Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great warmness in my tummy to announce my latest and thus far greatest discovery. It has taken months of research, but I have finally cracked the Hollywood genome, and now in my great benevolence, I am willing to share the secret. But first, you're probably wondering how I came up with this insight. If you're not, you may want to skip a few paragraphs forward because I'm about to get on my soapbox...

For years, I have suspected that Hollywood has lost it's way; only seeming to be able to function by remaking old movies and tv shows and re-hashing an extra chapter on an already tired theme. Now I don't want to point fingers at anyone in particular by way of example, but needs must... so let's talk about George Lucas. For years he has been resting on dubious laurels. That said, however, so has Quentin Tarantino, but we'll have much more fun with George so let's take a look at "Star Wars."

A series of films about star wars featuring a star sized planet destroyer called a "Death Star." Set against a backdrop where evil, dark characters are called "Darth"and small maintenance droids are programmed with complex personalities yet can only communicate by beeping. Where the good guys have flamboyantly heroic sounding names like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, so the audience doesn't get too confused.

Making it so blatantly straightforward for the viewing public must have proved too much of a strainium for Lucas's cranium because he also fathered such characters as Ja-bba, Ja-was and of course, Jar-Jar. So I can't help but wonder, is this really keen literary prowess or is George just going through all of the "J" sounds?

Now I can forgive a man for not giving his audiences enough credit to be able to work out a character's true nature by their actions and space age outfits, but not for a show of poor form. Also, whilst we're on the topic, what kind of monster spends millions of dollars on CGI effects for a movie about nothing more than a trade embargo? Anyways, I digress... But you shouldn't have pushed my buttons, Lucas; even if they do make beepy robot sounds...

So back to the topic, I was watching "Lars and the Real Girl" the other day when it hit me. The secret is to remake old movies with a reality based twist. In the case of "Lars and the Real Girl," this was clearly a remake of the hit movie "Mannequin", only this time he was delusional rather than embarking on a supernatural adventure whilst being locked in a department store.

"Donnie Darko" is arguably a remake of the Jimmy Stewart classic "Harvey". This story, for those who are unfamiliar, is about a man with a giant invisible rabbit for a best friend. In the case of Donnie Darko, we see it following the trend of rewriting the story to accommodate a delusional mind.

I should point out that although my recent comics involve a boy and his imaginary giant rabbit, we are only shining the spotlight on Hollywood at the moment, so back off.

Also, I don't think it is going too far to suggest that there are clear similarities between "The Breakfast Club" and "Elephant," and "Splash" remade into "Big Fish." I know... It's so obvious it's scary...

With an upcoming remake looming for "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", I wait eagerly for the next in the trend as two fairly retarded youths skip through time causing irreversible damage along the way. If this trend continues, we can expect to see "Weekend at Bernies" the snuff film and "Porkys" redone as a gripping insight into the lives of a group of serial sex offenders.

So to any young film-makers out there, I suggest you find your old Betamax collection, because it is a cash cow waiting to be exploited in the same way that Quentin Tarantino has been doing for years. Get out there kids, rip off the past and make us all proud and thought provoked!

Yours sincerely, 

Dave

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.