remake

There's no escaping Hollywood's insatiable desire to mine previous decades for films to remake. John Scalzi hooks on to the latest Karate Kid and wonders which 80s sci-fi films deserve similar treatment.

He goes through each year of the decade and selects some suitable candidates. He actually has some interesting choices as he mostly picks some of the era's crappiest movies and as I have always contended, if you are going to remake a movie, take something bad and make it better. I think the Beatles may have said something similar in their song Hey Jude.

Another approach Hollywood occasionally takes is instead of remaking something familiar, they steal a foreign movie, make their own version and hope no one realizes that they plundered the idea from somewhere else.

With that in mind, here is a list of 10 great foreign science fiction films. They are all worth watching in their own right, but a few of these might be worthy of the Hollywood treatment. At least one of them already has and that is Solaris. The original was great and many critics hated the American version, but I quite enjoyed it and I think anyone who appreciates serious science fiction would and since few moviegoers or mainstream critics do then I think that explains its poor critical reception.

For more remake ideas, how about some of the flicks in this list of 10 notable sci-fi westerns? I love, love, loved Westworld as a kid. That could use a technological update and could be a lot of fun.

What's your choice for a remake or do you hate them so much that you think it's time Hollywood started looking for new ideas?

The movie Total Recall never really got much respect from critics, but it was certainly a hit with the public and is a guilty pleasure for a lot of science fiction fans. It was 20 years ago that the movie came out and SciFi Wire looks back to come up with 10 reasons why we still love the film.

There's talk of a remake next year, but how can you top the original? There's also news that someone's acquired the rights to the story to make a comic book version. I'm surprised one hasn't been done before now.

As you know, the original inspiration for the film was Philip K. Dick's short story We Can Remember it for you Wholesale. Prior to that, the other big Dick adaptation was Blade Runner from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I like Dick's titles better, but they'd never work as movie titles.

I mention this because another comic book adaptation of a movie adaptation of a Dick story is in the works. This one is a comic book version of Blade Runner. Actually, it's a prequel to the original movie so at least it will be a somewhat original story.

I have a feeling that the comic book industry is seeing the same trend as the movie industry. People are "re-imagining" comic books that have been done before.

Another example of a comic book adapted from a movie which was adapted from a book is a new graphic version of Logan's Run. That movie is also being remade. When does the remake insanity end? A;tjough, the good news about this adaptation is that the original book author is collaborating with the comic book creators.

The science fiction movie pipeline continues to churn out product. In the not too distant future, expect a sequel to Avatar which, according to director James Cameron, will be set in the seas of Pandora. Before then, though, expect an "extended" version of the movie to return to theatres later this year with another 8 minutes of footage. We'll see how that works out for them.

Another high-profile movie is getting some sequels, or more accurately some prequels. Director Ridley Scott is planning two prequels to his popular Alien franchise which, of course, will be shot in 3D and he says will kick Avatar's butt at the box office. That's a bold claim. As for Sigourney Weaver, who's been in all of the Alien movies and, coincidentally Avatar, won't be invovled in these films.

As for other projects to look forward to, how about another science fiction offering from the man who brought us Gattaca? His newest film will be called I'm.mortal, an original story based on his own script.

Another upcoming sci-fi film is Melancholia. I don't know much about it other than it will star Kirsten Dunst. Even if the film is no good, at least it we'll have something good to look at.

And the remakes don't stop coming. Rob Zombie is planning a "re-imagining" of The Blob. At least he's doing what I've always thought should be the number one rule of remakes - make a new version of something bad and make it better.

As they say on commercials - that's not all! There are lots of new science fiction movies coming out this year that look to be worth seeing. IO9 has compiled a bunch and this site lists 10 more. For all of those people who keep claiming science fiction is dead, I guess they don't get out much.

I usually don't like the idea of "rebooting" movies. If something from the past was good, why mess with it? A common refrain from this list of sci-fi movies that deserve a reboot is that older films have to be updated for "modern" audiences. What the hell does that mean? I'm guessing it means insert more CGI effects, edit the scenes for more rapid transitions and make sure there are plenty of explosions.

One example of a movie that is being remade for 21st century viewers is the upcoming Clash of the Titans film. I actually watched this on the weekend with my 7-year-old and the stop-motion effects are clearly outdated and the acting is pretty wooden, but that is part of the film's charm. It's still an entertaining movie and updating the visuals isn't going to necessarily make it better.

I think if you are going to remake a movie, then take something that was terrible in the first place and make it better. A good example is Battlefield Earth. The book was an enjoyable brick of pulp adventure, but the movie, by all accounts, was horrible. The screenwriter has even apologized to the world for what he did, but argues that it wasn't all his fault.

So what do you do if you are a Hollywood studio and the sequel to a popular movie was a bomb? You make another sequel, of course! That's what they are doing with the Riddick movies. Pitch Black enjoyed some success and garnered a cult following, but the sequel The Chronicles of Riddick was seen as a critical failure. Perhaps they want to see if they can do even worse, but a third film called simply Riddick is in the works.

You won't be surprised that other science fiction film projects that are coming our way include a remake of Escape from New York. There isn't much word on which direction they are taking with the film, but you can probably expect lots of things will blow up.

More promising is an announced remake of the forgotten Disney sci-fi movie The Black Hole. If you're going to remake a movie, at least take a bad one and make it better.

Weirdest of all the new movie projects I've read about lately is a science fiction adaptation of the Herman Melville classic Moby Dick. Did some film producer mishear Philip K. Dick instead of Moby Dick?

If you want to track down more promising science fiction films than those, check out the website of the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. There are some interesting new and old films there that look to be worth watching.

The V remake premieres tomorrow. Critics have been given an advance look at it in order for them to write reviews that will drum up interest in the show.

I've read some of them and opinion is mixed. Many say that it is an exciting remake of the show and an improvement on the campy original. They seem to be taking things a bit more seriously, sort of the way the new Battlestar Galactica was a more realistic show than the 70s show that shared the same name. While those reviews were postive, others weren't so enthusiastic.

I never really watched the original so I won't have any expectations coming into this one, but by the time I actually get around to watching the pilot, it will probably already be cancelled. I'll get to it as soon as I finish watching the last season of BSG and watching last year's Doctor Who episodes that I never had time to view.

Peter Jackson says that movie fans are fed up with a lack of original ideas. He made the comment at Comic-con recently while pushing District 9, an original SF movie which he produced.

The movie is getting a lot of praise from critics, but it probably would never have happened if the movie adaptation of Halo that they were working on had fallen through. At least something good came from the demise of that project.

In other news, Ridley Scott will direct a prequel to Alien, the star of The Hurt Locker may be the next Mad Max and Warner Bros. is considering an update of the classic pirate movie Captain Blood as a science fiction film. What was Jackson saying about a lack of original ideas in Hollywood?

It seems like Hollywood isn't wasting time when it comes to remakes these days. Word is out that there are plans to update Total Recall. Shouldn't they wait another decade or so? They are also redoing the Predator movie. Rumour has it that the original star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been offered a role in the latter movie.

For more genre movie projects, head over to Den of Geek to see their impressive list of upcoming films. They don't list just a few obvious projects like Avatar, but an impressive list of 36 films, most of which you probably are not aware. Amazingly, many of them seem to be original stories and not remakes or adaptations.

Meanwhile, an indie film company recently announced that it would release its movie online before offering it for sale on DVD, something that they claim is a first. I guess releasing a film direct-to-web is today's version of direct-to-video.

This week's genre movie release is a lot more family friendly than last week's Watchman movie. It's Disney's effort to kickstart its Witch Mountain franchise with a movie called Race to Witch Mountain. It's not exactly a sequel to the previous movies in the series and it isn't exactly a remake. It's somewhere in the middle.

The reviews have not been great, but by the time the box office cash and DVD sales are tallied up, I'll bet it makes a lot more money than Watchman does, just for the fact that it's rated G where Watchman is a restricted movie which automatically cuts into its box office potential.

Of course, I'm comparing apples to oranges since the movies have just about zero similarity other than I'm lumping them together as "genre" movies.

What's interesting about Watchman was to see how it would fare with a mainstream audiences compared to the fanboys who worshipped the graphic novel upon which it was based. Apparently, it's not going so well. I think a lot of people were expecting a Spider-Man/Fantastic Four sort of experience, but are finding out it's nothing like that. While it led at the box office last weekend, going forward it doesn't look like it will do so well. I'm guessing its run in the theatres will be relatively brief. Oh, well. It's not like there would be a sequel.

Back to Witch Mountain for a moment. In anticipation of the movie, I hauled out the originals and screened them for my progeny. They both really liked Escape to Witch Mountain, but thought Return from Witch Mountain was not as good, although enjoyed it anyway.  I guess that old Disney magic still holds up after all these decades.

Did April Fool's Day arrive early this year? What else would explain talk of a book, and possibly movie, that would transform Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice into a zombie story? The alleged title of such a farce is to be Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Ugh.

To make matters even more ridiculous, Elton John is talking about combining Jane Austen and the Predator movies to make a film of his own called Pride & Predator. Double Ugh

Slightly more serious is talk that director Robert Rodriguez will be reviving the Predator series of movies. I hope he gets to it before Elton John does, although the two might want to get together since Rodriguez did a pretty credible job with a zombie movie of his own called Planet Terror that was part of the Grindhouse double feature that paired him with Quentin Tarentino and his movie Death Proof.

While talk of a Predator revival is just rumour, Rodriguez will be writing and directing another science fiction for release next year. It's a futuristic thriller called Nervewrackers.