Rant: Remakes, and to a lesser extent, 3D

BSG: the Best TV Show Ever (Why Remake It?)

I sadly discovered that Bryan Singer is set to direct a Battlestar Galactica movie. BSG was riveting and science fiction (and television) at its best. With series and season long story-arcs like the X-Files, BSG was done right because it focused on amazing, deep, well-developed characters and amazing, deep, well-developed storylines. The show basically was about what it took humans from worlds destroyed by the cylons to survive while being aggressively pursued; throw in a heavy amount of spiritual and technological themes and you have as a sublime a television show as you’d ever get. And the ending was mind-blowing and very academic too. The need for a movie that has nothing to do with the remake series is lost on me. Why remake something that’s already been remade so well that you can’t possibly surpass it? Even the original 70s series (fans of campy scifi with like it) was sued by George Lucas for being way too similar to Star Wars. And do we have to be subjected to the inevitable 3D!

And this year alone a remake of a new movie is being pumped out. In this case, it’s a remake of the upcoming (hopefully) romcom (of the year) The Back Up Plan. Starring Jennifer Aniston, The Switch is a romcom about a woman who gets artificially inseminated. Uh, hello, strong J-Lo! J-Lo’s starring in exactly the same plot in her movie. Next thing you know, Jennifer Aniston’s turkey baster is going to pop out at you in 3D. The only thing about the Switch is that it’s based on a short story by a Pultizer Prize winner, so it may be deeper than The Back Up Plan. Though I’m a fan of Jenn, I have to side with J-Lo in this one. (Soundtrack suggestion: use So Hard by the Dixie Chicks, a heartbreaking song about the Chicks’ struggle to get pregnant.)

To be fair, a good portion of movie goers and critics were lukewarm to Clash of the Titans. My personal enjoyment of the film aside, we didn’t really need a remake. The original is iconic and its effects hold up to today. The story was better executed in the original, and the addition of the mechanical owl gave the movie an R2D2-eque character.

What Hollywood needs is originality. I’m certainly not hating on remakes (Dawn of the Dead and My Bloody Valentine were great) but just calling for some freshness in Century City.