See, the thing is...

[trinityvixen]

It's not that The NeverEnding Story was a perfect movie. Far from it. It's not that nostalgia should prevent anyone from remaking a movie that was good and making it great.

It's just that remakes, generally, aren't good. There are exceptions to every rule, but on the whole, they're just not. It gets worse and worse when people try to remake movies that were iconic for their time period. Like the resurgence of the 1980s in remakes announced lately. Take, for example, Robocop. That is not a great movie. Just to be clear, I freakin' love that movie. But it is not a great movie. It was an attempt to capitalize on the success of Terminator (they even wanted Arnie as Robo but couldn't possibly afford him). It happens to have been incredibly prescient about advertising culture, and successful to boot. But it's still very much an 80s movie to me, not just for look but in terms of outlook.

I have a similar impression of The NeverEnding Story but from a different view. That film, for me, was in good company with the other fantasy movies of that period. There were halflings and crones and crazy ears on the whole lot of them, and that's just how it was. Updating is certainly possible, it just seems kind of pointless since this film will be taken away from that period and left to stand on its own in a current timeline that is, Lord of the Rings notwithstanding, not very friendly to that sort of fantasy. Maybe they'll pull a LOTR on it and more power to them if they do, but LOTR seems to be one of those exceptions, not the standards. The failure of a His Dark Materials cinematic trilogy--based on a series with more cultural penetrance (nowadays) than The NeverEnding Story--should be evidence enough about how hesitant studios are with this matieral. And for it to really succeed, you can't be hesitant.

So I smell failure all over this. Which is a shame because, as I got into in that Tor.com post linked above, I loved the use of muppets in the original. For all that we're inching slowly towards realism in our special effects, physical props are still superior. They have a presence, a physicality to them. I would argue that the impressive T-Rex in Jurassic Park was as much because they actually built a goddamned robot dinosaur as it was because they invented a new special effects technique to reduce the problem of computers providing too much detail. That could have been all CGI. It wasn't, and I think those few scenes with the animatronic creation help sell the other scenes with the CGI dinos. (It helps that dinosaurs, being scaly, are easier to render than fleshy or hairy creatures: please take note, George Lucas.)

I miss muppets. This is making me want to rewatch Farscape again. I tried rewatching with a group, and it was funny to see them not be used to Rygel. I'm so used to assuming he's a character, I don't even half see the muppet. He's Rygel. Muppets offer a range of possible, believable body types--versus the "guy in a suit" sort of aliens common to most sci-fi series. It makes the whole world that much more believable because it's entirely likely that intelligent species would evolve without bipedal symmetry.

Comments

[habiliments.livejournal.com]

I just wish they were talking about it more as a new adaptation of the book than as a remake, because the book has so, so, so much more to offer than appeared in the original film. But it seems like everyone — at least everyone talking about it online — is hung up on the movie, rather than the book. Kind of interesting. Vaguely.

[habiliments.livejournal.com]

(I don't mean to be a "the book is better!" person; I love both book and film.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think the book-readers are in the minority, so remaking this seems more like it will upset the movie-watchers, hence the proportion of comments online.

[habiliments.livejournal.com]

Well, sure. Sorry, my "they" was a big nebulous bubble that included the story I read earlier that was more about the people making the movie — they're the ones I really meant ought to be talking about the book. But also I just think it's kind of interesting how it's still a remake, not a new movie based on the same book, and if I had had more coffee, I'd probably go browsing through IMDB looking for multiple movies based on the same book, and how they were received...

Or I could just shut up, as it's too early for me to make sense anywhere, let alone on the internet.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It qualifies as a remake even when it's based off of a source material. Think of Jane Austen--the successive movies are easily considered remakes even though they're really just adaptations. I think where you get into them being remakes is that any previous adaptation with cultural resonance is going to inform upon a view watching a new edition.

In terms of how those remakes are received? Depends on what came before, same as any remake. The remade Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly was a fucking mess, more so when you compare it back to the 1995 BBC version. The remade Planet of the Apes is just best not discussed. (Like with The NeverEnding Story, the first Planet of the Apes isn't so brilliant that it shouldn't be remade, just that it was better than what 100x the budget and 1000x better special effects made of it.)

[viridian.livejournal.com]

What. Nonono. They CANNOT remake The Neverending Story.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Particularly since it's not even DONE yet! *rimshot*

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

I feel that His Dark Materials failed more because studios were hesitant about the religious themes than about the fantasy aspects. Strip that away from the book and you're left with a soulless movie that's bound to flop. You're still right about studios not wanting to take a risk on boldly sincere high fantasy though; unless it's got a built-in audience (Narnia, Eragon) you can forget it...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Even Eragon tanked. With The Golden Compass, I felt the material was too dense for one movie unless they cut back on a lot. They decided not to, stupidly shoe-horned in an explanation that kinda ruins the game (there are alternate worlds! one of them is ours!), and went on with the show. When I saw it, I was breathless for the whole thing. I couldn't tell how good, bad, or otherwise it was for that reason. Anyone who hadn't read the book was probably still hopelessly lost.

Epic fantasy done right requires trust. Like I said, LOTR got that trust. Not too much other fantasy has.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong of me to be pleased that Eragon tanked?

I didn't see the TGC movie. I just kind of figured that Hollywood being what it is and marketing to who it markets to, they weren't going to produce anything that would do the source material justice (or be able to fit so much into a coherent narrative). Did you enjoy it nonetheless?

I totally agree that Hollywood needs to trust epic fantasy auteurs more. I also wonder if they should trust their audiences more...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I want to say I liked The Golden Compass, but on the whole I was indifferent to it. Individual elements were neat--the daemons were cool, especially when they would vanish when their masters died. Otherwise? Feh.

Speaking of remakes!

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Christopher Eccleston is gonna be Destro in this summer's live-action G.I.Joe movie! :D?

Re: Speaking of remakes!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I heard that ages back. (http://trinityvixen.livejournal.com/471767.html)

Are we really counting this as a remake? It will have nothing to do with the animated G.I. Joe movie (no more than the live-action Transformers did). I think this qualifies more as an adaptation.

Re: Speaking of remakes!

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Apparently it's the origin story of COBRA, which has never been told, and at least isn't supposed to contradict anything from the series.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh I've been meaning to watch Farscape :D

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

LOVES me some Farscape. It really is amazing how, after an episode or two, the puppets start seeming as real (or more) than people in makeup. People in makeup have problematic musculature to get around. Puppets? Are as problematic as you choose to make them.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you on the physicality of muppets and puppets. I always think back to this scene in Labyrinth where she's in the well of hands and they're talking to her--the behind the scenes showed that it really was a bunch of people's hands, and that made it much more eerie. If they remade that scene today, it would probably be all CGI and lose that eeriness.

Then I wonder if all this love for muppet puppets is because I grew up with muppet puppets. Yeah, that's probably part of it. But you're right about Jurassic Park--that movie was perfect because they mixed and matched, it all felt very real. The T-Rex breaking out of his cage and assaulting those kids is still really effectively creepy (at least to me).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

CGI, as we hear constantly, is amazing, don't get me wrong. But it's still not "there" yet--"there" translating to "100% realistic." It just isn't. Good actors can work around the CGI creatures, but the interaction between the two is still very lacking. Even in a flat image, the CGI just doesn't have depth of a prop or a person, and it is frequently asked to be both.

Sure, there are limitations with puppets, but I think the seams can be touched up with CGI (if necessary--we have some pretty impressive puppets these days) and the effect is better than CGI alone. Like how makeup+CGI is better than just CGI. (I'm thinking of Terminator where Arnold's makeup is what sells the CGI used later when more of his metal endoskeleton is revealed.)

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

It's days like these that I miss Stan Winston. A lot.