Should I be worried that they are remaking two films by one of the world's greatest living directors?
Paul Verhoeven may not top everybody's list of great film directors, but to me he is a living god. Over a decade he directed an incredible run of striking, vivid and subversive blockbusters starting with Robocop in 1987 and coming to a close with the remarkable Starship Troopers in 1997. Along the way he also directed Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Showgirls. Okay, that last film didn't achieve what it set out to do, but I have never laughed so hard in a cinema.
His films are a gloriously heady mix of the profound and the profane. Only Verhoeven could make a film about alien killer bugs that is actually about fascism or a film about a robot cop that is actually about Jesus or a glossy erotic thriller that is actually a dizzying postmodern take on sexual politics.
I can also recommend Verhoeven's director commentaries on the DVDs. He spends half the film breathlessly explaining the visual effects and the rest of the time breathlessly unpicking the political and religious subtext. It is very entertaining.
A typical moment in the Starship Troopers commentary goes something like this:
"That is CGI Johnny, that is real Johnny, CGI Johnny again. But, of course this battle scene is about how the capitalist war machine devours our young. That's real Johnny, but a CGI arm.''
So, just to be clear, I love Paul Verhoeven. Even the critical and commercial flop, Hollow Man, is interesting for its unique take on the invisible man legend. Sadly, that film marked the end of Verhoeven's Hollywood run, but the Dutch-language wartime thriller Black Book in 2006 proved he has still got it.
So, now two of Verhoeven's most hallowed texts, Robocop and Total Recall, are being remade. How should I feel about this?
Well, remakes, reboots and sequels are not a bad thing per se. Look at Rise of the Planet of the Apes, that was great. Classic films can be rethought and reinterpreted for a new age.
Total Recall and Robocop are full of incredibly strong ideas that could easily be reinterpreted in interesting ways. With Total Recall you can always go back to the original Philip K Dick book, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, and with Robocop there are countless new directions to follow.
Of the two remakes, Robocop looks better on paper. Total Recall, which comes out in September, stars Colin Farrell (groan) and is directed by the man who brought us Underworld and Live Free or Die Hard. Robocop comes out next year and, interestingly, is being helmed by Elite Squad director Jose Padilha. It stars Gary Oldman and Samuel L Jackson.
I suppose these remakes will only be a problem if they stink. When that happens, the stink from the remake unjustly tends to linger around the original. When you are talking about the film you have to keep saying: "The original one, obviously...'' It colours your understanding and perception of the original. Each scene is a reminder of how they screwed it up in the remake.
Also, wouldn't it be better to give the money to Verhoeven and let him make a brand new film, rather than retread one of his classics? The man is still alive and, on the evidence of Black Book, still on form.
But, what do you think? Should I be worried about these remakes? Am I gripping to the past like some sad old man, unable to dance to the hip new music?
And another thing, why do these kids wear such baggy trousers? And why won't they stay off my lawn?
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I'm on the other side of the fence - I reckon that Robocop could never really be improved upon, whereas Total Recall could be improved upon (thats not to say that it's not good already). Robocop was such an important text for the 1980's in the reflection that it gave us of society (at the time) - whereas Total Recall certainly had less contempory relevance at the time it came out.
Starship Troopers always felt like a failed attempt at adapting the book which basically reduced it (as you said) to a text on fascism (which is a pity because thats certainly part of the story but drops a whole lot of the wider context). I would love to see Verhoeven do a take on Haldemans "The Forever War" (which is far superior to Starship Troopers) - it would even be faily easy to update the context (Iraq vets instead of Vietnam vets).
Verhoeven always seemed more comfortable using sci-fi as his nostalgic lense (which is what the genre is) than contemporary realist settings - something he should have a chance to get back to I reckon.
Well, there is no law that says they can't produce new versions of old material.
Doesn't mean I'll go watch them, mind, if I liked the original, or indeed if I didn't like the original. However, if I hadn't seen the original, then that's another thing entirely, and I suspect it is that audience that the new films are targeted at.
You know, just like Prometheus was a remake of Alien for those who hadn't seen it.
Why would you remake the best film ever... you can only inevitably fail. Total Recall is AWESOME! All arnies one liners are great as well. Like when he shoots his wife in the head and says "Consider that a divorce!" and when he kills Benny the alien (who is trying to kill him with a giant drill) he uses a smaller drill to get hi and shouts "Screw you benny!" Then there is the Johnnycab... the pulling the tracker out of your nose scene.. the scene where they try to get him to take a pill but he knows their lying because the doctor is sweating.. the awesome alien air making factory.. the awesome ending where their faces are starting to pop out due to know air... DAMN you can't get better then this! Open your fly quaid! Open your fly!
You had me at "the remarkable Starship Troopers". Well, not really, because my feeling is that the new Total Recall will be infinitely truer to the original story, which is, after all, the brilliant part of that movie. It was a great story made impossible by Arnold's inability to actually act and his proficiency at chewing the scenery and being his o-so-unsubtle self.
I'm interested to see what they do with Robocop. Obviously the special effects will be uber-slick CGI. The new Ed-209 is looking pretty hot. http://www.comingsoon.net/nextraimages/ed-209.jpg
You can see Ed-209 in the viral video for the film, blowing up a tank, here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/viral-site-debuts-robocop-remakes-reimagined-robots/
For Total Recall, I've heard that whereas the original was basically Indiana Jones in space, the remake will be closer to Philip K. Dick's version, and Mars won't even feature. So while it retains the spy-who isn't-who is-spy, it could be a very different plot.
As much as I love those cheesy 80's films (Total Recall was 1990, just one year before Terminator 2, but still has a 1980's feel to it), I'll still watch the remakes.
I re-watched Total Recall over the weekend. I think I must have left my rose coloured spectacles off though, cos it really has not aged well. I think this would be a rare case where possibly the remake might actually improve things .... maybe. Depends if they put some thought into it, or just use it as a CGI showcase movie. If they just make it shiny and don't put any brain into it, then I suspect a remake would suck.
However, we shall not speak of that Nick Cage remake of Gone in 60 Seconds, which was just appallingly unwatchable. I'm astonished Cage worked again after that movie.
I had always thought Paul Verhoeven and Paul WS Anderson were one and the same.
Why all the 80's remakes? And when will all the Eddie Murphy-esque 'poor or out of place guy making it in the big city by pretending' genre of movies?
"political and religious subtext"???? Having seen some of these films 3 or 4 times, all I can say is that I've totally missed any subtext in Verhoeven's movies. And although I've read up on Starship Troopers a bit I don't recall any comments on the subject, so obviously I'm not the only one to miss it.
Maybe the guy should have kept his "subtext" a little less "sub". So we viewers could actually realise we weren't watching some low-rent comedies.
Big problem with total recall remake is that you already know the plot twist.
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I'm a tad worried about the Robocop remake. People call it cheesy and out right over the top but they didn't look very far. The original is as deep, or as shallow as you want it to be.