MovieChat Forums > Them! (1954) Discussion > If It Were Made Today

If It Were Made Today

posted 17 years ago by gunnut123456
20 replies | jump to latest

Remakes and sequels are ruining the current movie industry. There are all of these posts about how movies would be different if they were made today. Let's have some fun with this.

1) There would be no murder mystery setup at the beginning.
2) The movie wouldn't respect the audience enough to give them explanations
into the ant's behavior.
3) Clever clues like the stolen sugar and flying ants being mistaken for UFOs
would be left out.
4) The cool looking ants would be replaced by more realistic but less
entertaining (and less frightening) computer generated ants.
5) The female scientist would spend the entire movie in skin-tight leather
doing complicated martial arts moves on the monsters.
6) The guns would never run out of ammunition.
7) The entire storyline could be boiled down to 3 minutes, but you'd need at
least 90 minutes dedicated to fighting the ants.
8) The movie's pacing would be a lot faster but be telling much less of a story.

[–] c-huddleston 17 years ago

I agree completely but I think you left out:

9) The male scientist would look like Brad Pitt

10) The solution to killing the ants would be something only the scientist could dream up five minutes before the end of the movie when all seems lost.

[–] gunnut123456 17 years ago

Gotta agree with 9 and 10. I prefer the older scientist to a younger one, and he was played by an excellent actor.

I like how they were able to kill the ants with their guns (which was what any reasonable person would try first), but they were hard to kill.

It really isn't right when a clever scientist comes up with a solution just when all seems to be lost. At least give a little build up and show some though processes.

[–] Grendel1950 13 years ago

11. The Director would be a former film cutter with no experience directing actors, who would have the whole picture running at breakneck speed.

[–] NxNWRocks 17 years ago

You make a lot of reasonable points, but there's always the outside chance it could be made like another "Mimic" - which is the closest modern movie I can think of to compare favorably to this.

"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."

[–] gunnut123456 17 years ago

Mimic was ok. I like how the scientist reasoned that she only had to kill the one male, and the rest would die out on their own.

On another point, remakes aren't always a bad thing. I did enjoy the remake of Night of The Living Dead even though it wasn't as good as the original.

I also liked John Carpenter's The Thing better than The Thing From Another World. Don't get me wrong, TTFAW was good, but I liked the whole paranoia thing the remake did.

[–] CrystalEgg 17 years ago

There are all of these posts about how movies would be different if they were made today.

While it wasn't done "today", "Aliens" was a worthy reimagining of "Them". At least Newt got to demonstrate her survival skills, while her counterpart in "Them" got a reservation at the Rubber Ramada as a reward for surviving.

[–] froggyar324 17 years ago

the original post was sarcastic as i took it and hope it was. all the changes mentioned were stupid as todays movie remakes are. no room for thinking, just action and skin; gore and brain matter on the walls or wind screen. Them is a classic, as was the original 'the thing', the remake of the thing was an sfx nightmare come true. and 'alien' was a remake of a Marshall Thompson outer space flic, not 'Them', i think it was called 'It, the terror from beyond space'.

[–] gunnut123456 17 years ago

I didn't intend for the original post to be sarcastic. Such things are generally true of new movies. I really believe that there would be a ton of such changes if the movie were remade today.

I do enjoy a lot of movies no matter what time period they were made, but I don't like a lot of the remakes.

[–] sawyertom 17 years ago

You forgot that the family who was killed would be changed to two people having sex when they hear the ants and get up to check while either naked or partially. Their child, a little girl would way up to see her parents killed and wander off in the desert. next the FBI agent the female scientist would have to have sex somewhere. The female scientist would also be seen in her underwear at least twice. One of the cops, probably the one who dies early would have been gay and it would have been a suspected hate crime. The Ben Peterson and Robert Graham characters would joke about somebody's unit once or twice. The General and the Major would be portrayed as blood thirsty war mongers to boot.

[–] c-huddleston 17 years ago

"The General and the Major would be portrayed as blood thirsty war mongers to boot."

I can just imagine their reaction: "It's a mass invasion by Iran/Iraq/whoever is flavour of the year!"

[–] froggyar324 17 years ago

Billy Bob Thorton in James Whitmore's role.

[–] Canonshooter-1 17 years ago

-The murder mystery would be investigated by the CSI cast.
-The little girl wouldn't be able to tell her story because her Hollywood agent would want Speilberg to direct the movie of her life.
-While trying to solve the case the two policemen would stand around drinking from prominently displayed cans of Pepsi or Mountain Dew.
-When they find they ants, there will be a chase scene where each character jumps in their Evo's with spoilers and a green glow with wild graphics and weave through traffic to get away.
-There would be endless debates on the internet on wether the ants could beat King Kong, the T-rex from Jurassic Park, or the Hulk.
-Stan Lee would make a cameo appearance.
-When they go after the missing boys at the end, their Humvees would be too wide to fit in the tunnels.

[–] gunnut123456 17 years ago

Nice ones.

[–] Teranef 16 years ago

2) The movie wouldn't respect the audience enough to give them explanations into the ant's behavior.

Yeah, and you know if Them! was released as is today, with all the ant behavior explained and that scene with all the documentary footage, there would be idiots complainting that the movie was trying to be "too educational".

[–] flyer333555 16 years ago

Yeah, those idiots would also be ranting "it's only a movie!"

[–] rwsmith29456 15 years ago

I agree with you and Huddleston 100%. Not to mention that the martial arts moves done in excellent fashion by a scantily clad cover girl would be in slow motion and seen from odd angles. They can't make a movie today without a woman who is attractive, confident, assertive and totally kicks physical butt much better than the guys with her martial arts moves.

11) Anything that is 'killed' will keep coming back again and again and again looking increasing macabre every time it shows up.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] mlaughlin22 13 years ago

Dont forget the Envromentlist that wants to protect and study the
giant Ants . Ironic The person gets killed by the Ants.