Hollywood Ends It All

Dear Hollywood, please don’t butcher my childhood. Is Tinseltown running out of ideas? One movie after the next is a remake these days. Either originality is dead or old ideas just sell too well. I’m not gonna go trendy by condemning every remake ever made. Some of them are great, some even excite me, and some are complete letdowns.

Remakes don’t always fail. I was downright giddy over Superman Returns a while back, and they did a great job. Don’t ask me why the Man of Steel can’t get a sequel while the four most useless women in Manhattan can. Some franchises should go on for new generations, but when I told people I thought A-Team was so good I’d see it again some of them called me names. Some franchises should never be touched (Planet of the Apes or any Mel Brooks films). Some should just die (Charlie’s Angels).

Ain't no stopping the crane technique

The remakes just keep coming, too many to recap. The Green Hornet is here. We’ve already seen Star Trek, G.I. Joe, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and Alvin & The Chipmunks (twice unfortunately). We’ve had to suffer through rehashes of The Pink Panther, Dukes of Hazzard, Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, and others I’ve managed to block out.

What’s especially noticeable now are all the 80s remakes. The current barrage includes a hefty list of gnarly classics so far. The Karate Kid, A-Team, Tron, Wall Street, Nightmare On Elm Street, Footloose, Clash Of The Titans, Pirhana, Miami Vice, and more are upon us.

If you think that’s something consider these movies in the works like Ghostbusters, Total Recall, 21 Jump Street, Knight Rider, Red Dawn, Romancing The Stone, Highlander, and Police Academy. Some of them might get stuck in development purgatory, but the trend is clear. What’s next? Would anyone dare try The Princess Bride? Where’s Clue? How about Dirty Dancing? Oh yeah, it’s called Step Up. Can somebody put a stop to this before we end up with a lame redo of Weekend At Bernie’s?

Complaining does no good, so why not be proactive and help the movie moguls target franchises wholly fit for resuscitation. Seems the execs are all over movies but what other TV shows are next now that The A-Team banked millions? Here’s a short list of 80s awesomeness we might as well see redone as long as it’s totally radical.