The Day the Remakes Stood Still

I'm taking a break from my annual awards to rant about Hollywood remakes. They suck. They've sucked for a long time now, and somebody needs to step in and ban them. It used to be that people remade a movie to either improve it or put a fresh spin on it (think of great remakes like The Fly and The Thing). But that time has past. Now remakes are made to cash in on the name and for zero creative reasons. Hollywood must be stopped before it's too late!


Well, we can dream, can't we? So I finally got around to seeing the unnecessary remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The original is one of my favourite sci-fi movies ever and is still as relevant today as it was in 1951. If they had to remake it, all they had to do was keep the basic story and just update the effects. But no, they had to totally change the point of the story. Bad Hollywood.

The first half actually wasn't bad, with some clever nods to the original. Keanu Reeves is suitably alien and there was a nice buildup of suspense. I could even forgive that the CGI Gort looked like shit because he at least resembled the original. But once Klatuu goes on the run the film goes nowhere and the final special effects showreel had nothing we hadn't seen before and better. Then the film just ends, with no "Klatuu, Barada, Nikto" moment or warning for mankind. Add this to the long-list of dumbed-down remakes that will be forgotten long before people stop watching the classic original. Kudos to John Cleese for pulling off a serious role, though.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.