Vince Russo's The Brand

The fun thing to do in Hollywood for the past decade plus seems to be remaking or re-imagining everything under the sun.  More often than not they are miserable failures that crap on the source material and provide nothing constructive to the original legacy.  There are exceptions.  Star Trek was fantastic.  Of course it gave you a reason for wiping continuity and starting over.  The Planet of the Apes series is leaps and bounds better than the original (and Tim Burton’s).

Of course you also have Dukes of Hazzard (sure, let’s throw cuss words everywhere because we can and make Uncle Jesse a pot head), Evil Dead (bad, just bad), The Karate Kid (I don’t even know what to say on this one)…the list could go on forever, but you get the idea.

Television does it too.  I love Supergirl on the CW, but why is Jimmy Olsen 6’6″, ripped and a bad a$$?!?!?!  Why is every Superman baddie she fights appearing for the first time?  Superman has been around for like a decade and Metallo, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Cyborg Superman (why the hell is he even called that?!?!?), Maxima and Parasite have just never appeared?  Come on…

The point is, when Hollywood remakes something or re-imagines it they seem to completely discard the source material.  They don’t seem to understand why it was such a classic in the first place.  Just ask Man of Steel and Batman v Superman how that works out for you…The latest victim of this craze would be CHiPs, the classic 70’s/80’s sitcom starring Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox.  (Fun fact: it also starred a pre-Star Trek the Next Generation Worf sans makeup.)

The original series centered around two California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers, Jon Baker and Frank “Ponch” Poncherello.  Yes, it was cheesy.  If you ever want to laugh for 20 minutes find the episode with the drunk driver flipping his car.  The dummy makes it funny.  The characters and themes were serious, not one note jokes.  For as bad as it was it was still entertaining.

From the remake previews that’s completely out the window.  They both seem like idiots, it’s filled with jokes a 12 year old laughs at and it is nothing like the original.  I am all for toilet humor.  Kevin Smith is one of my favorite film makers ever.  There’s a time and a place for it.  Taking something beloved by many and squashing it just for fun seems more like WWE when they bought WCW than a sound business decision.  It makes me wonder how anyone can convince a studio to make this garbage.

In all honesty, I will Redbox this when it comes out just to see it.  Of course, I will also rent zombie movies that are so bad that you laugh when you shouldn’t because it’s always fun to watch a train wreck.  The problem is that Hollywood doesn’t make movies for Redbox or Family Video.  They make them for the theaters.

DC/WB can’t learn this to save their lives.  They put out the Dukes remake.  They put out Man of Steel (which I liked) and Batman V Superman (which I both liked and hated).  And guess who is putting out this garbage?  Yep.  Warner Brothers.

When Superman is missing all the things that makes him Superman (enjoying his powers, being Superman, being the hero the world will always need, being someone everyone can look up to…a Big Blue Boy Scout)…when Uncle Jesse is a stoner or Rosco P. Coltrane isn’t an incompetent moron…when Jon and Ponch are incompetent morons you just aren’t going to put butts in seats.

Remaking a movie should be great.  Comics do it all the time.  They update origins and modernize the universe.  Re-imagining a movie should give you a chance to build on what made something great while fixing the things that didn’t work.  Somehow Hollywood doesn’t understand that.  It seems that they hate the source material and want to spend six months and millions of dollars to make fun of the things they loved as children.  It’s like watching anything Tim Burton touches.