Kishore Amati
This worrying trend has been around for way
too long – for every classic film or TV show deemed the greatest of its time,
there is a ridiculous remake that will, too often, simply bank on the success
of its predecessor in the hopes of attracting audiences. What it does, however,
is mutilate a beautiful work of art by turning it into an ugly blockbuster.
While in most cases, the original is always better, sometimes the remakes and
reboots are so horrid that one wonders why the filmmakers even bothered to
attempt it. And no, we aren’t going to dignify the likes of ‘Ram Gopal Varma ki
Aag’ that was said to be a remake of ‘Sholay’, by including them even in the
‘failed remakes’ list.
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Last month, a candid Sylvester Stallone
expressed his concern over the Hindi remake of his iconic film ‘Rambo’, saying
“hope they don’t wreck it.” While we’ll have to wait till 2018 to see the end
result, Stallone’s concerns are not unjustified, thanks to the millions of
examples of remakes that have simply failed to live up to the quality and the
charm of the original. The film adaptation of ‘Baywatch’, the web series ‘Sarabhai
vs Sarabhai’ that reprises the much acclaimed TV show by the same name, and the
remake of ‘The Mummy’ – all of which have failed miserably in matching up to
their originals, are the latest examples.
‘Sarabhai vs Sarabhai’ used to be aired on
Star One and had developed a massive fan following for itself in 2004. The TV
show that was taken off air in 2006 continued to live in the memories of its
fans and on the web, but recently, a sequel to the show with same cast and
character traits was launched, but this time, in the form of a web series.
Raveena Joshi, a housewife from Margao who cherishes memories of watching the
show with her family, says, “The first season was way ahead of its time; this
time around the makers had full freedom to include grown-up jokes and innuendos
and they certainly have used them to the maximum. Madhusudhan foofa‘s
peeing incident did give us a few chuckles and so did Sonia’s ‘Uranus’ joke,
but somehow even that isn’t helping the cause. The ship is sinking with every
passing episode.”
While failed remakes are many, not all
remakes are bad. Sahil Fernandes, a movie buff from Margao, says, “There have
been remakes of classics that did justice to their originals. Christopher
Nolan’s recent Batman series (‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight’) for
example, is fantastic. Nolan has such deep, different plot lines, the movies
can’t even be considered in the same category, but at the same time he respects
originality and creativity.” But examples like these are far too few and genius
filmmakers like Nolan are a rarity.
Studio heads and directors who attempt
remakes often justify it by saying that remakes are a form of tribute to the
original one and an attempt to carry on the legacy it first created. But like
the son who can seldom match up to the charm that his father had in his prime,
most fail to recreate the magic. And hence, the most graceful tribute to a
classic, is to leave it alone!
