News today that a “contemporized adaptation” of the Arnold Schwarzenegger-on-Mars flick Total Recall is in the works. Never mind the question of whether the world is clamoring for yet another version of yet another story that’s already been told, or whether this particular story might benefit from being told again.* No, the thing that bugs me here is this obnoxious piece of jargon, “contemporized adaptation.” That, my friends, sounds to me like a marketing department trying to find some clever new way of saying “remake” without using the prefix “re-.” Because, I suppose, market research indicates that words beginning with “re-” too clearly state the obvious. “Reimagining,” “relaunch,” “reboot” — they all stink of a trip back to the same well, don’t they? So instead of using one of those words, dripping with all the negative connotations of creative bankruptcy, somebody sat around a conference table for hours to come up with this all-new term for the same old crap.
I can just imagine the pitch meeting for Total Recall, Take Two: A guy in a 5,000-dollar suit listens for a minute, then says with a slight, vaguely reptilian grin, “Wait a minute, this is just another bloody remake, right? We’ve done dozens of those in the last decade, why should I greenlight another one? Can’t you give me something original?” And he’s answered with, “No, no, it’s not a remake… it’s a contemporized adaptation.” And then, since Studio Suits are so easily dazzled by multisyllabic words, the first guy nods and says, “Oh, well, then, that sounds swell. Here’s a blank check.”
Guys, let me tell you something: it doesn’t matter how you say it. It doesn’t matter how you justify it. The fact is, you’re out of ideas. You’re lazy, you’re overly cautious, and you care more about extending brands than telling stories. And every one of these “contemporized adaptations” you keep cranking out just further proves my point. You know what? At this point, just remake it all, every movie from the last 50 years, and the sooner the better, because then maybe when it’s all been done over with sparkly CG effects and processed into murky 3D for maximum gimmick-appeal, we can get back to actually, you know, making movies, the kind you don’t have to make up words to describe.
Remakes. Grrr.
* For the record, I’m not really that big a fan of Total Recall. In fact, I outright loathed it when it was first released back in my old working-at-the-multiplex days. I don’t much enjoy “mind-f**k” movies anyhow, the ones that want to leave you guessing about what’s really happening to the characters and what’s only in their heads, and Recall was a pretty clumsy example of that genre. It was also ridiculously, cartoonishly violent (or so it seemed to me at the time; I’ve since seen worse), and it was just plain stupid in a lot of places. I could buy the alien instant-atmosphere-making machine, but Arnold and Rachel Ticotin looking completely unscathed in the final scene after having their eyes bugged four inches out of their skulls and then getting explosively recompressed? Uh, no. And don’t tell me this is proof that the whole movie was Arnold’s dream/memory implant. I already told you, I don’t like that mind-f**k crap. (I also dislike novels with unreliable narrators; I don’t like the feeling of some writer somewhere having a laugh at my expense.)
The biggest problem with Recall, though, is that it has no third act. Following a reasonably good set-up and middle portion, the writers obviously couldn’t figure out how to end it, so they just have Arnold shoot a bunch of people. Even though I hate remakes on general terms, you can actually make a pretty good argument in favor of remaking this one, assuming someone has come up with a solution to the problem of the third act. But of course, I don’t believe anyone has. Because most screenplays these days aren’t even as good as the dumb popcorn movies of the late ’80s and early ’90s.
And you know, now that I think about it, my attitude toward Total Recall has softened a lot in the last 20 years. Memories of it are bound up with memories of a good time in my life. And, as stupid as it was, it was still more entertaining than something like The Dark Knight. I’m really tired of all the Darkness with a capital D being sold as artistic significance in movies these days…
