REMAKE?


Every so often someone floats around the idea of a remake.

Anyone heard anything?

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Check out "The Island" from 2005. There is a discussion about it having similarities to Logan's Run

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That one was actually a remake of a 70s horror/sci-fi film called "The Clonus Horror", about a community of clones who were being raised for spare parts.

Now "The Island" is bad, but "The Clonus Horror" is so dreadful that it ended up being mocked on "Mystery Science Theater 3000".

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I think, as with many films based on a novel, that a remake is foolish… Instead, let’s go back and make a new film based on the book. In this case the book is a fast-paced acid dream, full of wild invention and bizarre plot holes. But, the '76 film is not a whole lot more coherent, so why not go back to the original?
Well, there are problems. Logan’s Run (1967) is very much a book of its time. It is about a world that emerged from a youth rebellion. In this world, (not a city under a dome, but a whole world), a unified government has been set up and a worldwide culture has become totally entrenched. The most basic elements of this society are virtually unlimited hedonism and lifespans limited to 21 years. Every person has a life-clock (as in the film) and when they reach the age of 21, they are to voluntarily submit to Sleep—pleasant euthanasia. And there are the Sandmen, uniformed police officers/assassins who “put to sleep” the small minority of unwilling citizens. The '76 film actually depicted a number of elements of the novel, albeit in compressed context. The Cubs are rebellious, violent children who use a drug called “Muscle” which acts as a super-amphetamine making them capable of inhuman speed. Box is actually a cyborg who lives near a Polar prison camp where Logan and Jessica briefly stop--but he does carve ice sculptures. The movie also has a flooding area beneath the city, but this is just a vague reference to Molly; in the novel, an underwater city built in the late 20th century and abandoned later. The novel also has outlaw bikers on flying bikes called devilsticks and does culminate in a fight in the ruins of Washington D.C.. There’s a lot that makes no sense but if you combine the brutal headlong rush of Mad Max Fury Road with the wild inventiveness of Luc Besson (The Fifth Element - Valerian)— You might make a Logan’s Run that works.

I’m guessing the age limit of 21 might have to go… And I wonder how much hedonism would be allowed.

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Adapting the original novel seems like the best way to go, if there's going to be remake. I know that remaking the film with modern effects & sensibilities is most likely, and would undoubtedly look better to contemporary tastes ... but, nostalgia aside, there's a certain enduring retro charm to many '70s science-fiction movies that's still quite enjoyable & would be sadly lost.

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I don't see the retro charm being lost as long as we have the original, now retro, article to watch again and again.

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Yes, there is that. :)

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The story was hugely of its time, it captured the zeitgeist of the "Never trust anyone over thirty" youth culture of the time in which the book was written and the story was made. To remake it today, it'd have to catch something of the modern feeling of the times.

I suppose they'd have to make it a satire of modern Wokeism, but which wouldn't be any fun. Those spoiled twerps are no fun to watch, not even when they're being satirized (and I say that as an old Leftie).

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"Never trust anyone over thirty" youth culture

Well , the internet has bred a "always refute everything anyone says no matter how much more qualified they are than you , if you dont like the information, or even just to be a dick about it" moron mentality

so i guess the modern equivalent is a conspiracy theory movie.

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Filming set to start in 2024:
https://moviesr.net/p-sci-fi-classic-logan-s-run-remake-to-begin-filming-in-early-2024

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Unless the actors/writers' strike has kicked it back into Development Hell.

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Yeah, true. This remake has been stuck in development hell for decades, so what’s another few months or years?

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Another year or two, another rewrite or two, hoping to capture yet another kind of zeitgeist...

Seriously, this is one of those films that shouldn't be remade. Yes, the special effects are ludicrously clunky, but better special effects isn't a good reason to remake a movie. Especially a movie like this, which was better than it should have been.

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I have found most remakes to be disappointments. While I think it would be hard to improve on the original except in the SFX, I know that there are generations of filmgoers who couldn’t be persuaded to watch the old version — or any old film. I wouldn’t mind seeing a version that hewed more closely to the source material.

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I agree.

They should never remake the really good movies, or the surprisingly good movies. They should remake the movies that need improving! Remake the bad movies, not the good ones, and start with "The Hobbit".

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Haha. The unfinished and little-remembered animated film from the 70s or Peter Jackson’s bloated prequel to the magisterial LOTR?

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Bloated prequel, definitely, but I never liked the 70s cartoon either.

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Me niether.

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