Dredd. Total Recall. Robocop.
Starship Troopers. All in various stages of being re-made or re-booted.
Spider-man is doing pretty well at the cinema with his own little re-boot.
Obviously Nolan is blazing a pretty firey trail with his Batman trilogy. The terms
themselves are not massively difficult concepts. Massively annoying, in some
cases, yes. I am more than willing to admit that it concerns me when one of my
warm and fuzzy celluloid landscapes is next up for a new outing. It's also true
that, for example, Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is not exactly a masterpiece,
but Jesus Christ on rubber crutches, it's a fun film. Same for Robocop (not for
Dredd though, you can keep that one, thanks very much). We will never get those
camp, ultra-violent, ridiculously fun films that we used to stay up late to
watch, interrupted god knows how many adverts (we would stop the video
recording for the duration of the ads, exponentially increasing second viewing
pleasure)...
What I am trying to say is that although the thought of all these shiny new
films appearing from Hollywood's 'oh shit, got no new ideas' drawer is
horrible, I do understand why they are doing it. It seems pointless
to worry that they are besmirching the holy purity of our childhood
entertainment: in no way will it affect how we felt, and feel, about the
'classics'. They will still be there. They don't suddenly pop out of existence
when the new one comes along. What it may do, perhaps, and I do say perhaps, is
add something to the legend. We can nod sagely when someone mentions
Total Recall and say, "ah, but have you seen the original?".
You see, you didn't think you would ever have to defend "you make me wish
I had three hands" did you.
Anyway, my point here is less that I think all these prequels, re-boots and
re-makes are good or bad; necessary or not. I seriously think we, myself
included, need to get over it. You know who made me realise that? Catwoman. To
be more precise. Anne Hathaway. When asked what she thought about her Catwoman
versus Pfeiffer's in the
latest Empire, she said that "Catwoman depends on the Gotham City she
lives in". She evens says she doesn't want to sound like a tool
saying it, but I understand it and totally agree. Yes, Nolan has created a
Gotham that was different, darker, than Burton's Gotham, so his Catwoman needs
to match that. But it goes beyond that. It is indicative of the real world, our
world, where we have to have a more deranged, more disturbed villain; where
no-one (by which I mean young people) can deal with ridiculous scientists in
PVC nazi outfits shouting about "brain bugs" (seriously, Neil Patrick
Harris is a freaking genius). We have changed, and so must our film
appetite.
