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Big Budget DAWN OF THE DEAD remake!!? (1 Viewer)

Matthew Chmiel

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I'm sure if you search this forum, there are a few threads about the remake (when news first got out).

Good: James Gunn is going for adults, instead of teenagers like we were all thinking.

Bad: James Gunn is remaking a masterpiece (bad idea #1) to be mainstream (bad idea #2).
 

Julie K

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I am sick and tired of remakes. We've got the Dawn of the Dead remake, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, a Wicker Man remake. None of these are needed and I think they are very bad ideas.

I'm not totally against remakes. Carpenter's The Thing is a classic. (One could argue though, that perhaps the reason it works so well is that it is not so much a remake of an original movie but another, more faithful, attempt at making a movie of an original story.) However most of the time remakes just indicate how little creativity exists in the big-budget movie industry.
 

Jack Briggs

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Actually, Julie, the Carpenter version would be better classified as a second adaptation of John W. Campbell Jr.'s novella Who Goes There?, rather than as a remake of the '50s classic.

And I agree: Do we really need a remake of Dawn of the Dead? And aren't we getting tired of all these big-budget retreads that are inferior to the leaner originals?
 

Julie K

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Actually, Julie, the Carpenter version would be better classified as a second adaptation of John W. Campbell Jr.'s novella Who Goes There?, rather than as a remake of the '50s classic.
That's what I meant and I guess I phrased things badly. The Thing is a very good adaptation of Campbell's story and is not what I'd call a remake of the 1950 movie. (In passing I'll just mention that there was a certain other story that also took place in Antarctica that came out a year or so before the Campbell one. That's the one I really want to see...)

The problem with these remakes is that they are taking a cult icon and trying to make it appeal to the masses. That just doesn't work. No one is going to like the results. It will be too violent/bloody/weird for the masses and too watered down and tame for us genre freaks. The mainstream must have their happy ending and that just doesn't fit well with true horror.
 

Mitty

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The problem with these remakes is that they are taking a cult icon and trying to make it appeal to the masses. That just doesn't work.
Very true. The reason these films captured people's imagination in the first place is the sheer audacity and the great artistic risks that were taken to get them to the screen. Their makers fought, and in many cases, begged, borrowed, stole and scraped to get them made, typically on razor-thin budgets. To take films created by people working out on the very end of the branch and feed them through the focus-grouped, committee run Hollywood seems fundamentally flawed to me.
 

Jack Briggs

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Julie, what was that other Antarctica-based story? Curious.
Agreed, too, that a pointless remake of Dawn would miss the idea of the original--it will be gorier yet watered down, because the classic original was a commentary, among other things, on consumerism. Today's MTV-influenced audiences aren't into clever commentary.
Whoa. I'm being confrontational! :)
 

Terrell

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Is Dawn of the Dead really a classic? I would agree that Night of the Living Dead is a classic. But to me, Dawn of the Dead was terrible(my opinion), and never on the level of the original Dead movie. I agree a remake is a stupid and completely unoriginal idea. But is it really a classic? Maybe it is and I just don't know it is. It just seems that the word classic sometimes gets thrown around too easily.

Okay Hollywood, get some original ideas and stop remaking everything.
 

Julie K

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it will be gorier yet watered down,
While the social commentary will certainly be toned down, if not eliminated completely, I very much doubt it will gorier. Even if the remake is rated R, modern mainstream horror films just do not contain significant gore. Maybe some blood around, but no gore. I doubt we'll be seeing much in the way of entrails or brains (just look how controversial those few seconds of exposed brain were in Hannibal! That's nothing for a real gore film!) in the remake. And while we may see some of the aftermath of zombie attacks, the camera will cut away during the actual attacks. This cutting away is just all too common in today's horror movies. People seem to feel it's too terrible to show terror and horror in horror movies but that's what it's all about. Horror is supposed to be disturbing, yet the mainstream audiences don't want to be disturbed. It's a combination that just does not mix.
Hmmmm...sorry for the rant. I take my horror and splatter seriously :)
And here's another one for the needless remake list: Scanners. :rolleyes
Meanwhile, the innovative films get straight to DVD releases (Attic Expeditions, Dagon) if they're lucky and rot in limbo for lack of a distributor (Blood Feast 2, House of 1000 Corpses - yes it looks like it's been dropped by MGM) if they're unlucky.
 

Jack Briggs

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Thanks for the commentary, Julie! Always a pleasure.

Terrell: Some Romero afficianados like Dawn better than Night. It is widely regarded as a classic.
 

Terrell

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I may not even be thinking of the correct film, there's been so many f those films made. Is Dawn the one where they're trapped in a mall?
 

Andres Munoz

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Julie, did they make a movie based on At the Mountains of Madness?
I read a few reviews of the book in Amazon.com and it sure would make for a very interesting movie.
 

Brook K

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Ugh, Del Toro is wholly unimpressive, but I suppose another Lovecraft movie can't possibly be worse than several of the stinkers already out. I want to see one done as a period piece that actually uses Lovecraft's talent for language, but I know that's just wishful thinking.
A remake of The Wicker Man? How can they remake a film based around a famous set piece finale? And of course they'll scrub out all the music that makes it so unique.
And I completely agree with everything Julie says about the Dawn remake.
 

Justin_S

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This is an absolutely AWFUL idea! DAWN OF THE DEAD is indeed a classic, and it doesn't need some lame as hell, watered down remake from the writer of the SCOOBY DOO movie! Stuff like this really makes me, a seasoned horror fanatic, angry as all hell! And whats worse is that Hollywood is remaking other horror classics as well, such as the master, Cronenberg's SCANNERS (this is the one I am most pissed off about!! :angry: ), a re-remake of THE BLOB, and a remake of the brilliant Christopher Lee masterpiece, THE WICKER MAN, not to mention several others, that out of sheer disgust, I will not name right now! Ah, what the hell! Here are the rest: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, and PULSE (aka KAIRO).
The only remake that looks promising is the reamke of the excellent Japanese horror film, RING. With Naomi Watts, and some good things I've heard about it, this film could turn out to be a great remake. Time will tell.
 

Andy Sheets

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While the social commentary will certainly be toned down, if not eliminated completely, I very much doubt it will gorier.
Agreed. Hollywood has for a good while now been absolutely defanged, declawed, and neutered when it comes to graphic violence. I was amazed when the Resident Evil movie came out and a lot of people were telling me how gross and disgusting it was. I've actually never been a huge gore freak but I can't help but want to shove something like an Argento movie in their faces to see how they'd react to something like that :D
 

Terrell

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WOW! Oh well, can't really call myself a Romero fan. But that is interesting. I've seen both. In fact, I saw Dawn just the other night on cable. I thought Night of the Living Dead was easily superior, and a true classic, whereas I did not like Dawn of the Dead at all. Different strokes for different folks.

But I can imagine how true fans must feel. Even though I'm not a true fan, I can imagine Raiders or Star Wars being remade. Absolutely terrible idea.
 

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