{"id":154,"date":"2016-04-30T01:22:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T08:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/2016\/04\/30\/recycling-or-re-imagining-by-keefer-blakeslee\/"},"modified":"2016-04-26T12:29:10","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T19:29:10","slug":"recycling-or-re-imagining-by-keefer-blakeslee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/2016\/recycling-or-re-imagining-by-keefer-blakeslee\/","title":{"rendered":"Recycling or Re-imagining? By Keefer Blakeslee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"remakes.jpg\"<\/a>Hollywood! Whether you love it or you don\u2019t it\u2019s still the movie capital of the U.S. Many of the finest work of cinema come from the palm tree palace. However, with every yang there is always a yin. Case and point – the remake.<\/p>\n

Hollywood is known for taking a film that\u2019s already been done and creating a new one with a different twist. Sometimes they can be better than the original and others (most of the time) should have been left alone. Regardless, I\u2019ve always been skeptical about remakes. \u201cIf it\u2019s not broke, don\u2019t fix it!\u201d That\u2019s my motto. Why reboot a film that was already amazing. Honestly, if Hollywood wants to do remakes, why don\u2019t they regurgitate terrible films? That way, they have a second chance to make a great new story and if it\u2019s a flop, it no worse than the original. Instead we get remakes like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory <\/em>and Planet of the Apes <\/em>(oddly enough both directed by Tim Burton) that, in my humble opinion, tarnish classics.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always hated the excuses studios give on why they decided to \u201cimprove\u201d classics. \u201cBecause they \"Keefer.2014.5.jpg\"<\/a>now have better video quality and special effects.\u201d To me, that is not a valid reason. If you\u2019re going to do a remake don\u2019t rely on CGI tricks. I\u2019m talking about Ben-Hur.<\/em> Say what you want.\u00a0 Is Hollywood out of ideas or are they just doing it for the money?\u00a0 There is another legitimate reason why Hollywood might remake films and it\u2019s a good one – to re-imagine the story.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t hate remakes. Even though I\u2019m not 100% in favor of them, I understand why filmmakers want to create them. I believe filmmakers are smart enough to know that you shouldn\u2019t go into a project with the intentions to top the original. The audience decides that. Instead, they go with the mindset of not re-making, but re-imaging.<\/p>\n

Directors have different styles of telling stories. If you gave the story, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to a bunch of different filmmakers, each one would have a different vision. Spielberg would focus on the adventure and wonder. Howard would show the survival aspect. Anderson would probably make the Nautilus a pink hotel. Now, these new visions can breathe new life into these classic stories, but they should also bring back what made them great originally.<\/p>\n

As I said before, there are good remakes. Recently, my favorites have been Disney\u2019s live action remakes of The Jungle Book and Cinderella. These films not only re-create the magic that made us love the original, but they also give it a modern touch that invites a new generation to be exposed to these stories. Hollywood has given me hope for good remakes – scratch that, re-imaginings. As much as you and I may hate remakes, you have to admit that good can come from them. Now, sequels and prequels, that\u2019s for the next blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hollywood! Whether you love it or you don\u2019t it\u2019s still the movie capital of the U.S. Many of the finest work of cinema come from the palm tree palace. However, with every yang there is always a yin. Case and point – the remake. Hollywood is known for taking a film that\u2019s already been done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-critics-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}