My Remake

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For tony marston his role is very important because he is the first person to die and when a person gets killed in real life it creates an amazing schock to anyone that has never seen a person die. also for Julia Roberts being Vera Claythorne I completly disagree with that because her emotions are to practical and is definatly not young enough. I think Jennifer Love Huete is the perfect person for that because you can really feel her emotion and her cute looks makes her feel sorry for her when she dies in the other movies shes been in, besides the Tuxedo

The only things I don't like about your remake are as follows:

1-) Perhaps this is more a rant about *all* book-to-movie remakes, but I've never understood those filmmakers who insist on changing the names/motives of characters. It's almost as if they believe they know the story *better* than those who originally wrote the story!

That said, axe Antonia. We need the pious Brent woman because she's the religious link. We need her ranting about sins and about how "she cannot die because she didn't commit a sin." Throwing in an actress would, I think, take away greatly from the diverse characters that Christie wrote about.

Also - you cannot venture too far from the nursery rhyme. It's foolish and pointless, but nevertheless it is a MAJOR part of the plot. Without it, the characters wouldn't know how/when they're going to die, or what to avoid. Unless, of course, you presume to make the rhyme say, "Six little sailor boys taking a shower/One fell from the window then there were five." It doesn't work, and I, as a Christie fan, wouldn't pay money to see someone butcher the plot.

2-) Why set it in the Alps? I'm assuming it would be very cold and snowy, which would undoubtedly limit all the characters to the house. Some of those scenes written outside of the house (while they were searching the island for the killer's possible hideouts) were some of the best the book had to offer.

3-) If you ignore my #1 completely and kept Antonia, you'd probably have to change Marston's first name. People sometimes get confused when movies have characters with really similar names (such as "Antonia" and "Anthony") without doing it on purpose.

Those are just my suggestions, tho. I would LOVE to see an accurate and modern adaptation of the movie.

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Anthony Marston...............Ryan Philippe
Ethel Rogers..................Linda Hunt
Gen. MacArthur................Herbert Lom
Thomas Rogers.................Richard Griffiths
Emily Brent...................Joan Plowright
Judge Lawrence Wargrave.......Ian McDiarmid
Dr. Edward Armstrong..........Jeremy Irons
William Blore.................Bob Hoskins
Philippe Lombard..............Clive Owen
Vera Claythorne...............Naomi Watts

CAMEOS

Sir Thomas Legge..............John Hurt
Inspector Maine...............Liev Schreiber
Fred Narracot.................Bernard Fox

My understanding is that in the Russian version Vera is raped- yeah, I've got a problem with this. It's not how the story goes. They may as well have Martians descend down and zap everyone for not finding the immunity idol. In the story Lombard's an ass but he's not the bad guy, and he's not a rapist. Hell, not even Wargrave would stoop that low and he's murdering people! My point is this: IN the book (the only true *version* of the story) the characters were all free because they had some sort of sense of civility about them - they're normal, flying under the radar of suspicion. What happens to Vera is inhuman - it's animalistic. Let's remember - these characters don't get their hands dirty.

OK, here goes:

Christiefan1:

1: I like that you want to include the first chapter of the book, which every version I’ve ever seen omits—but the reason they omit it is because you’re basically adding another 45 minutes to the movie, making it at least an hour before the action really starts. I can’t see how you can get around that, and today’s short-attention-span audiences will get bored before we get to Lombard.

2: Wargrave is an eldery and a dying man; Vera is a young, athletic woman. Any chase scene between the two of them is going to end with Vera leaving him in the dust. Remember, one of the reasons Wargrave sets the whole thing in motion in the first place is because he knows he’s dying, and he wants to go out in a blaze of glory.

3. Like every other version, you want to “spice up” Mrs. Rogers’ death. OK. But that leaves you vulnerable to the same problem that all the others that I’ve seen have: the reason that Wargrave, in the book, is able to kill Emily so easily is because he has drugged her with the same drug with which he killed Mrs. Rogers. Subsequent versions have done away with Mrs. Rogers dying in her sleep, so the third woman’s death is never believable (the 60s version is the worst offender – Ilona SEES the judge coming toward her with the needle and doesn’t even try to get away or even scream).

4. MacArthur (by the way, by now, I think you can get away with changing the name back to the original, so go for it) in the closet doesn’t work for two reasons. First, it takes away from the missing-Armstrong-as-murderer scenario later on; if the characters have already come across one murdered and hidden body, why shouldn’t they assume the same thing happened to Armstrong, rather than assume that Armstrong himself is hiding? Second, MacArthur’s death, in the book and the first movie, is what convinces the others that they’re dealing with murder, not accident or suicide.

5. Jello is right; you have to adhere as close to the nursery rhyme as possible; otherwise, it’s just a mad slasher movie. Second, the rhyme has to make sense – the 60s and 70s “Nine little Indian boys sat up rather late, one ran away and then there were eight” is an example of a rhyme that makes no sense at all – the two halves have nothing to do with each other.

6. Armstrong would only be in court after killing a patient IF the family and an attorney thought they had a case for malpractice or negligence. No matter what you hear from the radio talk shows and FoxNews, this doesn’t happen as often as you think. In the book, the patient in question suffered from peritonitis; that’s still a fatal condition, even with the doctor doing everything right. If the nurse/Sister covers for Armstrong, then he’s in the clear. It wouldn’t be a tremendous hole not to address the malpractice angle.


JelloGetsMeHot

1. I don’t agree that the third woman (besides Vera and the servant) HAS to be religious. Emily Brent’s piety, and her profession or lack thereof, is immaterial; what’s important is that the character is the kind of person whose coldness and lack of compassion would drive someone else to suicide.

2. It’s still possible to completely isolate a place. Cell phones don’t always work, telephone lines can still be cut, etc.

So here's my dream cast:

Mr. Justice Lawrence Wargrave--Ian McKellan

Vera Claythorne--Reese Witherspoon

Philip Lombard--Brendan Fraser

Emily Brent--Brenda Blethyn

General Sir John MacArthur--Christopher Plummer

Doctor Edward Armstrong--Philip Seymour Hoffman

Anthony Marston--Heath Ledger

William Blore--Bob Hoskins

Thomas Rogers--Ralph Fiennes

Ethel Rogers--Patricia Clarkson