In Time

[DeeBye]

I heard someone on the radio today say that remakes are not just Hollywood being lazy retreading an old plot, but it's also the consumer who is lazy in choosing to attend them. Since they know the story there is less likelihood of being disappointed in the story.

It's a little from column A and a little from column B. Hollywood doesn't like to make movies that people don't go to, and people don't go to movies that Hollywood doesn't make. I'm not sure if the previous sentence makes any sense.

I think the film series that best exemplifies this is Saw. The first one was great. It was unique and very well made. It was also very profitable because it cost so little to make (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw_%28fran...Box_office ). So now there are (or were? Is Saw finally done?) yearly Saw sequels that are all crap, but make huge amounts of profit. I should also mention that there are a billion franchises that ripped off the Saw formula and also cashed in. Most of them were terrible movies, but people went to them because "it's sorta like Saw".

I am not trying to bash reboots, remakes, or sequels/prequels as much as it seems that I am. Some of my favourite films fall into those categories. Zack Snyder's remake of "Dawn of the Dead" and the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" were both really, really good horror films. There's also that sequel called "The Empire Strikes Back" that was a pretty decent film.

My eyes absolutely light up when I see a truly unique film in the genres that I enjoy, and is led by a good director/writer/cast. Things like Inception, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men (I made that image just now, Google rules) and Sunshine fall into that list.

But Conan sucked. Some movies just shouldn't be remade.

---

Anyway, I haven't seen the Conan remake yet, loved the originals as a kid. But I have a feeling it was just like Clash of the Titans...a ton of CGI with poor acting and no plot.

The remake of Clash of the Titans was infinitely better than the new Conan, and it sucked.