There’s a new remake reimagining of a semi-classic 1981 movie out today: Clash of the Titans.
Hated it. What a colossal disappointment of epic proportion. That was 2 hours of my life I just flushed down the drain. Wasn’t the first time…won’t be the last, I’m sure.
The script was a horrible butchering. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they need to make “reimaginings” and not just create a whole new script around original source material (i.e., Greek mythology), and do a “retelling”. It’s like making an Alice in Wonderland movie based upon the current movie, rather than adapt a movie directly from the original stories by Lewis Carroll.
I remember seeing the original on an Air Force Base theater. As a kid, it was fun to watch.
In the new movie, they traded in R2D2 (Bubo) for a frakkin’ light saber! Bubo was fine for his time (in the era of the Star Wars-craze); but even as a kid, I found the chirpy robotic owl a bit annoying and extremely anachronistic even as a kid (c’mon…an owl robot even for Star Wars-loving kids for the “awww” factor and for comic relief required quite a stretch of the imagination; even buying into Hephaestus’ smithing skills, it takes a titanic, willing suspension of disbelief).
I did like the one homage they paid to the original when they are arming themselves in the armory, and Perseus finds the original Bubo and asks, “What’s this?” And he’s told to just leave it. (For Star Wars-era kids, it worked; but today…um….no). THAT was funny.
I may be reading too much into it, but I also found the script as being laced with another Hollywood anti-religion attack by atheists. Being on the right (even though I’m not religious, myself), maybe I’m just being too sensitive here. (No, I’m not going to look up the names of the original script writer(s) and the writers of the re-imagined version (not a remake, folks: It’s a reimagining). Just too lazy to care, right at this moment.
The script logic was horribly convoluted and I really felt nothing for any of the characters. Even for an action flick.
I think the 3 minute skeleton fight in the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts was more exciting and scary than the 1 hr and 50 min of 3D CGI special effects-laden action here.
In fact, rather than slap down your dollars at a 3D theater, you’re much better off renting the original “Clash of the Titans”, or the even older “Jason and the Argonauts”. Both movies incorporated the special effects stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. Just sheer genius:
Directed by Don Chaffey, in collaboration with animation legend Ray Harryhausen, this film is famous for its fantastic stop-motion animated monsters including harpies, the bronze giant Talos, the crashing rocks, and the many-headed Hydra that guards the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece was given from Hecate who was the guardian goddess of Colchis. The thrilling final sequence wherein an army of seven skeletons, created by sowing the Hydra’s teeth, rise from the Earth to attack the heroes is still widely considered to be among the greatest achievements of 20th century motion picture special effects.
~~~ It took Ray Harryhausen 4 months to produce the skeleton scene, a massive amount of time for a scene which lasts at the most 3 minutes.
Why does Hollywood keep churning out these “remakes” and “re-imaginings”?! Quit recycling old classics like “Planet of the Apes” and “Miracle on 34th Street”, even if you can make them “better” (like that’s happened, yet). 30 yrs from now are they going to do this to “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones”? Why, why, why?! Don’t even think of touching “Casablanca”….
I’m a big fan of the original, which I saw in the theater with my little brother. That had one writer credited. This “redo” has two, then two others are credited for revisions. It was also filmed in 2D but the producers had it printed in 3D in post to make it more marketable. Tons of red flags here that this would be a disaster. And yet, I’ll probably still see it….
And now word is out that Michael Bay is remaking Rosemary’s Baby! Pray, indeed.
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Go see “How to Train Your Dragon” instead. Good story, great 3-D animation. It will be a classic and entertaining fans for years.
Thanks for the review, hollyweird is such a waste.
I have the same pleasant memories that you have for the original. However, I saw it rewatched it, the original is pretty bad too. I mean, Harry Hamlin? What a stiff!
I think I’ll go see this one just to see how Liam Neeson matches up with Sir Larry as the Big Guy!
thx for the review tho!
I very much enjoyed this one. I think it may still be in theaters, too…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xko1Mx5w4tg
HI CARY, how are your story doing? bye
@ilovebeeswarzone:
It’s hard work! Now I know why Hollywood has a hard time finding good screenplays! I have no idea if the subtext I’m trying to convey is getting across, but I’m trying to keep in mind that it’s just a first draft, as well as a learning experience. Diverting myself on Twitter from time to time, which lead me here. Now back to it!
http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/eng/user/622700
Great review, Word. Don’t you just love hollywood lecturing the ignorant masses from stage and screen?
CARY i think you choose a very difficult subject,i went to your place but i could not see your pages i suppose you want to keep it secret,but i whish you the best,i suppose you are press for a time limit too that add to the difficulty,if i may add something ,i will say that the beginning of that stage is very important in your story like ..behavior change notable,speach change bringing weird subjects notable,also the error of the subject to be assess wrongly,,,bye
I enjoyed the original ‘Titans’ and also ‘Jason’. I was always irritated at Bubo also as being too artificial, and also the fact that a flying horse had to run as he flew. I still watch it a few times a year.
Thanks for the review, I would have like to have seen simply a remake of the original where today’s much advanced special effects improved the telling of the original story.
@ilovebeeswarzone:
Yeah, the first 10 – 15 minutes of a movie set up the whole story. That’s why this is so hard. Lots of info to get across quickly, and the rule is “show don’t tell” – I expect to be moving along faster once I get past that point. But no, I’m not sharing what I’m actually writing until it’s done and revised, IF it ends up being good enough to show. But my page counts and logline are there.
We might have liked Clash of the Titans as a kid, but the adults of the time bashed it. Almost all the reviews bashed the original for the same reasons why this movie was bashed. The main actor went on to be a short TV sitcom about two actors and the children. The wife won an Oscar and did all the deep stuff. He played the husband action hero that brought in all the money. One of the inside jokes was his character on the TV show was the actor that played in Clash of the Titans.
Also the ancient Greek religion was a muddle of ever expanding gods and stories with many involving gods vs man , gods vs Titans (pre gods) and gods vs gods. Imagine Quentin Tarantino and Rod Serling were asked to make a religion and that’s what it was like, even back then.
Would I see this new movie? Why? The reason why they make remakes is because it’s too poor to go as it’s own story and so the people in charge grab a name for an earlier film to try and get something going.
If we didn’t have remakes we wouldn’t have such movies as The King and I (1956 version), The Magnificent Seven (1960), Ben Hur (1959), The Blue Lagoon (1980), Brewster’s Millions (1985), Carbaret (1972), Chicago (2002), Cleopatra (1963), Dangerous Liasons (1988), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941), Fatal Attraction (1987), A Fistful of Dollars (1964), The FLy (1986), The Great Gatsby (1974), Henry V (1989), Heat (1995), I am Legend (2007), King Kong (2005), The Ladykillers (2004), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Maltese Facon (1941), The Man who Knew too Much (1956), Meet Joe Black (1998), Memphis Belle (1990), The Mummy (1999), Munich (2005), Never Say Never Again (1983), Ocean’s 11 (2001), One Million Years BC (1966), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), The Producers (2005), Ransom (1996), Scarface (1983), The Secret Garden (1993), Sommersby (1993), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), The Ten Commandments (1956), The Thin Red Line (1998), The Thing (1982), The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978), Three Men and A Baby (1987), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Vanilla Sky (2001), Victor/Victoria (1982), War of the Worlds (2005), Xanadu (1980), You’ve Got Mail (1998)
@GaffaUK:
A good portion of what you list here are adaptations, not remakes.
GAFFA UK, you have some real jewels in there
bye
@Cary #1:
Well, that explains it! I took off those darn glasses during the closing credits, had no trouble reading the words, and thought, “What the Hades?!”; and also during the film somewhere, thought this doesn’t really seem all that 3Dish. What a rip-off!
@newguy40 #4:
Yeah, so often when you watch a beloved movie from childhood as an adult, you realize how cheesy aspects of it are that didn’t bother you back then.
I think if you’re trying to recapture that childhood fondness for the original, hoping for something sleeker and more up-to-date with the times…you’re in for a disappointment and are better off reliving the past and how the nostalgia of how it made you feel as a child.
@Skye: It’s really strange, because the original also had a theme to it; how the old gods of Mt. Olympus were becoming relics of the past, not needed by mankind; however, that theme worked for the movie and no way comes across the way this movie comes across with a message that seems to be strongly anti-religion. Why do they so differ in this regard? The original just doesn’t come across as having an anti-religion message in it. Just a story to tell.
@Gregory_Dittman:
I told one friend that their little 7 yr old will like it because there’s fighting in it. That’s about it, though.
I dunno, Gregory…yeah, the original had some cheesiness to it, but man…what I said to newguy40 #4, above.
Well crap, I had watched the trailers and the wife and I were planning on catching it next week…Oh well, I can wait till it comes out on HBO…
Ray Harryhausen’s best work for special effects.
Liked the original Jason and the Argonauts. The stop-animation wasn’t smooth or “realistic”, but due to the complexity and how well the animation was done for the time, it was certainly forgivable.
Did not like the original Clash of the Titans, because I thought the script and directing was amateurish. (Cudos only for the special effects which were good for the period.)
I don’t remember the original Clash of the Titans being that good. I think some of the earlier Harryhausen work was better – e.g. some of the Sinbad films.
In regards to remakes – if people didn’t go to watch them then Hollywood wouldn’t make ‘em:)
@Cary
As I understand it – a movie adaptation – is from another medium – e.g. novels. Whereas some of that list may originally being novels – in most cases there had been earlier movies.
@GaffaUK: An adaptation can be from a novel, play, comic book, anything not a movie. For instance, your first example – The King and I, was a Broadway Musical , which was adapted from a book which was also made into a movie. The 1956 movie of The King and I had never been done on film. The King and I and Anna and the King of Siam, have the same source material, but are different entities. The same is true with a great many of your examples.
If you want to argue the same for Clash of the Titans, I’ll tell you that Beverly Cross, the writer of the 1981 film, is credited for this. The other writers provided “updates” and “revisions” – they don’t mean musical numbers.
Also, different interpretations of a Shakespeare play are done all the time. Technically, they are not officially considered remakes, although the film had been done before. You can probably effective argue that they are, but there really is a big difference between this, this.
What we’re really talking about here are the likes of this and this. I think we all know the difference!
But ALL stories are rehashed at there core. I mean, if you look at the very basic story beats, how different is Star Wars from The Wizard of Oz?
@GaffaUK:
While my previous post waits to be fished out of the filter, I will add, for clarity, that the definition of a remake is “… a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.”
It is a sad that this movie didn’t turn out well. I love historicals and any subject regarding myth, legend, and lore. I have also gotten into movies with subtitles, asian warriors and kingdoms movies. Has anyone seen “The Last Legion” with Colin Firth. I didn’t hear much about it in reviews, but it was a surprisingly good movie. I am looking forward to the new movie that is being made called Thor with Anthony Hopkins. It is in the filming stage. Such a shame. I was hoping that Clash of the Titans would be a good movie. I hate the preachy stuff.
TAMMYL it is funny ,you mention the name THOR and it’s the name of our new just arrive horse,and just love any ANTHONY HOPKIN movies,bye
Here’s some upcoming movies that look good, which I think folks at Flopping Aces might like (no promises, though! But I’ll be seeing these):
Letters to God
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBDK2LGn4p0
The Perfect Game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqYvtyNWJbY
Babies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnIuczwvv1U
Inception
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSyQ3K0xnYg&feature=related
Robin Hood (mainly because Cate Blanchett is in it, nothing will beat Errol Flynn!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSqL9ygBCck
The Expendables
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6RU5y2fU6s
Letters to Juliet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AmB8spntgg
The best part of going to see Clash of the Titans was the sneak preview for Iron Man 2.
@Wordsmith:
It DOES look really amazing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siQgD9qOhRs
Capt. America is in the works, too! As a Batman fan, it’s hard to beat the last two in that character’s franchise.
And I need to stop diverting myself and get back to my task! Thanks for the great thread, Word… see you guys later.
As I noted to others, the whole (grossly injected) theme of people rebelling against the gods might have been an interesting philosophical exploration. And frankly, yes, the Greek gods as originally written were complete JERKS. Unfortunately they undermined their own premise by having any cruelty or pettiness by the gods, save by Hades, take place basically offscreen, and the humans pretty much EARNING the wrath of the gods by being complete jackasses.
Seriously, I mean really.
It didn’t help their “down with the gods” riff that the raving high priest Strawman Loony— who was running around reminding people that they owed their very existence to the gods, begging them to stop rebelling, and demanding that the king and queen (who provoked the gods into releasing the Kraken) turn over their daughter as commanded to save the entire city of innocents kind of had a point.
Even when they try to write a movie to promote their own worldview, anti-theists can’t pull together a reasonable argument….
Good God could a remake be this bad.
The story was rewritten it seems to be
1. Anti-religion
2. Anti-king, kingdom
3. Anti-success for actual deeds
4. Anti logical
5. Anti cheesecake (If ya got hotties flaunt them please)
6. Anti-entertaining
C’mon now movie makers, its an effects movie with a given plot, don’t rewrite the
plot to some leftwing wonderland dream, the plot and ending did not make a whole
lot of sense, there was no real buildup for the relationships…
Also whats with the tree people (Were you all smokin sumthin between scriptwriting
sessions) and same goes for the two bumbling hunters (requires more than being an idiot
to actually be funny) along with a host of other really dumb inclusions.
The old Sinbad/Greek hero claymation movies were and are still way more entertaining
than this turkey
* 1 star and I regret spending 1 dime to watch this
@RHJunior
I don’t think anti-theists need a movie to put forth a reasonable argument – we have the logical arguments already. True the Bible & the Koran may have better simplistic stories – like fairytales – for people to understand and fall for – whereas science of understand the real world such as evolution, the universe, quantum mechanics etc is far more complex and awe-inspiring.
Of course the irony of being upset with the analogy of turning against the Greek Gods – is that today – these Gods who were widely believed in – are no longer believed in. One day the same will happen with the Christian God and the Islamic Allah. You don’t need to fight Gods – you just need to turn your back on these invisible beings and get on with your life.
@Cary
I would make one caveat to the above statement: An animated (i.e. cartoon) version of a formerly released “live action” film, would be an adaptation. (And visa versa.) While both are presented on film, the creation processes are different. Other than that, I would agree.
@Cary
Clash of the Titans was based on the myth of Perseus – therefore doesn’t that make it an adaptation?;)
@RatDog
‘How To Train Your Dragon’ was excellent except the bizarre use of Scottish accents for Vikings (whilst their kids had American accents). Why couldn’t they use Scandinavian accents???
@GaffaUK:
The original Clash of the Titans was a mish mash of Greek Mythology, mainly dealing with Perseus. It’s also quite clear that this film is, as I said, “a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.”
@ditto:
I new I was leaving something out – guess that was it!
Happy Easter everyone! (I love the saying “You may not like me, but Jesus thinks I’m to die for!”) It’s Spring, and the first day of baseball! Time for new beginnings. I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. Go Yankees!
@Cary:
I should have spelled it “knew” – oops!
@Cary
Out of interest what does the new movie share with the previous movie beyond the title which isn’t part of the Perseus myth?
@GaffaUK:
Sorry, bud, I don’t have time for a “Devil’s Advocate” argument. I’m sure you read the words
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Sorry Word, but everything you liked about the original I hated with a passion when it first came out. Bad acting, miscast actors, bad special effects, terrible costumes, too long and worst of all, Bupo, the most useless side kick since Jar Jar Binks. Nor was the orginal Clash faithful to the original story written by the Greeks. So if you plan on bashing this remake, which did have its flaws in story and character developement, not to mention being rushed, then don’t use the original as a measuring stick, since it pales in comparison.
@Aleric:
Lol, not sure I even mentioned what I “liked” about the original, other than childhood nostalgia. And look back at my comment #16.
I pretty well agree with your points.
This is a bit similar to my nostalgic love for the original Battlestar Galactica (which in so many ways was also bad- even with its own R2D2/Bubo gimmick) vs. the “re-imagining”. Part of the annoyance is in not understanding the desire to retain the original namebrand, even for commercial purposes since so much of the original fanbase stands to be alienated by a strong departure from strict constructionist scripture. If you’re going to butcher the original concept that badly, just make your own thing and call it something else.
Well, I think everyone can sigh a big “duh” to that one. Even as a kid- especially as a kid who was engrossed with Greek mythology- I knew it took huge liberties and was not canon.
@Cary
Fair enough – I suspect very little, if any. I just think you are splitting hairs over adaptation and remake. Is adaptation okay whilst remake isn’t? When in fact the lines are blurred at best. You can have an adaptation – from a novel, for example, which may be more faithful to earier movie – than a remake. If Clash of the Titans had originally been a novel before the earlier movie had come out – would it validate the current movie? Personally I think it’s all fair game. Even Hitchcock did a remake of his own film. At the end of the day, if this latest movie was good – I don’t think many would complain. As it is – isn’t getting really bad reviews – 30% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ray Harryhausen was a god!
The 3 minute skeleton fight in the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts scared the crap out of me my entire childhood.
I really have never liked 3D movies, and I won’t go see it. It’s a rental.
Interesting that Wordsmith calls ‘Clash of the Titans ‘a semi-classic’ and yet puts pictures of Jason & Argonauts – which is a true classic.