The remake of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," with John Lithgow, is just as good as the original
Anyone agree?
shareAgree overall, up until the appearance of the second Gremlin, in which it soon becomes apparent that the Gremlin in the remake is magnitudes more scary than the original (which more or less looks like some goofy looking dude in a bunny suit, minus the ears).
It’s understandable that we didn’t have the special effects technology available at the time, but despite this, some of the earlier Sci Fi shows showcased some rather decent effects on occasion. Take the space creature from The Outer Limits, in the episode titled “The Galaxy Being.” That was pretty impressive for the time, and not all that bad even by today’s standards.
I also love the monster in "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork"; it's scary to this day.
Bravo to the remake's director, George Miller, for confining his monster mostly to the shadows. For as impressive as the remake's monster is keeping its features never entirely visible renders it even more dread-inducing still; I'm not sure if the original's director, Richard Donner, would have improved his teletubbie by confining it to the shadows too -- but it wouldn't have hurt. Still, the original is tightly-made, suspenseful, and layered, emphasizing that it's not what's on the wing that's important it's what's going on in its protagonist's mind --his struggle to convince himself, and others, he's not hallucinating (he's just returned from a sanitarium, after all) -- that warrants our attention. Incidentally, while the remake has a better monster, it doesn't give its protagonist much of an internal struggle; instead, Miller's remake mostly confines itself to the surface -- which isn't necessarily reason to complain since thirty-plus years later this surface still makes for glossy, potent entertainment. I just miss the psychological aspect of the original and wish the remake might have delved into that aspect of the story a little more thoroughly.
Good analysis AT. I suppose if I had to choose between the two protagonists, I think that I’d pick Lithgow over Shatner, as he genuinely appeared to be terrified, though Shatner did a fine job with it as well.
Agree that the original definitely holds up. But as you say, it certainly couldn’t have hurt to have kept that Spirit Halloween® Closeout Gremlin, that was in the original, more in the shadows 😀