Film Remakes

Last update: 2005-07-21 20:24:52

1. Back to the Future (Frank Darabont, 2005)

In this unnecessary remake of the 1985 classic nostalgia-sci-fi-comedy-teen movie, teenager Mark McFly (Freddie Prinze Jr) is thrust back in time in a CGI Range Rover and stranded in 1975 when his crazy inventing friend Dr Brown (Pierce Brosnan) is inadvertently shot by Al-qaeda agents. On arriving in his home town in the grooooovy 70s, Mark must try to get his parents (Sarah Michelle Geller, and, er, Freddie Prinze Jr again) to fall in love, despite competition from school bully and disco master Ziff Tannen (Jake Gyllenhaal), Principal Zemickis (Michael J Fox, in a hilarious cameo), and himself! Amongst other things, Mark invents punk rock, rap music and performs 'the Power of Love' to a young Huey Lewis (played by himself, in a hilarious cameo), before enlisting the help fo the younger Doc Brown and utilising a nuclear explosion to return to 2005.

2. 2101: A Space Odyssey (Michael Bay, 2004)

Not a sequel, but a remake of Stanley Kubrick's 1969 space-philosophy classic/piece of rubbish in which nothing much really happens over a very long time, but in a really pretty and profound way. This remake, directed by Armageddon's Michael Bay, will focus now more on 'the plight of the crew of the Discovery' rather than anything else. Shawn of the ape bit at the beginning (although there will be a comedic reference to 'monkeys throwing bones that turn into space ships'), and most of the middle, the new, snappy movie will centre on astronaut Jim Bowen's (Colin Farrell) escape from sinister computer HAL's (voice of George Lucas) flesh eating robots. Will climax with 5 minutes of useless CGI effects.

3. Way of the Dragon (Brett Ratner, 2004)

Tom Hanks leads the cast in this remake of the 1973 Bruce Lee kung-fu classic. In the original, Hong-Kong native Tau-Lung (Lee) is dispatched to Italy to help protect his cousin's Chinese restaurant from vicious thugs. Cue some fighting and scenery. In this inspired remake, Jack Lung (Hanks) visits Italy to protect his cousin's burger bar from offensively stereotyped Islamic terrorists. Following a hilarious cameo from Chuck Norris as a taxi driver, the film is brought to an awesome climax in the Colosseum where Lung must battle a kung-fu master (Luke Goss) with supernatural powers using only his mind, and robot spiders.

4. Mary Poppins (Ridley Scott, 2006)

Alien and Gladiator director Scott is the perfect choice for this remake of the 1963 Disney classic. The roles of the children have yet to be cast, but it is believed that Julie Andrews will return as the children's mother, in a hilarious cameo, and the guy who plays Daphne's brother in Frasier will be on hand to provide an effective cockney accent as Bert the chimney sweep. Scott has said in the past that he is interested in the themes of mortality, ageing and redemption shown in the original.

5. A James Bond film

The next James Bond film will be a direct remake of every single James Bond film - except From Russia With Love, because it didn't have many stunts in. The plot, held in a secret bunker will be somewhere along the lines of this: some baddy, whom James Bond just escaped from before the credits, will attempt to use some kind of ludicrous device to destroy the world. James, hilariously disturbed from making love to some random woman, will be called in to investigate. After 15 minutes at the baddy's party, Bond will cop off with some woman who will soon end up dead (or be revealed to be a baddy), blow his cover, and get shot at. Soon after, he will meet some other attractive woman who will help and hinder him as he defeats the big baddy. Unfortunately, before the world can be saved, Bond must stop the baddy's main henchman, who may be a racist stereotype, from launching the doomsday device. All of this will be done with some ker-a-zee stunts.

6. Raiders of the Lost Ark (2008)

George Lucas is said to be unhappy with the first instalment of he and Steven Spielberg's thrilling Indiana Jones trilogy, and wishes to re-imagine it in a thrilling remake, starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jones, Natalie Portman as his love interest Marion Ravenwood, and Harrison Ford in a hilarious cameo as his father. The plot will closely follow that of the original, except all the action set pieces will not be thrilling at all due to it all being done in computer graphics. Also, to tone down the violence, the famous climax of the original, where Jones' Nazi foes are melted by the power of the ark, will be replaced with a scene in which the bad guys (now evil kitten smugglers) realise the error of their ways and set up a kitten farm. Also, in order to appease religious groups, the ark of the covenant will be instead replaced by a large magic box.

7. The Graduate (Brett Ratner, 2006)

Josh Hartnett and Jackie Chan are to star in this action-adventure remake of the 1969 Dustin Hoffman classic. As a graduate returning home from college, young Frank Smith (Hartnett) must find his way in the world, and is seduced by his parent's best friend, Mrs Robinson (Courtney Cox), while fighting off a sinister kitten smuggling gang with the help of his college pal Tau Kang (Chan). Can he stop the woman he truly loves (Jennifer Love Hewitt) from marrying some dodgy man (Colin Firth)? Will feature at least 15 different pop-punk metal versions of Mrs Robinson. Instead of the oft parodied church/bus ending, the climax will involve an aeroplane chase instead and lots of crazy stunts. Dustin Hoffman does no hilarious cameos, but Mr Feeny off Boy Meets World does.

8. Open All Hours (David Cronenberg, 2004)

This chilling sci-fi re-imagining of the classic 1970's Ronnie Barker/David Jason comedy is a natural choice for The Fly and Crash director Cronenberg. In it, genial Canadian corner shop owner Kyle Arkwright (Jeff Goldblum) becomes convinced that his body is infested with flesh eating maggots, literally forcing his skull to be 'open all hours'. Drawing on both metaphysical and physical ideas, and contemplating the nature of death, life, sex and decent into madness. Featuring Kathy Staff as a giant maggot, in a hilarious cameo.

9. 1984 (Walt Disney Productions)

George Orwell's classic post-war satire is on the cards to be Disney's latest animated feature, relocated underwater! In it, young goldfish Willie Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, where, in a change from the books, he writes the truth. The world he lives in is oppressed by a big gangster fish Big Blowfish, who may or may not exist. On becoming disillusioned with his lonely existence, and after the kidnapping of his talking coral sidekick Karel, Willie falls in love with a beautiful goldfish called Julia who encourages him to defeat Big Blowfish. In a dramatic conclusion, Willie must escape from the Fish From Room 101 (Paul Merton) and defeat Big Blowfish, who turns out to in fact be a tiny salmon! After this, the world is made safe and all fish are free.

10. Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (George Lucas)

Star Wars director and maestro George Lucas has allegedly decided that he can't make Episode 3's story and theme fit before part 4, and so has announced plans to re-imagine the original trilogy, using worse actors and better technology. Using film sampling techniques, a mixture of old and new footage will be mixed together, replacing good performances (Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, Harrison Ford) with inferior ones and leaving in all the dodgy ones (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, all the X-Wing pilots, the guy who says 'Stop rebel scum!'). The biggest draw of them all, Darth Vader, will be superimposed by CGI effects of Episode 2's Anakin, Hayden Christensen, gurning. Rumours that the Death Star's ability to destroy planets will be reduced to the ability to destroy small rocks are unconfirmed. But as long as it fits closer to his original vision, folks!

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