbeth Salander, Trinity, Nairobi, Scarlett J. as Black Widow, Fox(Angelina Jolie in Wanted- not short but scarily emaciated)… the list goes on.
@ damaia
I have a pretty good idea why they did it – to hook line and sinker the basic (and I use the word basic advisedly) male demographic they’re aiming for. I’m willing to believe the poster isn’t overly representative – but to be honest, they’d already lost me with the first series, as soon as I realised that the original movie plot (Nikita is a fucked up junkie thug who kills a couple of cops when she’s caught raiding a pharmacy) had been changed out in favour of a completely innocent homeless woman caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Way to ruin the whole point of the fictional conceit – in the movie, Nikita makes sense as a government killer because she’s already shown she has that psychopathic twist, and the government have an ultimate hold over her; while at one level the film was pure style-crazy escapism, it also addressed some interesting themes of guilt, complicity, state violence and the constructed nature of female “beauty”. The couple of episodes of the TV show that I caught didn’t seem to be addressing anything other than how cool it is to look good and kick ass.
Is Trinity small? I never thought of her that way; certainly the Wachowski’s cinematography didn’t seem to emphasise it if she was, and Carrie Anne Moss always seems to cut a reasonably sized figure on screen in her other movies.
My suspicion is that the tiny kick ass phenomenon probably has more to do with general female actor norms than any specific agenda tied to kick ass roles – by definition, the physical requirements for women in Hollywood and elsewhere are pretty restrictive – young, svelte, feminine, or reasonable facsimiles thereof. That gives small slim women an edge, especially if they’re prepared to go under the knife to acquire the right mammary assets. And bigger women simply have to starve themselves down. That was why I liked Noomi Rapace in TGWTDT so much – she didn’t fit those requirements; any attraction there was came from the intensity of the whole performance; you could see yourself falling for the person, not the body.
Of course, re tiny kick ass women, there’s also the fact that martial arts are an eastern thing, and statistically you get a lot more tiny women (and men) coming out of that part of the world.
@Richard
Shame you didn’t like the style; the books are really good once you get into them. I did find some of the dialogue a little weird; kind of stilted in a way, although I guess that might be a translation issue.
They did go back a bit to the original movie idea of La Femme Nikita with this one (no idea what the first American remake was like- I’ve never seen it). The current Nikita jives more or less with the backstory of the original movie- ketamine addict, death row, etc. I could’ve done without the gratuitous teenage sidekick, though. I’ll give you that. They are trying to do some interesting things with said gratuitous sidekick because she’s the real dynamic character at the moment, whereas Nikita is more or less static. They’ve been attempting some interesting things exploring her relationship with her background as a human-trafficked girl, having the government go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from her previous set of captors, then turn around and sling her into basically the same situation. (But the government using you like this is okay because we’re the Good Guys, doing this for a Good Cause!) Frankly, I liked that she initially froze. It added to the human angle.
I dunno, maybe I’m unfairly biased against the pocket-sized badasses because I was mostly not allowed to fight in women’s divisions at tournaments growing up because I was “too tall”. Might just be my own residual grumpiness talking.
Hi Richard – bit OT, but hadda say am looking forward ginormously to Crysis 2, well, for the obvious reason, dude! But more to tha point, you going to Beastercon, in Brum?
A Thread on Crysis 2 would be timely considering it’s nearly out!!!
Then i could drool all over my keyboard again……
I would also love to hear a little bit about the process of writing for Crysis 2, assuming that you’re out from under the NDAs…
the dialogue on this blog seems a bit like 6 degrees of separation, which may well be the point, however to get back to the original subject matter, yes, most remakes are shit – a notable exception being “ring”… however, one of the things that winds me up the most is rubbish versions of books i like… i hope that creative input is involved in the forthcoming altered carbon.
Advertisers are pulling out of the U.S. remake of Skins – they don’t want to offend any of their consumers. (I say, should we be buying Taco Bell and Wrigley’s chewing gum anyway?) My daughter watched it about 5 minutes and said the casting and acting was awful and that alone should be reason enough to pull out.
Let Me In (Let The Right One In) remake wasn’t too bad. Nearly identical scene for scene, but in all reality unnecessary.
I don’t know why they just don’t dub them in English for the Americans who hate reading and watching at the same time.
One remake that worked in the 70s was Three’s Company – remake of Man About The House. Both series were good.
Robin from Robin’s Nest is still rolling over in his grave
Saw Let Me In remake. I’d say it was a small improvement over original, if not much. More gruesome perhaps, a little more chilling I’d say on thr whole creepyscale. Still the original has that weird otherness you get from listening to another language and seeing foreign habits/people/surroundings.
I’ll second Mike & Freeman’s requests for a Crysis 2 tell-all… even a tell-a-little, as John points out may be necessary. I’m curious – have you had much interaction with Peter Watts on either the game or his planned novel tie-in?
@Walker: You might enjoy this pic of Richard and Peter and the big guy:
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1764
My wife agrees with you Linda P. She has seen the US version of Skins and finds it in exceptionally bad taste that the first two episodes are exact remakes of the UK series with altered names/races.
It’s not just written by the same writer, it’s just a remake
@ Mike, Freeman et al
Sorry guys – NDA is the name of the game, you’ll just have to wait until March!
Time to break out the virtual interrogation software I think….
In other sci-fi news has anyone else heard about the new indie movie called “Another Earth” that just tore it up at Sundance. Clip/trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BLZHxV3Hnw
The Hollywood Reporter said: “The best science fiction tells stories about people in extraordinary environments or situations that serve to open up the vast, still largely unexplored terrain of the human heart. Mike Cahill’s “Another Earth” is science fiction at its best.”
There’s something about the American Nikita’s lead I’ve always likes. She does this kind of tireless, dead eyed thing that might be just bad acting but adds a kind of authenticity to her character.
The other woman looks like a depressed teenager playing dress up.
PS: Iit’s not something that comes across in that Nikita promo picture at all.
I kind of like it too. Last week she actually got to use a samurai sword…
The other woman IS a depressed teenager – I think her background is she was sold as a sex slave or something. But she looks too nice to be so tough.
My big gripe is they’ve let the make-up artist run wild. Last week the guest bad guy was an actor I’m familiar with, but the make-up was so thick he look almost like a kabuki performer.
The producer and writing team that created the original Nikita series for television created a successful remake–24. The women on 24 like those on the original Nikita series covered a wide age range and body shapes.
I am interested in seeing Another Earth. There has not been anything worth while on tv since X-Files and Farscape. It has been years since I found sci-fi movies different and interesting. Most sci-fi movies are limp.
@Richard awwwww thats a shame, but i have seen some of the clips for C2 on the xbox and it looks like the spiritual sucessor to the Half-Life series… and lets face it, there hasn’t been a better sci-fi FPS since that, Deus Ex does come a very close second though, and that is being re-released soon too *Drools*…. and i’m very happy with what i’ve seen and heard from the Multiplayer aspects…. I’m returning all my Call of Duties…. as they have all now been very nice rendered redundent…. Fuck i want me a Nanosuit!!!!
back to the thread at large… saw Truegrit….. Loved it, thought the little girl was just that much better than the original… and how can you fault Jeff Bridges as a Drunken cowboy…. thought the Ending was great to….. the only complaint….. not enough Josh Brolin…..
Wicasa Wakan~!!
Sadly the remake machine that is Hollywood these days is getting quite tiresome indeed. Especially because movies are being remade so soon after their initial release. We Americans just can’t wait to cash in on the next big film trend can we? But don’t feel bad all you non-staters out there for the remakes we produce of our own movies might be even worse then the ones we take from abroad. Nightmare on Elm Street and Karate Kid being just two sad recent examples. See, after we’re done scouring the European and Asian markets for the next easily digestable Americanized fodder we then have to turn to mining our own nostalgia. I swear when the remake of Back To The Future finally comes down the pike I’m defecting. Thank god for indie cutlture or we’d have nothing to hang our hats on here. Although I will say when an American director I respect decides to do a remake I usually give him the benifit of the doubt and trust his instincts and I’m rarely let down…see Inglorious Basterds and True Grit for examples of that. Also Craig Brewer’s remake of Footloose if it ever happens has me quite excited. Anyway thats my opinion. Love all your books. Carl Marsalis is one of my favorite fictional characters ever. Can’t wait for Crysis 2 and I’m frothing at the mouth for The Dark Commands. In the meantime I’ll have to spend time with my favorite yanky scribe Charlie Huston. Cheers.
Anyone heard anything of detail surrounding the, as far as i’m aware, remake of Total Recall?
I don’t know about you, but the original is by far my favourite Arnie movie….. The ham acting somehow made the PKD expeirence all the more rewarding….. for me at least…
The Departed (remake of the Infernal Affairs trilogy) was pretty good! Tighter and better paced than the source material, even.
@Bob #10 saying:
“I don’t watch this show (ncis) but I noticed this character on the tv at my in-laws’s house and it caught my eye as a crass, Americanized rip off of Larsson’s character. The pigtails, short skirt, goth affect, and she’s a brilliant forensics expert! Ug.”
You’re talking about Pauley Perrette’s character, the Goth/Forensics girl on the show. Um, hate to break it to you, but NCIS has been on the air for EIGHT YEARS starting in 2003. The first “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” novel wasn’t published until 2005 — two years after the character was introduced on TV. If anyone stole from anyone, it was your Mr. Larsson. Which, by the way, I don’t think he did, but the fact that you automatically attributed theft to the American creators of the show? UG, indeed.
Now as for Hollywood remakes, most of them surely sucks, but consider this: Hollywood wouldn’t remake any of these movies if the original creators DIDN’T SELL THEM THE RIGHTS in the first place. So really, who should you be mad at? I’m pretty sure Larrson’s estate was the one that gave Hollywood the okay to remake his story. So perhaps you should be mad at Larsson’s people for wanting to make a buck instead of preserving his “good name” (as you see it).
Just sayin’. Get your stories straight.
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