Does Total Recall Violate the Unwritten Remake Rule?
“When a good movie happens, which it might, on a roll of the dice, once in five years, it’s like this total aberration, a freak of nature like the Grand Canyon, they’re ashamed of it. They can’t wait to remake it in another ten years and f*** it up the way it’s supposed to be.”
That joke, from Lanford Wilson’s play Burn This, sometimes seems like a literal truth, as when 2002′s excellent Spider-Man was remade in mediocre fashion in 2012. But most filmmakers I know acknowledge an unwritten Remake Rule, though perhaps it’s breached as often as observed.
If the unwritten rule could be written, it would go something like this: A film may be remade when it represents a great idea that wasn’t fully realized the first time OR when its realization has become so dated as to have lost its appeal to a modern audience. Classics, no matter what the temptation, should not be remade. If you’re so shallow you can’t project yourself back in time to enjoy Casablanca or Gone With the Wind or All About Eve as is, just stay home and watch Jersey Shore because it turns out you’re an idiot. The classic rule can occasionally be negated by dated special effects, but it usually doesn’t work out. The 1933 King Kong does look a little stagy and dinky now, but it’s still a better movie than any version that followed.
All this comes to mind because I saw Total Recall the other day — I wanted to see Bourne but Recall fit perfectly between two meetings. In my opinion, despite what some critics say, this picture was a perfect candidate for remake. The 1990 version has an excellent script but is weighed down by Arnold Schwarzenegger — whom I like but who is asked here to play an ordinary guy, which is absurd. The muscles, enormous head and funny accent make the whole picture seem sort of outsized and cheesy. What could have been a brilliant Blade Runner-style classic if it had starred Harrison Ford becomes instead a good-but-dated actioner. A perfect candidate for remake.
I remain stunned that anybody could compare this summer’s Spider-Man so unfavorably to 2002′s. The lack of a kabuki-style Green Goblin alone is enough to make it a better film.
I’m going to concur with this. The new Spider-man movie was a lot more fun and interesting than the one from 2002.
They changed the Gospel of Uncle Ben, turning the movie into a piece of cheap “progressive” agitprop.
This summer’s reboot of Spider-Man is a complete waste of a perfectly good character and preceeding series.
Personally, I though Schwarzenegger’s out-sized personality and physique complemented the plot, and gave it a good twist. This obviously highly-trained guy is supposed to be Joe Six-Pack (beer, not abs)? It makes the conspiracy more believable, and adds tension to his quandary.
If the main character is more obviously an Everyman, the script has to be handled much more delicately; else paranoia becomes a much higher probability and the plot believability suffers. If it’s done perfectly, I can agree it would be great. But as your quote says, Blade Runner quality is rare.
Hey, Sharon Stone made that movie.
Sharon … Stone … didn’t make that … movie … someone else … make that happen
She had me at “You can tie me up.”
They really shouldn’t remake Total Recall or any other Arnold movie. Arnold movies are a genre of their own, like him or not, and can’t be duplicated especially by a skinny effeminate actor like Colin Farrell.
If they want to ‘redo’ the plot, fine, use different character names and name the film differently etc. – a ‘reimagining’ of the original story – but don’t purport to do full remake.
I think “Terminator” starring Barack Obama is much more frightening than the original. I’ll admit the premise is weak – a robot from the past is sent forward in time to subjugate mankind to the Political Machine but the film manages to incorporate a number of real life themes which makes the whole thing quite believable. What? It’s not a movie? Uh oh…
Exactly. 1000 percent correct. And none of the Verhoeven trilogy (Total Recall, RoboCop, Starship Troopers) should be remade for the same reason. Arnold and the Verhoeven films are all purposely over-the-top and bigger-than-life.
Meanwhile, I’ve never been able to sit through more than a couple of painful minutes watching guys like Colin Farrell, a lightweight who producers erroneously seem to think is some star.
Amazing how much movie they can get out of a three-page short story (“We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick). I admit I did like the campiness of the original movie (not to mention Sharon Stone).
It’s 18 pages.
And the movie benefited from an uncredited rewrite by mainstream “hard” SF author Joe Haldeman. The final script incorporates elements from PKD’s other works, notably The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich (most of the Martian element were lifted from that novella), and also Haldeman’s own All My Sins Remembered (most of the “Gee, I’m really a Super Secret Agent!” stuff).
The result I’ve always regarded as memorable mainly for Rachel Ticotin as the heroine and Jerry Goldsmith’s score. Both of which deserved a better movie.
BTW, this movie is the second remake of Total Recall. The first was a Showtime movie channel series, Total Recall 2070, aired in 1999. It only lasted one season (22 episodes). I lost interest after the first three. It managed to be even more pointless than the movie.
cheers
eon
I did not know that Joe Haldeman was involved. I figured that the script writer had to have been very familiar with PKD writings and real (as apposed to movie) SF. I guess I should have paid more attention to the correlations with “All My Sins Remembered.”
I’ve heard Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho was quite good – because it was a near exact duplicate of the original. I’ve not seen yet; perhaps if I had found a movie theater that would accept photocopies of dollar bills for admission….
Make your own decision of course but watching Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” is one hundred minutes of your life that you won’t get back. It’s facinating for the first fifteen minutes as Van Sant recreates every detail of Hich’s work with monmaniacal detail. Even the opening credits are blocked out in the same way as the original.
The film slows to a crawl with Anne Heche’s Marion Crane and drops dead when Vince Vaughn’s Norman Bates makes his appearance. Vaughn’s size, good looks and obvious I’m-going-out-to-have-brews-with-my-crew personality makes him the anti-Bates. Tony Perkins neurotic personality and inner lonliness was so close to the surface that he was able to slip into the role like a hand in a glove. Perkins in a dress is terrrifying. Vaughn in a dress is a howl.
However Van Sant uses every note of Bernard Herrmann’s great score and that’s always a treat.
Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates? Vince Vaughn?
I like Vaughn and think he is underutilized but that is not a role for him. A Jason Lee could pull off a rehash of Perkin’s Norman Bates and a better actor could create a new Norman Bates, but not Vince Vaughn. If Vaughn wants to break out of the rom/com ghetto he should look for a cop role, or if he insists staring in a remake he should go for a criminal role in an underexposed action/heist film like Thunderbolt And Lightfoot.
“The 1990 version has an excellent script”
If you’d posted that first I could have laughed and ignored the rest of the drivel. The only boat anchor sinking that movie was Paul Verhoeven, who would like to be Uwe Boll when he grows up.
The “original” movie was crap (on a scale of 1-10 it was a -3), and the remake sounds worse.
eat a snickers
Verhoeven is a worthless commie hack to be sure, but he does know how to make a good movie – or at least did before he became obsessed with propaganda over quality.
Uwe Boll will never know how to do anything other than file for and collect on a tax subsidy. Indeed his ability to get those is the only reason to believe he is literate enough to know what a script actually is in the first place.
Sam, now you’re confusing me. V a commie? Not in his European movies, surely, and not in Flesh+Blood, either. Plus, exactly what hurt Starship Troopers with original-release reviewers was V’s faithful-to-Heinlein right-wing opening scenes. There, the fascist elements of a world where, if you don’t fight, you can’t vote, are counter-balanced by the decency and courage of Casper Van Dien and the other students whose fates we follow as the show unfolds. But like the novel, which shocked sci-fi when it came out, the movie affirms the will to fight back at all cost against a totalitarian ant-hill society.
Making a remake of “Total Recall” did a lot more than violate the unwritten rules on remakes. It violated almost all of the rules on making a good movie! I believe this is the longest chase movie I have ever seen. Even “The Fugitive”, which was one long chase had a plot! This movie had no plot or love or passion or script or any reason for being made except for some really big egos.
I’ve always been sort of surprised that Hollywood has never tried to remake Casablanca – it’s a love story in 2 exotic locations (Paris and Casablanca) with Nazis as the bad guys.
But casting would be a nightmare – what actor has the balls to be Rick/Bogart?
Some lightweight like Colin Farrell? Johnny Depp? Channing Tatum?
Half a dozen actresses could play Ilsa; all she has to do is be gorgeous and cry on cue. Emily Blunt maybe.
Leo DeCaprio as Victor.
Nicolas Cage as Captain Renault.
Jamie Foxx as Sam the piano player (shoot, he’s already been Ray freakin Charles)
Ralph Fiennes as Nazi Major Strasser. (he should just play all the Nazis.)
Robert Deniro as Sidney Greenstreet’s Ferrari (he’d have to gain 100 pounds) or as Peter Lorre’s creepy Signor (Deniro would have to lose 100 pounds).
The credits alone would take years to negotiate. But all these actors want a paycheck, so who know?
I better stop here, before someone pitches this idea. But really, would a Casablanca remake be half as bad as Total Recall 2012?
Personally, I think Sidney Greenstreet is the only reason Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon haven’t been re-made. Every other part would have talent lined up around the block for auditions. Heck they re-did “Sabrina” and Harrison Ford did a passable job of Bogey. But who in the world could possibly equal, much less surpass, Greenstreet’s good-natured menace?
Steve Buscemi could handle Lorre’s essential creepiness, no problem.
As you say, I’d better stop.
But ponder a moment on “Captains Courageous”.
Tracy, Barrymore, Carradine Sr. Who could possibly play those roles today?
Once we get past Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe, and Harrison Ford, they’re all little sissy-boys. I like Johnny Depp, but a PIRATE, fer chrisakes? Any pirate worth his rum would snuff him out with his pinky! And his accent was terrible!! I, to this day, don’t know what it was supposed to be…sorta gay, sorta Englishey, sorta Caribbeaney, sorta Piratey? Sorry. I’ll take Errol Flynn any day. Even drunk.
Brad Pitt was pretty convincing in that Tarantino movie about Hitler, and it wasn’t really light fare, although a comedy (and bloody and brutal as Hell!), sorta. Still, who would play the Captain? Who is today’s Lionel Barrymore? It apparently is illegal to ever grow up in Hollywood any more. They don’t get older, just more freaky-looking with each nip and tuck, until, Cher-like, they become the zombies they really are inside.
Sidney Greenstreet? Fat, old, nearly immobile…FAT CHANCE in Hollywood! Let Johnny Depp play him. He was GREAT in Scissorhands! We’ll just stuff pillows in his pants, digitally. Who can tell?
Supposedly, both Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and the Dread Pirate Roberts (from the novel The Princess Bride, played in the movie version by “Inigo Montoya” aka Mandy Patinkin) were both based on the real-life pirate Bartholomew Roberts.
The real one would have eaten either of his fictional versions for breakfast, and then picked his teeth with their short ribs. He wasn’t even remotely funny.
cheers
eon
Just imagine Casablanca remade with Jim Carrey or Robin Williams in the Bogart role…
Ed,
I think you are now getting to the root of why a Casablanca remake would be a bad idea.
A shot for shot remake wouldn’t be possible – you could never get the supporting character actors, let alone anyone who could really handle the leads.
So maybe a Comedy? Yeah, a Rom-Com with Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johannson.
How about a shoot’em up? As soon as the box office on Expendables 2 firms up, and it’s looking to be pretty good, those guys will all be looking for another paycheck. Cast Jason Stedham as Rick, the hot Chinese girl as Ilsa, Arnold as Major Strasser, Stallone as Victor, Willis as Captain Renault, I mean it almost casts/writes itself.
An outer space sci-fi? Casablanca is a space colony, the Nazi’s are Martians, Robert Downey Jr as Rick, Gwyneth Paltrow as Ilsa, Sigourney Weaver as Captain Renault, maybe get Ridley Scott to produce.
Sorry, I sound like I’m off my meds. But what does anyone want to bet that one of the above scenarios hasn’t already been pitched?
How about Rick and Victor getting it back on in steamy Casablanca after they had to call it off in Paris and Victor sloped off back to the ball and chain, Ilsa – if Ingrid Bergman could ever be referred to as the ball and chain, which I doubt.
When the did the sequel to High Noon, they had Lee Majors playing Will Kane (Gary Cooper). Majors might have played a Six Million Dollar Man on TV, but he was no six million dollar actor.
Funny you saying that, I just watched the complete first season of The Big Valley. It was worth it for all the guest stars they used. The last episode had Richard Anderson, his boss on Six Million Dollar Man! What can one say about Lee Majors? Well…he could and did raise that left eyebrow quite well. Never noticed the right; he probably couldn’t do that one. And those pants he wore DID make his butt look big, because it was!
I’m not sure you could find an American to play Rick. Those who are the right age are simply not substantial enough or don’t have that inner-tough attitude or don’t have the right look or have too much prior role baggage. You might have to go with a Brit or Aussie who can do an American accent.
Surprisingly, Daniel Craig is about the right age, 44 (I thought he was older), and he could probably pull it off. Maybe Hugh Jackman.
Finding an actress to play a quiet, shy, doesn’t want to be there, has an unspoken past, beautiful heartbreaker in Ilsa should be easier, and would not need to be a big star.
I have a hard time believing you could find a modern day actress with the level of subtlety needed.
James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) could play Rick. If you want prettier, there is Walton Goggins, they guy who plays Boyd Crowder on “Justified”. Prettier still is Timothy Oliphant who plays Raylan Givens on “Justified” and played Seth Bullock in “Deadwood”.
they tried to remake Casablanca–as a TV show, believe it or not. starring (and I am not making this up) David Soul of “Starsky and Hutch” fame as Rick.
some compassionate deity made sure that never happened. but it was attempted.
Hey, let’s remake Casablanca as a comedy!
Absolutely! Lets have the Monty Python Crew do it!
Mel Brooks isn’t dead, yet, is he?
OK, hear me out on this one:
Remake Casablanca with Robert Pattison as Rick and Kristen Stewart as Ilsa. Then cast Rupert Sanders as Lazlo.
It’s box office gold, baby!
The only reason they do re-makes is because they have no fresh ideas & a re-make limits risk to a certain extent.
To tell the truth, I find myself watching pre-1950′s movies more & more. I stopped going to the cinema long ago, stopped renting movies, & only watch a few new movies if they show up on TV – I wouldn’t pay to see them, that’s for sure, it’s bad enough that I pay for satelite.
This is what happens to every successful business, once the bean counters and profit maximizers have been at the controls too long.
It is also what happens when movies have become so stupidy expensive that all the bean counters want is a”sure thing”. Since our whole culture has become childlike in that they just want to be entertained 24/7 and will go like sheep to the movies because they’re afraid they won’t be cool if they don’t, perhaps the bean counters are right.
America has been managed to death by managers wo have no passion for, nor even a slight understanding of the product they are selling. It’s all about the stock price and their bonuses. Meanwhile, the product goes to hell. Wharton may teach business, but they apparently don’t think the product is really THAT important.
Eventually, people stop buying. I have.
I’ve seen only “The Incredibles”, “Up”, “Master and Commander”, that crazy Tarantino movie about killing Hitler, at the theater in the last ten years. I watch old, old movies on DVD or even YouTube, like “Waterloo” and “Zulu” and “How Green Was My Valley” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”.
When they start cranking out product like “Destry Rides Again” (no, I don’t want you to do a remake of THAT, either, just something done well, with thought and care), then we’ll talk.
Even period pieces suck today. They hire some tootsie who can’t do a British accent to save her life, and she utterly destroys every scene. Add to that the absurd twenty-first century behavior in say, fifteenth century France.
They just make crappy movies. Making them over and over until they get it right just doesn’t seem to be working. They just get worse!
I hear George Lucas is going to remake the original ‘star wars’ and…oh, wait…
I liked the 1990 “Total Recall” just for it’s over-the-top body-count. Years ago I used to have the film on VHS and sometimes my wife and I kept a pad and pencil next to us when we watched it. I would try and record the number of bad guys and innocent bystanders who are wasted by Arnold and Michael Ironside during their running battles. (I am sure it was over 100.)
My favorite scene (ghoulish as it is) is when Ironside’s crew has Doug Quade cornered on the escalator. One of them unloads a clip at our hero but accidentally empties it into the back of one of the aforementioned innocent bystanders. Without missing a beat Arnold grabs the poor schmucks body and uses it as a shield to charge up the escalator firing away and taking out about a dozen evil henchman. When he drops the corpse he steps on the guys face and you hear a very wet and squishy crack. Now THAT’s entertainment.
I noticed that Bruce Campbell didn’t play his some role in this year’s spiderman. Sam Raimi must have finally lost out to objections from the other actors.
My first though regarding the new Total Recall was, “They don’t go to Mars? That’s lame.”
My favorite line was Arnold saying, “And you’ll still be ugly!” And he blowed up real good at that spaceport customs.
Remakes an sequels are great – the lower the quality, the better. Without them what could those talentless writers do for a living? Teach school? What would cable do without the constant, noise and mind numbing stupidity for laughs between macho bravado action? Pay more for quality movies? What would Netflix do? Charge $16? Keep’em coming, boys.