Venting needed

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

–Rant mode on–

So…aproximately 20 years ago a movie called Total Recall was made starring Arnold Swarzenegger and Sharon Stone. A movie I used to watch more than a dozen times. For me Arnie is not the best actor, in all seriousness when interviewed he always tends to say that he wanted to be more of an entertainer. And for me he is an icon. I wont even mention his contribution to bodybuilding.

NOW…I saw this trailer today:

And boooooooy did I get pissed. Did it realy come to this? Are we living in such times? Where is the originality, where is the unique-ness, where is the new stuff?

For the last 10 years perhaps I see people in the music and movie industry doing stuff that I heard and listened before I even started going to kindergarden. In honor of truth Im finding, watching and growing to love projects and short movies and music that is created by fans, hobbyists and so on.

Music is shit. J-Lo is shit and cant sing. I dont want to see your fat ass. I have porn for that IF I want to get nasty. Rihana is shit and cant sing. I DONT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT F*UCKING UMBRELLAS. Who the fak told Justin Bieber he can be a role model.SEEEEERIOOUUUUUUSLY!

Where is Barry White, Stevie Wonder,James Brown, Tom Jones, Boys2Men,AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, The Scorpions???Where are the SugarHillGang???WHERE IS SADE??? Where are all those people of the 21-st century. I guess they are not commercial enough for our times. All those so called stars these days either steal songs that were made in the 70/80/90s or they use THIS FRIGGIN ANNOYING SOUND EFFECT to make their voice sound like they are smoking 10 packs of smokes PER FRIGGIN HOUR.REALY??AND I SHOULD PAY TO BUY YOUR ALBUMS OR PAY TO GO TO THE MOVIES?
I…DONT…THINK SO!!!
For the past 10 years I spent around 0 leva on movies and music witch is equal to roughly 0 US dollars. And boy am I happy I did so. I had some doubts about that in the past, seing how a lot of people complained about pirating and things like that.GOOD!
When you suck, you shouldnt make money. Im always with my money infront of me when I see something new,exiting,original,never-seen-before.
So you wanna make the same Total Recall movie because we now have better special effects and 2 mill cameras? The original movie is flawless with its own inperfections. Shame on you. Go ahead and do your sequals, prequals, prequals to the sequals of the prequals, but leave those movies alone please. You are a friggin joke. I saw the swedish version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I dont need to see the american version of the same movie. NO!!! I WONT EVEN WATCH THE AMERICAN VERSION because that would be sick and perverted.Oh!oH?!?OH!!!The american version won some golden globe awards???WHAT FOR???
/FACEPAAAAALM/
/Whipes off his face slowly with discontent/

–Rant mode off–

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LOL, what are you talking about? The new movie is far more close to the original Philip K. Dick short story than the Schwarzenegger movie that was just ‘loosly based’ on the original story. I really don’t see the problem in remaking movies with written stories/novels. It’s about visualizing a good story. Why would you want to stop anyone from doing that?

I also heard that one of my favorites is up for a remake, Starship Troopers, also in a version more close to the original Heinlein novel. This is great news. The movie from 1997 is awesome in it’s own right, but it’s faaar from the story (and ‘world’) described in the original novel. It would be absolutely awesome for a movie more close to the original story.

So, the ‘originals’ are of course the novels and complaining about filmmakers making their own versions of them is as ridiculous as complaining that Joss Whedon made another version of Shakespeare’s ‘Much ado about nothing’. What I guess you should do is read the novels - I did.

And about where all the old artists are: They are all on Spotify. I know as my 12yo son listens to them all the time… And there are a lot of ‘real’ new artists out there too, like South African ‘Die Antwoord’ - pretty far from the US ‘standard mold’, hehe…

3

Why shouldn’t people be allowed to do remakes of old movies? Remakes have been made for a long time, why shuold Total Recall be any different from any other remake? As far as I know, no one is forcing you to watch it.

The same goes for music, if you don’t like it, don’t listen to it. It’s as simple as that. You can still buy basically any old music that you would like, and that way you get to listen to anything you want. The reason why certain songs play on the radio, TV, etc. is that people like the songs, and let’s face it everybody likes different things.

4

That’s just not true when it comes to Miley Cyrus. ;D

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Sorry guys, but I’m with Kalinaki on this one. Although I agree with Farmfield to an extent on films ought to be closer to the novel.
At the same time, THEY ARE REMAKING STARSHIP TROOPERS!!! WTF!!!
Say it ain’t so, Joe. What a travesty. One of my alltime faves.
Ugggggggggg.

At any rate, Kali is right: our culture is neckdeep in the shitter if no one can come up with their own stories anymore.
The only antidote to all this horseshit is the OpenSource Movement and Blender and the Indie Movement. People like us, making our own movies. We may never get rich doing it. But it’s the only way filmmaking, art, and culture will actually progress.
What kills me is bills like SOPA, the old Hollywood machine trying to rope us in so that they get back the captive audience they miss from the 30’s and 40’s, when movie houses were like churches, the only game in town besides radio. How could they do it? By making it so that they own your internet and your ass, and you have to come on your knees to them again to get your little dose of “entertainment.” Of course, none of them realize that no one in Hollywood seems to have any new ideas anymore, and thus the population is right to want to do their own thing. There’s a reason why videogames make more money as an industry than hollywood sequel of the remake of the sequel filmmaking does now.

Or, as I said recently as a response to an AP vid about Hollywood and JLo and all the other crackhead morons:
“If Hollywood were nuked tomorrow it would be nothing more than a giant service to makind.”

I guess now we have to look forward to the remakes of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Gone With The Wind,” “The Godfather,” “ET,” “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind,” “Doctor Strangelove,” and “Casablanca,” all starring JLo, Zac Ephron, Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, and the idiots from the Twilight movies, and all in 3D.
One time I spent several hours daydreaming about whether it would be possible to commit suicide with an AK47, wondering just exactly how many bullets you could get into your brain before your finger slipped off the trigger and the gun stopped firing…

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Nice one. :stuck_out_tongue: I saw what you did therrr!

At any rate, Kali is right: our culture is neckdeep in the shitter if no one can come up with their own stories anymore.
The only antidote to all this horseshit is the OpenSource Movement and Blender and the Indie Movement. People like us, making our own movies. We may never get rich doing it. But it’s the only way filmmaking, art, and culture will actually progress.
What kills me is bills like SOPA, the old Hollywood machine trying to rope us in so that they get back the captive audience they miss from the 30’s and 40’s, when movie houses were like churches, the only game in town besides radio. How could they do it? By making it so that they own your internet and your ass, and you have to come on your knees to them again to get your little dose of “entertainment.” Of course, none of them realize that no one in Hollywood seems to have any new ideas anymore, and thus the population is right to want to do their own thing. There’s a reason why videogames make more money as an industry than hollywood sequel of the remake of the sequel filmmaking does now.

Or, as I said recently as a response to an AP vid about Hollywood and JLo and all the other crackhead morons:
“If Hollywood were nuked tomorrow it would be nothing more than a giant service to makind.”

I guess now we have to look forward to the remakes of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Gone With The Wind,” “The Godfather,” “ET,” “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind,” “Doctor Strangelove,” and “Casablanca,” all starring JLo, Zac Ephron, Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, and the idiots from the Twilight movies, and all in 3D.
One time I spent several hours daydreaming about whether it would be possible to commit suicide with an AK47, wondering just exactly how many bullets you could get into your brain before your finger slipped off the trigger and the gun stopped firing…

Man,oh,man I couldnt have said it better. A great addition to my point.
Lets continue a bit. Expect The Terminator 11 starring Wizz Kalifa, The Deer hunter starring the cast of Glee or…OR…Justin Timberlake in the main role in the remake of One flew over Koo Koo’s nest.

Common. dont use phrases like" You should read the book." You should have guessed that Im not from the "two-finger’ generation. To be honest, I find solitude and joy in reading greek philosophers and sci-fi and science books in general. I dont have the regressive capability to read the story begind Twilight though.
In terms of games, the 1st game I ever played was made out of pages and a hard cover. just now I had a flash back and just remembered how me and my best friend used to fantasize and do some silly attempts to make one on our own.

You are right about another thing. They(Hollywood) have the right to express themselves.TRUE.
Thats why Hollywood is in such recession. There is a very easy explanation behind this. You cant make money like that in the 21st century where you have Youtube,Facebook,Twitter.Information is just around the block and I do believe that people are less naive these days. They understand their power as a consumer. I hate to use the word " consumer’.

And no, I didnt just google The Deer hunter. If I remember correctly the movie was made around 1971-1973. I remember it because I watched a documentary about the movie, it is made few years before 1976. The year when The Godfather was made. I remember this because there was an amazing story behind the movie. John Cazale had cancer when filming The Deer hunter. In my oppinion real people like him made movies in those days so good. People that find it hard to be fake.
And this movie was made 12 years before I was born. But DO BELIEVE THIS.
Every time I see Paris Hilton making a movie or a song or Lady Gaga releasing a new album, I instantly want to vomit. THEN…I go to my music collection and play ‘Superbad’ by James Brown, while I try to load “Scent of a woman” with Al Pacino. That is the only way I can stay sane.

P.S. I just went to Youtube and im currently listening to Suberbad. Then I will visit James Thorogood and play ‘Bad to the bone’. If all goes well I will finish with ‘Bad boys’ by Bob Marley!!!
Listen to those 3 songs in a row and you might find my view a bit more appealing.

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I don’t know. My everyday complaint here in Sweden is journalism which has become so bad that I don’t know what to say…

…but when it comes to culture I’m the first to admit that this is also a generational thing. It’s easy to say that everything from back in the day is so good, that’s just because we forgot all the really bad crap. How about Stallone’s ‘Cobra’…? How is that better than any of the crap made today, hehe? And would anyone say ‘The Hurt Locker’ isn’t as good as Deer Hunter?

And about music, is Lady Gaga really worse than Madonna…? Daft Punk worse than Prodigy? And of course there’s really bad music also, but I’m pretty sure they made bad music in the 70s too, it’s just that it’s all forgotten, hehe…

I also think a major problem is volume. It’s just so much more of everything, it’s harder to find the really good stuff, but it’s not like there isn’t any good music and movies made, I just don’t buy that…

That we who rant about it have become old and bitter, that I buy though, hehe… ;D

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And no, I didnt just google The Deer hunter. If I remember correctly the movie was made around 1971-1973. I remember it because I watched a documentary about the movie, it is made few years before 1976. The year when The Godfather was made.
Maybe you should have to find out when both films were really made !

9

It’s not that old, hehe, but in a discussion about new vs. old culture you don’t need to be more specific than Deer Hunter being old. We who remember it is even older. ;D

10

I’m going to add to this. I do agree with the OP on the fact that Hollywood has lost their minds and instead of making original content that they have to go back and remake other movies. There are A LOT of independent screenwriters out there that have original content but can’t get a foot in the door because they don’t have a literary agent. There are a few sites like Triggerstreet (Kevin Spacey) and Zoetrope (Francis Ford Coppela) that have awesome scripts on it. Truth be told they’ll probably never get made because no one wants to take a chance on an unknown.

It’s pretty sad really.

11

Well put.

And also Farmfield you are right that people tend to get bitter as they age. I dont feel that Im too old though.Im just 28. Maybe things are moving faster now. And what Anita said is probably the main reason why Im bitter and annoyed. I guess If I followed the mainstream I would be better of. But then again I wont be me.

@Richard. Good call. I guess I had to google it. I switched the years. The Godfather was made in 1972 and The Deer Hunter in 1978-the year Cazale died. When I think about it it makes sence since he takes part in The Godfather , playing as Fredo. The thing that miss-led me is the fact that the documentary I watched was about Robert De Niro. In 1976 he is starring in Taxi Driver-another amazing film. So excuse me for messing the years a bit. heheh. It was some time ago.

I wont start on journalism in my country. Im not watching television for a good few years now, nor reading papers. Im getting most of the information from the internet. There are a couple of programs here and each one is serving some political party interest. Half of them are as corrupt as the people in our current government. I wont go further, I dont like talking about puppets.

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You all make some wonderful points. Here are a few I’d like to add:

  1. Hollywood has been recycling as much as they can forever. The common philosophy is: if it worked once, throw more money at it and it’ll work again even better. A common thing screenwriters will hear is: give me the same thing, only different. I kid you not. I worked as a screenwriter in the early 1990’s and heard this from almost everyone I pitched to. This demand is on-going today.

  2. Media is no better here in Canada (then in Sweden) and, since we see a lot of it from across the border, I think it’s safe to say it’s the same down in the U.S. The stories you hear are meant to keep you frightened, angry and patriotic. It may not always work, but when it doesn’t, it makes you feel alone and powerless. Either way, you walk the straight and narrow and the media has done its job.

  3. Large corporations own the major media all over the world as well as all the major book publishers and the large studios in L.A. As long as they do, we will continue to see profit taking a front seat to creativity. That means anyone with a truly original idea will have to operate outside the mainstream and all advertising will be the current-day version of word-of-mouth (Facebook, YouTube, etc.)

Side note: AOL (America Online Time (Magazine) Warner (Bros.). They have it all covered. How about Sony Pictures? They provide the entertainment as well as the delivery devices.

To address the original post: The main character in Total Recall should be a little guy who looks like an accountant; in other words, he should look like Woody Allen. With this version, they got it half right. At least he’s half the size of Arnie. That was the point in Dick’s story, that this guy shouldn’t have even looked like he could do any of that spy stuff. He’s a bookworm, a nerd, the skinny little runt you see in those comic ads about body building (the one who gets sand kicked in his face). Dick’s theme in the original story was a warning to the bullies of the world: be careful who you pick on; it might backfire.

The only time Hollywood gets it right is when someone comes in from left field with something they can’t ignore or when someone with clout decides to follow her/his heart. But when either of those things happens, Hollywood studios jump in with their copycat versions so they can cash in. It ain’t pretty, but nothing in big business is.

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Like I mentioned I watched the swedish version of Girl with the dragon Tattoo. I havent seen the book though I worked in London when the book came out and had the chance to read it asap. I LOVED THE MOVIE. Powerfull characters, great play, great story. I watched the swedish version with english subtitles(Im bulgarian). The movie was something I havent seen in a while. Apart from the sexual content, I think the actors were amazing. I guess that is why you can see some of them in recent major blockbusters.
NOW…What would I want to watch the american version when Im already aware of the way the american movie industry operates???
When I heard they made a remake so quick after the 1st release I went berserk. I guess I have some issues. I dont know. I have passion for music and movies I DONT KNOW.

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@rontarrant

Media in Sweden is not trying to keep us FUD’ed, it’s just crappy on facts. It’s like the newspapers editors is blocked from accessing Wikipedia, hehe… ;D

@Kalinaki

I really like the Swedish Millennium films but there’s just no contest with David Fincher’s US version, it’s just a way better production. But the US version is also 10x the budget, hehe… :slight_smile:

And I still don’t get the complaining on Hollywood. It’s a business. If you want to make better movies, well, do it. Look at ‘Monsters’ and what you can do on your own… But whining about what the industry does is just pointless when you ignore the business side of it - there’s no money in ‘good’ movies, there’s money in entertaining movies, that’s just the way it is…

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Farmfield, the point is not to compare shitty movies from today with shitty movies from the past and then decide whether the shitty movies are more or less shitty.
The point is to figure out if GOOD movies are less likely to be made today because of how much of a zombie Hollywood has become, surviving by consuming the flesh of old movies that still have plenty of life, and reincarnating them as half-regurgitated zombie-versions of their former glory, but doing it by adding a bunch of CGI work to make it “better” and filming it with jillion-dollar cameras to make it look much more coolerer. All the while doing everything possible to legislate their monopoly on “entertainment” by trying to have laws like SOPA passed, ramming Big Brother’s cams up everyone’s lovetunnel, and strangling any potential competition from independent filmmakers and animators.

And, so help me god, those monsters WILL RUE THE DAY they try to do a remake of “Deerhunter.”
YOU MUST FEAR THE WALKEN!!!

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Hehe, I just have a hard time bothering about it… I think TV is the new ‘film’ anyway. Series like ‘Harry’s Law’, ‘Person of Interest’ and alike hold higher quality than 75% of feature films in everything from scripting, actors & enviroments (incl. VFX as they use virtual sets all the time and you just never see it)… So they make a lot of crap, well, they always did. It’s not like they made more than a few good movies every year anyway, same as today. Though today there’s a whole lot more crap made as it’s so simple making movies compared to 20 years ago…

And some movies they will never dear to remake, Deer Hunter is most likely among those, hehe… ;D

PS/ And I don’t watch broadcast TV, never, ever. Broadcast TV is insane, hehe - why would I follow someone elses schedule? So what if I’m not interested in seeing a comedy now, perhaps I want to see a crime show… BT:FTW! :wink: /DS

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There’s a cure for that, it’s called the DVR, the thing I’m concerned the about regarding broadcast TV is the fact that the length of the show is being slowly eaten away by commercials. :slight_smile:

Anyway, the best way to give Hollywood the message that you’re tired of remakes is to hit them with poor box office sales, not political wrangling. I also have a bit less of a problem if they’re remaking really old movies because of the fact they would be able to do so much more with today’s technology (with many originals dating from the time before CG and even computers). And if one doesn’t know already, many indie filmmakers have already gotten their movies in theaters, one of the theaters here in town for instance show a number of indie films throughout the year along with the blockbusters.

Honestly, if I can say what should change in Hollywood, it’s that they should start turning back the clock on ratings-creep and make deep cuts on the profanity as well as cut the sexual content that some directors gratuitously throw into the movie because they know it’ll probably be PG-13/R-rated anyway. Though that may be just my opinion because some of these posts are exhibiting the same thing with language.

18

Mmm, tried time & again to get my 12yo to watch Robocop with me but the first 2 times he actually fell asleep within 15 minutes, the last time we came to the first Ed209 scene and he flipped out and started complaining about that he’d seen better stop motion by people doing shorts with Lego’s on Youtube - then I finally gave up, hehe…

LOL - very American thinking… I have a 12yo who saw the LOTR trilogy at 5-6yo, who’s never been censored to regarding profanity and/or sex. He knows he can ask me or his mother anything from drugs to porn and he’ll get a 100% honest & open answer. And he scores 95+ points/100 on the national tests here, tests on a level above what US 9th graders do…

So, no, here I strongly disagree. Censorship is crazy. You show a child the world exactly as it is and teach him how to handle it. Anything else is imo insane… :stuck_out_tongue:

19

Why does a family need to be so black and white about censorship anyway, it almost sounds like that any kind of censorship is so bad that a household should have an environment where anything goes in terms of what a child is allowed to do. So are you saying you want to run away and live in an abandoned boxcar in the woods to experience wild adventure and commune with nature? Here’s some water bottles and a survival guide to help you get started.

A lot of people in this country might say the same thing, we believe it’s common sense to keep some things away from children, yet we also agree that allowing some forms of censorship could cause genuine harm to everyone, besides, even American children learn everything anyway, either from high-school experience, the news, or even in part because of that not so magical platform known as the internet.

20

Yes. I believe all censorship is bad. With that said, I wouldn’t discuss hardcore porn with a 5yo, but when you know an 11yo talks about it with his friends anyway, then it’s an open subject. Same goes for drugs a.s.o…

And your analogy is flawed as it’s just dumb comparing putting a child into a potentially dangerous situation to any form of knowledge. :stuck_out_tongue: