Flight of the Navigator (remake)

There are such things as good remakes.

I'm not saying remaking everything is getting tired, or that this one will be good-- just saying that the attitude of saying remake = childhood raped = bad movie is pretty negative.

I mean, sure, the odds are in favor of that, but it's not a foregone conclusion.

Not in this day and age anymore.
 
Doesn't it get exhausting hating everything though?

You're a writer, yeah? In Hollywood, as I recall? Or am I mixing you up with someone else?

Anyway, if you're a writer -- assuming you are -- I would think this **** would infuriate you.

Think of all of the original ideas that people have. All the cool concepts for a story to tell, and no one is telling them because the suits are too busy greenlighting this kind of bull****.

At best, you get an IP wrapper on an original idea that has been massaged beyond recognition to fit the wrapper. Which in turn, just makes the IP pointless except for branding alone. The whole thing is this awful feedback loop where you want your movie to be original and different, but you want to option a brand so that it's familiar and recognizable.

You cannot do both. Or at least, it's very, very difficult to effectively do both, to the point where you're better off just taking a ****ing risk for a change and greenlighting something new and interesting.

A couple of years ago, the Wachowskis came out with Jupiter Rising. It was...nuts. Completely out there. Also kind of boring and dumb. But you know what? I appreciated that at least it wasn't just some branded property dug up from the 80s graveyard and jolted to life with a CGI budget and "modern sensibilities" in the writing. It took a risk. It took a big, bold risk and fell flat on its face, but dammit we should have been better off for that.

We need more people taking risks, not microwaved 80s TV dinners and 4 ******* Avatar sequels.


I love me some Marvel and Star Wars, but there needs to be more than just that.

Doesn't this stuff just burn you up? Or do you have to numb that part of yourself lest you descend into madness and nihilism?
 
Back when there still was a backstage tram Tour at Disney / MGM (Hollywood) Studios in Florida, one of the 2 full size MAX saucers was rotting away in the bone yeard:

DisneyStudiosMax.jpg


It makes me grin to see that Disney took the other full sized saucer, painted it red, threw on some engine greeblies and tossed it on the roof of a Coca-Cola stand in Tomorrowland:

cool_ship_top_005.jpg
 
You're a writer, yeah? In Hollywood, as I recall? Or am I mixing you up with someone else?

Anyway, if you're a writer -- assuming you are -- I would think this **** would infuriate you.

Think of all of the original ideas that people have. All the cool concepts for a story to tell, and no one is telling them because the suits are too busy greenlighting this kind of bull****.

At best, you get an IP wrapper on an original idea that has been massaged beyond recognition to fit the wrapper. Which in turn, just makes the IP pointless except for branding alone. The whole thing is this awful feedback loop where you want your movie to be original and different, but you want to option a brand so that it's familiar and recognizable.

You cannot do both. Or at least, it's very, very difficult to effectively do both, to the point where you're better off just taking a ****ing risk for a change and greenlighting something new and interesting.

A couple of years ago, the Wachowskis came out with Jupiter Rising. It was...nuts. Completely out there. Also kind of boring and dumb. But you know what? I appreciated that at least it wasn't just some branded property dug up from the 80s graveyard and jolted to life with a CGI budget and "modern sensibilities" in the writing. It took a risk. It took a big, bold risk and fell flat on its face, but dammit we should have been better off for that.

We need more people taking risks, not microwaved 80s TV dinners and 4 ******* Avatar sequels.

I love me some Marvel and Star Wars, but there needs to be more than just that.

Doesn't this stuff just burn you up? Or do you have to numb that part of yourself lest you descend into madness and nihilism?

Yes that's me-- and yes of course it kills me. Everything you said is spot on. It's a daily source of frustration-- but if I was that negative about things not only would I be angry-- but also depressed, and unemployed. The biggest frustration writers face is that 90% of the time you get an original script read, and (assuming its good) the response will be "Hey, this is a great thing you made-- now tell me how you'd do this IP/concept/remake/prequel/reboot/adaption we're working on.

Selling original material is really hard on the feature side. Its easier in TV, but 10 times as competitive. It's frustrating, but you'll never sell original material unless you're at a certain level, and you don't get to that level without showing you can put in the work. I've pitched on some update/reboots and from my point of view, it certainly seems weird to be touching a classic of some sort, but at the same time, you do get excited think you can play in that sandbox.

We're all nerds here. We hear they are remaking something we hold dear, of course our reaction is THAT'S A TERRIBLE IDEA. But I highly doubt anyone in this thread would say no to a studio saying, "Hey, what if we throw six figures at you to make your own version of this favorite thing from your childhood." Cause make no mistake, most times, the writers on these jobs are fans. No one want to rape a childhood. No one wants to make a bad movie. We hear Flight of the Navigator, and the response is LEAVE IT ALONE. But if anyone one here says they would turn down $150k to make their own version of Flight of the Navigator, I'd call bull.

That's why I think the comment made by Cephus is myopic and a broads generalization. To say "everyone hates remakes" just isn't true. It may be rare, but good ones happen-- Ocean's 11, The Ring, Scarface, The Fly, The Thing... it can work out, so to just make a broad sweeping statement that it all sucks and that "Hollywood" is a singular entity that hates us all, is silly.

Hollywood, the system, is certainly to blame for a lot of bad choices, but it's blame shared with movie goers. Hollywood is a business-- it always has been. There's periods where creativity is celebrated, but it's always about money. The reason everything made in the last decade is based on some pre-existing IP is because studios are terrified to spend millions on a movie if they can't count on at least some pre-existing audience. Mass audiences only go see things they are familiar with. I'm not talking about us nerds who like scifi and genre films dying for more creativity-- I'm talking about the average movie-goer that just goes to movies for something to do and pick things based something that feels right cause it has familiarity-- be it a star, or the IP, or whatever. And sadly, for every Moon or Ex Machina, there's 20 Valarians. Mainstream horror fans want a Stephen King adaption or The Conjuring Part 30, not Arronofsky's Mother! or last year's The Witch. The indie originals just don't penetrate.

The example I like to use, is say there's a bunch of drug deals going down on your block. Who do you blame? The drug dealers for selling their crap? Or the junkies who create the demand for the drugs by needing them? The truth is, it's symbiotic. When people complain about the lack of creativity in Hollywood, my first response is-- stop going to see sequels. Tell your friends and family to wait for those movies to hit home video. The day Transformers part 5342345 fails at the box office is the day Paramount decides to stop making Transformer movies.
 
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Only software needs upgrades.Classics from the past simply need appreciation.
My brother and I barely go to the theatre,2 times a year tops.I have a small collection of dvds,some of them from way back,and we watch them during supper.We don't feel we're 'missing out' at all with all the nonsense that's being released.Good remakes are rare,and Hollywood not knowing what to do is not and should not be our problem.
 
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Tired of prequels, tired of reboots/remakes. Do sequels, continue the story if you can't be bothered to come up with something original.

And only do good sequels because you actually have a story to tell, not because you want to make more money so you're just going to crank out trilogies to make a buck.
 
There are such things as good remakes.

I'm not saying remaking everything is getting tired, or that this one will be good-- just saying that the attitude of saying remake = childhood raped = bad movie is pretty negative.

You sound like the priest.
 
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