Thanks, strntz. I haven't seen the Flight Of The Phoenix remake and have no desire to. The problem I have with remakes,--and I'm not against them entirely, and many have pointed out how many great films ARE remakes to one degree or another--is, for all that, when something near to perfection is achieved just once, it's a miracle, a cause to rejoice, as we all know, which is one of the many reasons we're here.
It's a pleasure to "see it done right". Just from the American canon (as it were), I think of John Ford's Stagecoach. That kind of story had been done done dozens of times at least; indeed, from the same year the B classic Five Came Back told a somewhat similar story beautifully. In a sense one might say we're all watching remakes, to one degree or another, all the time. However that may be, they're not, most of them, "official". One only has to think of all the variations on a theme from (name that picture!) The Godfather, The Exorcist or Jaws there were back in the Seventies (and that's just the Seventies).
To get back on board with Flight Of The Phoenix, its splendid humanity, its wide range of characters under duress; and that includes threats from within the main group of survivors, not just the heat, the Arabs, the poor food supply, puts it in a class by itself. The purely technical stuff can, I suppose be "improved on", but not the writing, acting, pacing, the seasoned directing of a master like Robert Aldrich. His filmography is full of films with those "touches", some better than others. I think of the over the top but still effective Hush, Hush...Sweet Charlotte. A horror it is, more genre feeling than Phoenix, it's hurt by being overlong and being bogged down by convoluted plot twists.
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strntz (10779)
4 years ago
To get back on board with Flight Of The Phoenix, its splendid humanity, its wide range of characters under duress; and that includes threats from within the main group of survivors, not just the heat, the Arabs, the poor food supply, puts it in a class by itself. The purely technical stuff can, I suppose be "improved on", but not the writing, acting, pacing, the seasoned directing of a master like Robert Aldrich. His filmography is full of films with those "touches", some better than others.
Nicely said. I've seen this film dozens of times yet when channel scanning, I *must* stop and watch it should I come across it. Everything from the cast to the editing flat out clicked, and when that happens, "movies is magic".
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Adam60z (3749)
4 years ago
Same here. It's in my top 5 all time films. I started to watch the remake, but found it unwatchable, as most remakes are IMHO. By the way I was zensixties on the original IMDB comments. Anyway I'm rewatching it now...for the 30th time--it never gets old!
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strntz (10779)
4 years ago
I also find most remakes poorly made, but I'm certainly not a remake hard-ass and I do enjoy some remakes better than the originals, but that's uncommon. The remake of Flight is abysmal from a cast, acting, and story modification standpoint.
To me, a movie should be considered for a remake if the story is stronger than the cast, production, effects, etc. in the original. A great story should be told with a super cast and production, but in this case, Flight of the Phoenix 1965 featured a superb cast, superb performances, and excellent production. There was no need to remake this classic.
When I found out that MC was going to grab the old IMDB threads and transplant them here, I kept my original name. Glad to see you made it new name and all!
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