“Made for TV” and “Rocky Horror Picture Show” are two phrases that should
NEVER
refer to the same production.
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I don’t have a blanket hatred of remakes, and I do feel like kind of a hypocrite because I’ve also been known to say sacred cows make the best burgers. Besides my favorite film is the original Invasion of The Body Snatchers, but I like the remake too. And the version of The Wizard of Oz we’re most familiar with is a good example of why I can’t criticize Fox for just wanting to make money. I’m sure it wasn’t undertaken to bring a “true” version of Baum’s novel to the screen–after all it too serious liberties (spoiler alert: Oz isn’t a dream in the book).
With this sort of thing I’m always torn between wanting to keep an open mind and not wanting to see something I love trampled. I guess more than anything else it’s a fear of seeing something that’s metaphorically a fly trapped in amber recreated as a plastic ladybug sealed in cheap epoxy.
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Throwing rice in your living room and shouting, “slut” at the TV doesn’t seem to have the same panache.
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The best remakes tend to fall into one or both of the following categories:
- Radically different take on same premise (i.e. rebooted Battlestar Galactica series, Adam West Batman vs. Michael Keaton Batman vs. Christian Bale Batman)
- Original didn’t live up to potential (good idea but poor execution due to lack of talent or resources)
But it’s incredibly rare to see a remake of a beloved classic that surpasses that classic. Even if you end up making a great film, people will mostly be comparing it wistfully to the version they remember. Add to that the term “made for TV movie” and you’re not looking at good odds.
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Aw, this is a terrible idea. I love RHPS as much as anyone else I know (before I lost my ticket stub collection, I had over two hundred from screenings at the Ken Cinema in San Diego with Crazed Imaginations back around 1990 or so), but I hold no illusions that it’s actually a good movie worth watching without a raucous audience around you. It’s definitely all about the Audience Par-ti-ci- (say it!) -pation. Ritz O’Brien’s songs are genuine toe-tappin’ earworms, but even with the once-in-a-lifetime Curry cast, the movie’s kinda depressing to watch at home on TV by yourself, especially if you’re the one who has to clean up the toast and damp toilet paper.
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I doubt I would watch, but want to suggest Eddie Redmayne for Brad Majors.
I once watched it in a cinema in Rhode Island around 1980. I was on a road trip with college friends who had never seen it, so when I saw it on the marquee I told them we had to stop so they could experience it.
Everyone in the audience sat there quietly and watched. My friends could not figure out what I saw in the movie.
Yeah, that was not an experience I want to repeat.
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That was no Narrator! That was The Criminologist (An Expert)!! [Who, ok, yeah, sure, narrated things…]
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Like Spider Man?
OK, well, Roger Ailes got no neck.
So there’s that.
Can we have your liver then?
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You want to see a grown man actually die of shame on live TV?
Dracula certainly gets periodically successfully remade on film. As does Alice in Wonderland.
Shakespeare too but cinematic adaptations of theatre are a different beast altogether.
Eh, I love the film on its lonesome, as well.
If it’s Bill-o, yes I do. But I don’t think he has the capacity.
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I was in the stage show years back. It was a great time. (Until the producers walked off with the receipts and all of our checks bounced. No, we did not find it a charming musical theatre trope.)
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I’m sorry you had to go through that. On the other hand I so want to believe you were in a local theater production where the Sunday matinee audience consisted of a lot of octogenarian patrons of the theater who had no clue what they were getting. By the end of “The Time Warp” one couple decided they’d seen enough and hobbled to the double doors at the back of the theater…which is exactly where Frank made his entrance.
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I learned that An Affair to Remember is a remake, and it turns out the original Love Affair is on Amazon streaming. I’d just watched the version I know and love, the one with Deborah Kerr, so it was surreal to watch the Irene Dunn version which had the near exact same script. However, the Deborah Kerr version is shot for Cinemascope and the Irene Dunn one has completely different shots. The movies are both great, and feel so different. An Affair to Remember is slow and languorous. Love Affair is quick and witty. I thought these movies would be amazing to show a film class, to show how differently a scene can feel depending on camera angles.
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Throwing rice in your living room and shouting, “slut” at the TV doesn’t seem to have the same panache.
Oh, very true. Of course this story did lead to my partner telling me about the time her late father, a very conservative Republican lawyer type, took it upon himself to watch the original film (alone, on VHS, in the privacy of his own home.) Her sister, their mutual friend, and her had been expressing how much they had enjoyed it (at Midnight showings, of course) and for some reason they weren’t willing to watch it with him.
