Doin' It To Death
The never-ending trend of Hollywood retreads.
      by Julie Ng

The film poster for Burton's Planet of the Apes. Look, there's a monkey!

I was initially appalled when I heard that Tim Burton was going to remake Planet of the Apes (Summer 2001). Who could possibly step into the shoes of the mighty Chuck?! Certainly not Marky Mark! Yet as I resentfully followed the progression of this project, I discovered that it is possibly the only current retread I am curious to see. Burton though, does not see it as a remake at all. Producer, Richard Zanuck elaborated further at The Age: "We're not remaking it, we are re-envisioning it. Mark Wahlberg is not playing Charlton Heston's character. He's playing a totally new created part in this upside down world of ape and human.'"

The reason I go to see a Tim Burton film is for the atmosphere and inspired set pieces he creates. Somehow, I doubt that Burton is interested in recycling of the retro orange and funky rock furnishings of the 1968 film. The filmmakers didn't even want to share the same moniker. Since the beginning of production, the project's working title was The Visitor, but now it appears that the studio is reverting back to Planet of the Apes, under the belief that you can't go wrong at the box-office with a classic, well-recognized name.

Then again, for all its twists, cool ape masks and campy humour, the staying power of Planet of the Apes is that it ended with a dark, moral message -- human beings are bad for the planet! This film was the beginning of a group of bleak science-fiction movies released in the 70's. All of which in some way or another, focused less on aliens from outer space, and more on warning us how screwed up our own planet is. In other words, they were movies that had a point. Completing the Heston saga, you have Soylent Green (Earth's going to overpopulate!) and The Omega Man (damn The Man!); along with Logan's Run (the elderly are not people!); THX 1138 (you're just a number!); Capricorn One (the government can't be trusted!) and even Westworld (Medieval Times, anyone?).

Understandably, these moral messages reflect the culture and issues prevalent at the time they were made. The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) fed on people's fear and paranoia towards communists invading America. Obviously, these political overtones didn't apply as much in 1978, which is the year Philip Kauffman released his version of the film. But Kauffman respected and kept the essential ideas expressed about the original film -- that modern living is creating unfeeling, conforming pod people! And a new angle of the same message shines through.

You can't help but notice that most sci-fi movies to come out these days really lack this sensibility. This only escalates my growing unease over the number of remakes going into production of the very films I just described above. I am most apprehensive about the much anticipated remake of another 70's flick -- Rollerball. While the original is not exactly a work of genius, director Norman Jewison and writer William Harrison did a fine job at predicting our future. Rollerball is probably the only cautionary sci-fi film that has actually ended up coming true.

Jewison's film is about our future society run entirely by corporations. Since war and poverty have been done away with, the American public get their thrills by watching Rollerball -- a brutal version of roller derby in which gladiators use skates and motorcycles, and sometimes fight each other to the death. The new version of Rollerball will be hitting theatres this May. Oddly enough, its director is John (Die Hard) McTiernan, whose last film happened to be a remake of another Jewison film, The Thomas Crown Affair. McTiernan joked in Total Film that he told Jewison "...actually, I'm your illegitimate son and I'm remaking your movies to get your attention."

Well, for whatever reason, you wonder what more McTiernan and writer John Pogue have to add, since we've already seen the effects of corporate ownership of sports, its arenas and star players. Hell, just ask Vince McMahon, owner of the WWF. The new version of Rollerball has made several odd changes. The year has been brought back from 2018 to a very contemporary 2005, the sport has been adjusted to resemble skateboarding, and the setting changed to a remote region in Kazakhstan. Therefore the villain is no longer the American corporate boss, but... their evil Russian coach (played by a French man, Jean Reno)?! The original's lead was played by a 35-year-old James Caan, a greying Rollerball veteran who was marked for "retirement". His replacement is now a much younger, hunkier Chris Klein (the sensitive guy from American Pie) -- a teenaged grizzled veteran, I guess.

Freddie Prinze Jr.: The future face of scifi? God help us all.

Which brings up yet another irritating trend that further erodes my sense of film history. Why all this re-casting with teen actors? Nothing personal against Chris Klein, but I think the casts of Scream, American Pie, and Dawson's Creek are in cahoots for world domination. Take for example, the upcoming remake of Scooby Doo. Let's forget for a moment that someone actually thought it was a good idea to remake this animated series as a live-action movie with a CGI dog. We have Matthew Lillard (Shaggy), Freddie Prinze Jr. (Freddy), and Sarah Michelle Gellar (Daphne) slated to play our classic supernatural detectives. Zoinks. I would much rather just watch the cartoon.

Or how about the proposed remake of Logan's Run? In an attempt to actually be more faithful to George Clayton Johnson and William F. Nolan's original novel, early film drafts have changed the date of extermination from 30 years old to 21. You realize that this means filling the entire cast with young actors. Boy, that Freddie Prinze Jr. is going to be one busy thespian.

Despite the fact that most of these actors have yet to prove that they can carry an entire movie (Wing Commander, The Skulls, Here On Earth, Loser, the list is endless) on their own, they keep getting these jobs! So not only must I come to terms with my favourite genre films being altered by the Hollywood money machine, I must also see these pretty over-saturated faces everywhere I turn. What a freggin' nightmare.

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