If you ask consumers of popular culture about remakes, you’re sure to get a familiar tirade: “If something worked the first time, why bother remaking it?” Or maybe you’ll get an exuberant cry of nostalgia. As popularized recently in South Park, we have “member-berries," cute little grape-like creatures that are delighted by the vast array of entertainment in the 80's and 90's. “Remember the Goonies?” they tell each other in their cute, little bundles. “Remember Star Wars? Remember the trash compactor?”
The reason these remakes happen isn’t because these classics aren’t noteworthy. If anything, it’s because they’re awesome and directors descend on them for monetary value.
For example, it’s hard to argue that somebody woke up with this brilliant, artistic aspiration of remaking The Blair Witch Project. It likely came from a studio meeting with a bunch of coffee cups on the table, with someone asking, “Okay, how can we make a quick buck?”
This isn't to say that films need to be conceived based on creative value and I’m not pretentious enough to say that only artistic vision should matter in film-making. However, at the end of the day, a film is a film. If we disparage people by saying that they’re not creative or original enough to make films, then we’re elitist in our thinking.
Regardless, nobody in Hollywood seems to have learned how to become a time traveler yet. Try as they might, they can’t re-manufacture an age-old product and get the same reaction out of a new audience. I risk bearing a cliché here when I say this (though think of this more like a statement of fact), but times change. Even the same paint brush can never create the same painting twice.
Take, for instance, the new Flintstones comics. Passing these new titles in a book store, it may be very perplexing for some to see a realistic Fred Flintstone posing for a selfie with a rock. His arm is slung around his wife Wilma, both rendered in disturbing Norman Rockwell realism.
But don’t be put off. Although popular culture has been far removed from The Flinstones for a while (sans the live-action films that came out over a decade ago), the essence of what made The Flintstones initially work is still alive in these new comics.
In the first issue, we have a crestfallen Fred Flintstone training a group of new coworkers at his job. They question why he’s wearing a tie if he works for a construction company, to which Fred replies, “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” He then laments, “I’ve been here for 15 years.”
It’s here that I paused and thought, ‘This is exactly the kind of joke that would have worked in the original Flintstones cartoons--sardonic, cheap, weary-of-world and focusing on the bumbling commonalities of working class life.'
Now with the lens shifted to our post-millennial world, where the characters brandish “wireless shell phones," the original intentions of the show become clear again.
The humor in The Flintstones actually worked similarly to Seinfeld or The Office. Although set in prehistoric times, it always focused on the everyday struggles of ordinary people in suburbia. Now, with the lens shifted to modern day, the new comics actually manage to resurrect an old pulse. Asa consequence, I consider this an example of a remake done well. It's a case where somebody has looked at something from years ago and thought, “With the current state of the world, what thematic parallels can we draw to inject new life into this material?” There’s clear purpose and meaning behind the project.
On the other side of the spectrum, there’s cases where there’s literally no reason to remake films. Look at the recent remake of The Blair Witch Project. The original is a cult-classic, notable for pioneering the found-footage genre. It follows the story of a group of student filmmakers lost in the woods who are stalked and killed by a witch. Now, with that genre completely beaten to death in recent years, what impulse was there to turn back to this film and remake it?
There's an easy answer: Money.
Yes, I’m stumbling on to nothing new and revolutionary here. It also feels patronizing to stand up and speak for the directors and crew involved. Going back to the word, perhaps it’s even elitist to say that there was no artistic merit involved in this project at all. But I’m not even talking about artistic merit.
It’s just the simple question of why the hell anybody would wake up in the morning, skip merrily out the door and decide to remake The Blair Witch Project? Why would you tackle a project with no reason or ambition unless the purpose was solely to make money?
The original movie is scary because it took place in a time where there was limited cell phone reception, limited internet and more of a fear of the unknown. In today's world, where it’s so much easier for these people to get out of this kind of hellish situation (not to mention it's less believable that they’d be lost in the woods to begin with), is there really any new ground to break here? If you don’t have an answer, if you’re just throwing elements blindly at the wall, you don’t have a story. You have a marketing ploy.
In the case of the new Flintstones comics, there was an incentive to reexamine the world around us with the devices that the show’s creators initially employed. In the case of The Blair Witch Project remake, it's a half-assed effort to make money and capitalize on the brand name.
True, perhaps young audiences will be more acquainted with this film than the original. Perhaps with the updated technology, they’ll be more inclined to empathize with the characters and feel drawn in. However, the unfortunate discrepancy here is that this movie kind of sucked. It was panned by critics and audiences alike, and lacked a place in our popular culture. When a movie can’t rationalize its own existence, the audience recognizes its lack of purpose.
When the lights came up after TheBlair WitchProject remake ended, I didn’t feel like I’d watched a story. I felt like I’d seen the result of a bunch of film executives sitting around a table making a monetary pitch. I picture diagrams on a wall with flow charts and dollar signs. I picture them saying, “Blair Witch Project, great film. Alright, so what scares millennials? How can we really make this effect a new generation?”
If you don’t have an answer to that already, you probably shouldn’t be in pre-production.
