Movies That Should Be Remade Vol. 1

Remakes get a bad rap. As you would expect, doing an all-serious remake of Robocop with none of the satire and humor, a Clash of Titans remake with the gracefulness of a Michael Bay movie, and an edgy remake of Snow White all based on name recognition rather than artistic integrity tend to fail pretty hard. But what about when there are ideas left on the table, and a remake is actually justified? A while back, I discussed some of the movies that should never be remade, so let’s get a little bit more positive and examine movies that I wouldn’t mind seeing a remake of… if they were done right.

Carrie

I know, Carrie already had a remake, and it was terrible. But here’s the thing: it didn’t have to be. I’ll come clean and say the general premise came from an episode of the Sick and Wrong podcast: picture Carrie, not as a girl, but as a transgender boy. Maybe he starts with his name as Carl, then he begins to develop new emotions that push him towards the direction. I’m no expert on gender identity, so excuse me if I seem like I’m skipping a step or two. Anyways, Carl begins making the transition to Carrie, and he beings to get bullied at school. Hard. And on top of that, maybe his single-father is a religious fanatic who follows god’s word to a T’, and now sees shame in his boy, who he believes was supposed to follow in his footsteps in his masculine ways.

There, now you have all the makings of a good remake: taking a premise that could work at any time and updating it to modern day. Not just taking the same concept and replacing giant brick phones with smartphones. In addition, you give awareness to trans-rights, you still have the religious symbolism from the first movie, and as for everything else, you could go nuts with the special effects. Sounds like a plan to me.

The Breakfast Club

This may not be a “please remake this now” scenario, and is instead probably a “please make another movie with a similar tone and style to this one, I don’t really care if you have to use the name for brand recognition” scenario. The thing about Breakfast Club is that it was about taking the typical high-schooler archetypes and examining how deep one could go with that archetype. The characters are well written, with each not necessarily going through an entire arc, but we do learn a lot about them, and about why they became the people they are. Why is the bully a bully, what’s going on instead the head of that girl who never talks, that sort of thing. There’s also a noticeable theme of struggling to be accepted, and while it may be a cliche theme in movies about teenagers, it's one that still makes sense. Teenagers have no idea what they are doing, and the chemicals in their brains are turning all their emotions up to 11. It’s repetitive, but relatable: being a teenager kind of sucks.

So why not remake this concept again, but do it with modern day archetypes? How about an edgy-emo kid who’s whiny and angry at the world, but begins to question whether he is just mad at himself, or just mad that he can’t get what he wants (or who he wants. Oooh plot twist!). You want to explore some heavy shit, go with a hardcore death metal kid who everyone suspects may end up as a psychopath (some stereotypical school-shooter type) yet we figure out he has a heart of gold and just has a hard time talking to people. You could have a younger pre-teen dealing with superiority complex and an internet addiction, a new brainy kid, but this time he’s fraud because he’s just been googling the answers; the possibilities are pretty endless. The important thing is to keep it small and isolated: this is a movie about kids exploring themselves, and the dialogue needs to be good enough to reflect all that, with a setting that can let that exploring happen.

Dazed and Confused

See above’s “Breakfast Club” example for why I want this. Coming of age stories are stories that can be re-told pretty easily (again, see above) but Dazed and Confused is a special case because it acts as goofy coming of age tale that doubles as a time capsule of the 1970s. Tell me honestly, is Dazed all it’s cracked up to be, or is nostalgia a big factor? The plot kind of goes nowhere (though you could argue it didn’t need to) much of the comedy doesn’t really hold up, etc. But I bet you still get chills every time “Schools Out” starts playing don’t you? Dazed and Confused was really good at hitting the nostalgia button. So good, I really can’t believe that modern hollywood hasn’t tried to remake it already.

But here’s the thing, the only way to remake Dazed and Confused is to keep the same concept, but shift time periods. You know what that means: 80s and 90s throwbacks! I know, I know, it can feel like the 80s and 90s will never go away thanks to the never ending nostalgia machine that are the movie, tv, and video game industries, but the reason why this one will work is because you do it in one go. One character (or group of characters) as they grow up in the 80s and live through the 90s. I know what you’re thinking. Why stop at the 90s? Easy, because all music in the early 2000s was terrible. All of it. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

Anyways, I think this is a pretty solid method of killing two birds with one stone: we get a coming of age story and cover two decades worth of music and culture. In addition, we can get a more in depth version of the coming of age story. Say our characters are really young teenagers in 80s, getting into Metallica and Poison or whatever, they have tons of youthful energy, they go out to face the world, then end up more or less like Dante and Randal from Clerks in the 90s: bitter, sarcastic, lost in the world they thought was their oyster. Sure, they had their coming of age moment in the 80s, but what happened after the credits rolled on that story? I think watching the “age” part in “coming of age” is a great way to inject some life into an already visited concept.

The Star Wars Prequels

Disney, I’d just like you to know that I don’t really care about Star Wars anymore. I did at one point. Then the prequels happened. Then the endless merchandising. I don’t care how much money Episode 7 made. It wasn’t all that great, and in no way made up for the torture that was Episodes I-III. I’ve made my peace with Star Wars. But when Disney reset the canon to include only the 6 movies and their own material, I was intrigued. Disney, if you really want to mess with Star Wars in the hopes of fixing it… then I have an idea for you. First, remove Episodes I-III from the cannon. Not like they matter anyway. Step two, you’re going to make a Netflix series. Not another 3 movies, spending billions upon the billions you are already spending with the current wave of Star Wars movies. And when I say “series” I mean season. Don’t make a 5 season series that’s just as bloated as the prequels. Instead you’re going to make one 12/13 episode season, and you’re going to give that season to… the guys who make House of Cards. Ah, now you see why this should work right?

George Lucas was on to something in the prequels: the origin of Star Wars is Palpatine and his rise to power. Who better to handle a story about a politician usurping power better than the people who are pretty much doing that already, except not in space. So, get the House of Cards team, keep it short, and focus on Palpatine’s rise to power, with Anakin becoming Darth Vader set up as a side-story. Maybe he’s the Doug Stamper to Palpatine’s Frank Underwood. And don’t worry about fucking it up Disney, because, like I said, there is literally nothing Star Wars can do now that will make me feel anything anymore.