Modern magic or remake ruin?
With film remakes becoming an apparent inevitability, will all of our family favourites be in the firing line? Amber Stokes asks
Latest news: sing-a-long sensation ‘Annie’ has been morphed into a new film… simply adding to the long list of films starring Cameron Diaz. It’s amazing how within this modern and globalised society, with technological developments occurring by the second, we still feel an uncontrollable need to fixate on adapting classic films, rather than leaving them in the past and focusing on bigger and better things. It’s become apparent that accepting the original story of the young red-headed orphan who finds love through a mix-up of melodies and money is something we just can’t do. Increasingly it seems to be a case of running out of new ideas, which leaves directors with no choice but to destroy traditional classics in order to fit in with our adapted lives today.
Of course this isn’t the first time this has happened... Look at The Italian Job, both starring the protagonist Charlie Croker and both about a handful of thieves- yet just one version of this still wasn’t good enough for a demanding modern audience. Then there are of course, the Disney films; despite the underlying sexism and class inequalities, they are still childhood favourites, right? So why take them on? It would be worthwhile if in the latest adaptions of those films, the feminist movement and the march of progress shone through, sadly however, there’s still a clear power split between genders throughout – dictated by the original fairy tales behind the majority of Disney films. |
However, the more disturbing thing is that, rather than turning them into a positive, the result may be like the latest Snow White - a film stuffed with violence and sexual scenes- yet the age marking is simply ‘13’. Are parents today really prepared to allow adolescents as young as thirteen to watch a film featuring a frightful witch draining blood from innocents on the streets? Before you know it films of such a violent nature will be perfectly acceptable to be ranked as a PG and then where have all our childhoods gone?
The innocence of childhood has been in progressive decline since this century began, reflected through boys as young as 6 years old, obsessing over video games in which they brutally murder a million zombies, rather than going outside and building dens and hideouts. This would explain why, in the remake of a family film such as ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, Mike Teavee is seen as a young gamer chanting ‘Die! Die! Die’. Supposedly in order to appeal to an experienced audience today, this technology craze has to feature in order for children to be entertained, however it is worrying that violence and modernisation come hand in hand. While the remake of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ failed to entirely leave the era in which it was set, with a strange Charlie’s-stuck-in-the-seventies motif, the same cannot be said for Disney’s remake of ‘Annie’, where hip-hop mash-ups take centre stage in a contemporary, modern New York City which is far from the tired, thirties NYC in the original ‘Annie’ films. |
However, like ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, Disney’s new ‘Annie’ features the theft of innocence that has become abundant in the majority of modern movies, where Annie sweet melodies of missing parents and beautiful harmonies of new found happiness are replaced by a new age of music – funky hip hop style songs. Yet another way of twisting and contorting classics for the sake of money, not magic.
Ultimately, we’ve been tricked by cynical directors who thought it was a good idea to recreate the hugely popular, innocent children’s classics into technology-dominated, Hollywood attempts at earning some cash. This addiction to destroying every film classic is reflected in our children’s growing perception of films that would have satisfied a previous generation as ‘babyish’ and ‘childish’ – potentially leading to the disappearance of classic films and taking innocence with it. Happily ever after? I think not. |