Remake?
Anyone think this needs to be remade?
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead
absolutely not
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MovieChat Forums > Matango (1963) Discussion > Remake?
This film doesn't need a remake. It's fine the way it is.
I write bios, therefore I am.
I'm so tired of remakes. Every week there seems to be a movie being remade or an old TV series being remade. Whatever happened to fresh material? Most of the remakes are lousy. The remake of "The Fog" was one of the worst movies I ever saw. My new policy is to stay away from remakes. For instance, I refuse to ever watch the remake of "The Poseidon Adventure." Why in the world would anybody want to remake that? Another example is "Halloween." Why do something like that? The list goes on and on. It's a terrible era for creativity in the movie business.
"Matango" should be viewed in only one way — the original movie version. For all those people who aren't true film nuts like most of the people who post on IMBD, and never heard about "Matango," too bad for them.
People I know who would never have watched this film if not for me all said they liked it after I made the recommendation. It's a gem and my favorite Toho film. If anything, owners of such unknown classics should try to get people interested with better advertising. I mean, why can't Media Blasters run a commercial informing viewers of the great collection of sci-fi Japanese films they have? That goes for other companies, as well.
There are so many great movies that are never broadcast on television anymore it's ridiculous. What's more perlexing is the number of channels available to consumers these days than in years past — most people only had 12 channels to choose from back in the 70s and 80s. Now we have 250 and still a lot of classics that used to air in the old days are nowhere to be found. TCM needs to consider expanding its channels. One isn't enough.
Only if it got a more positive ending. What the original had was too bleak.
shareI like the bleakness. If anything, said remake should be even more darker toned and disturbing and bleak beyond compare.
I agree with the statements said above, though, that this film is fine as is and that Hollywood seriously needs to read the dictionary definition of "creativity" and "originality" because these things seem to have slipped out of their vocabulary.
However, I love this film, I love the original short story, and honestly, I think both--though great--have a lot more potential for room for improvement and/or reimagination so that I almost hope a remake is filmed. I think one could re-do this movie (or short story) and have it be an Oscar winning film.
BUT, considering the crap that movies--especially remakes--have become lately, I would say "No, don't do it," just because I would not want to see a masterpiece destroyed. But, if they a fantastic, serious writer and a artistic and invisionary director with GOOD actors, then--maybe then--a remake could be done.
Unfortunately I don't see any of such desirable elements as these coming together anytime soon--for a remake of this movie or any other for that matter.
No. It's one of the greatest horror/sci-fi/fantasy movies ever made.
shareYou don't remake a masterpiece!
That would be like doing a remake of Psycho. Oh, wait, nevermind.
I definitely would NOT want this to be remade. I'm not saying a modern remake couldn't be good, because with a good script, anything can be done... but I'd prefer it was left alone.
The only director I'd trust making a good Matango remake is David Cronenberg.
If you have such question, please jump off the bridge.
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I've been vandalized by Elvis! -Ernest, Ernest Goes to Jail (1990)
One thing that I always feel when watching monster movies of this era is that the actors, the director, the staff, the artists, ... most everyone involved more often than not, had first hand experience of cities being burned and destroyed, starving for food, fighting in the tropics with no supply, etc. which give films like Godzilla or Matango a strange sense of reality despite their unreal plots. Scenes in Godzilla where the people escape with their belongings, the widowed mom huddling up her kids and telling them they will soon be meeting their dad, seems very real because such was the reality in Japan only 9 years ago. In the same way, the people in this era had either personally experienced or were exposed to first hand accounts of being trapped in tropical jungles with no supplies nor medication. And everyone certainly went hungry for a few years between the end of WW2 and the Korean War.
When I read Japanese accounts of Guadalcanal or Impahl operations where the solders were trapped in the jungle and more were killed by disease and hunger than by combat, and they had to fight the temptations of suicide, surrender (this was a major dishonor), stealing from fellow soldiers, or even eating their dead bodies, you can tell that there were a lot of audience out there for whom the movie was their reality, and I am sure that there were many on the production side for whom this story was not a wild creation of imagination.
A remake would never capture the errie desperation that runs through the movie. A new remake may turn out to be better as an entertainment medium but nonetheless different.