Currently there are remakes underway of RoboCop and Total Recall, both films originally directed by Paul Verhoeven. What is your opinion about remaking these films? Do you think the new filmmakers will be able to add something to the original stories, ideas and execution?
You said, "I love you," I said, "Wait"
I was going to say, "Take me," you said, "Go away"
The worst thing is that both films could be perfect for remakes. There's enough potential in Dick's story to make a completely different, but valid Total Recall out of the material. As far as I'm concerned, Robocop could be like Frankenstein: just like no one gets mad when Hammer or someone else made a new Frankenstein, there's enough potential in the character that it could be recreated every new generation or so. Yeah, you'll probably lose Verhoeven's subversive spirit, but the concept can withstand a new direction. The question is whether Hollywood is willing to give Padilla the sort of creative freedom needed for that (Aronofsky bailing makes me doubt it), but Total Recall is obviously a completely useless retracing.
shareThat's how I feel about both remakes too. RoboCop has a lot of potential for a remake, without it just being a rehash of the original. There are enough aspects to the story that the new film can develop further. You could for example make it more cutting edge sci-fi, or more like a Frankenstein-type story, or you could make it a deep character study of Murphy. Hopefully the producers and director are willing and able to explore a different side of RoboCop and make it something original.
Total Recall however promises to be a rather unoriginal remake judging from the trailer. It looks like just another slick and stylized action film, but with the added twist of "What is real, what is Rekall". Verhoeven's film had that too, but he brought his unique sensibilties to it and in 1990 it was a more innovative concept for a major motion picture than it is now, post-The Matrix. Hopefully the trailer gives the wrong impression though, because I have read that the Philip K. Dick story has material in it unexplored in the original film.
You said, "I love you," I said, "Wait"
I was going to say, "Take me," you said, "Go away"
Paul Verhoeven has reacted on the new Total Recall in an interview for Dutch radio. He stated that the film takes itself far too seriously, that there can't be any laughs. "The film is full of stunts and special effects, but you cannot connect with the main characters," Verhoeven said.
"Because of that I felt left out. It left me cold."
Mr. Verhoeven also wasn't very positive about filmmakers going back to old financially successful films, calling it "a lack of ideas." "They have no taste and therefore they have no insight in what brings the public to the cinema."
The (Dutch) source: http://www.nu.nl/film/2880064/paul-verhoeven-niet-spreken-remake-total -recall.html
You said, "I love you," I said, "Wait"
I was going to say, "Take me," you said, "Go away"
RoboCop borrowed the best elements from the Judge Dredd comic books, but came out many years before the Judge Dredd film.
With the new Dredd movie set to be released BEFORE the RoboCop remake, my first thoughts on the latter are: will it have its thunder stolen, if the new Dredd lives up to the concept's potential?
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I ran the London Marathon for the Ian Charleson Day Centre: www.justgiving.com/icdcmarathon
It won't. The New Dredd seems to be even more of a brain-dead action film than the Stallone one.
shareI love old, hopelessly wrong opinions.
"They are just a flock of to fish for fame its person"
Yup, me too. Dredd was awesome!
(assuming that's one of the opinions you meant)