This was a good movie, but lets be real here. The book was head and shoulders better, the movie covers only about 1/3rd of it, and fills it with several problems that aren't addressed.
It may deserve a "remake" simply because how people still don't seem to know the real story of the book - and how much better it was. After reading the book, I have a feeling that people would treat the 1984 movie differently on a whole.
I'm reading the book now and reeaally struggling with this. I think the movie finished the story where it should have finished. I'm finding the book dragging on a bit.
shareIt may deserve a "remake" simply because how people still don't seem to know the real story of the book
Hmmm, if only there was some way people could get the real story from the book itself.
It's rare that a movie is viewed as being better than the book. For one, the writers and movie crew are interpreting someone else's work. It's going to be diluted.
Second, there is a time restriction on most movies of roughly 2 hours. Obviously some bigger productions can push 3 hours long, but that isn't the norm. It's borderline impossible to fit a typical book into a two hour time frame. Concessions have to be made.
Third, have you seen the majority of the remakes that have come out in the last decade plus? Very few of them have been viewed as being superior or even equal to the originals in any way.
My assumption is that a remake would be filled with a bunch of soulless CGI, unfitting music and not contain a shred of wonderment and imagination that this movie contains.
If the right people got behind it and presented it as a mini-series on the right channel then maybe it would be worth some people's time, but I honestly hope that Hollywood stays far away from attempting it.
That's what bothers me the most about the idea of a remake. Movies these days look like they're off an assembly line and have the exact same sterile cinematography and special effects.
shareYeah, they pretty much do. Nowadays, television (and the ease at watching anything at any time), video games, the internet in general, etc. all compete fiercely with cinema for all of our time spent on entertainment.
So now they have guys that try to figure out how to appeal to all four quadrants (male/female, over and under age 25) as often as possible to make as much money as possible.
This of course kills most genre films aimed at very specific audiences and attempts to paint as broad a brush across the industry as they can get away with. Which of course leaves us with a very mass produced feel to nearly anything that comes out.
Movies that come out nowadays that will be remembered twenty years from now are very rare. It's disgusting. I'm a horror fan as well and to see the endless remakes of the entire 80s catalog of horror films along with the most generic, nearly unwatchable movies that do not even attempt to have a moment of dread in them is pathetic. Then, when a good horror film actually does come out it gets over-hyped to the point where everyone just drones on and on about how overrated it is instead of just appreciating that something watchable was released.
Truly talented screenwriting and directing isn't championed at all. All these studios want are guys that are capable of making everything look and feel the same.
Great post.
shareHaving just read the book myself, I find they used elements of the original book well enough, removing things they obviously couldn't do because of budget limitations, and obviously had to cut short the story to keep the movie a non-tedious length.
They did use the element of Bastian losing his memories of his previous life in the last half of the bood in The Neverending Story 2, but they really bastardized that into something completely unlike the original story.
The book itself is a nice enough story, and I certainly like what it truly stood for: Bastian reconnecting with his father after the loss of his mother. However, when it comes to the plot and characterization driving the story, it's not that great a read, and gets quiet tedious in places. Whilst I realize a lot of what happens in Fantastica is allegorical, I find, as an adult, that it's too simplistic. But that's probably the problem: I'm reading it from the perspective of an adult, instead of enjoying from the perspective of a child.
A miniseries would be great.
shareThe author agreed and when he couldn't stop the movie had his name removed from the credits.
shareI read the book aged 14 (or something, but I can remember a lot of it) and saw the film aged 16 (or something, ie I can't really remember it). my only thoughts were that the special effects weren't really around in 1984 to re produce the book properly
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