MovieChat Forums > West Side Story (2021) Discussion > This thing is going to be total epic or ...

This thing is going to be total epic or disaster...


There's no in between.

This is a deal breaker...

So I wish him the best.

Make no joke...this is probably most important film ever made!

It will be the first film of every generations to gather together back into into theater.

I hope this will be epic...

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Since the reboot/remake of the film West Side Story is coming, whether I or anybody likes it or not, I sincerely hope that fans of the film West Side Story will be given the choice of seeing the original 1961 film version of West Side Story in theatres, or Spielberg's reboot/remake of it in the movie theatres. That, imho, would be only fair!

Having said all of the above, the search engines could and should give much more weight to the original 1961 film version of West Side Story.

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I agree with you, mplo. It's more than bad enough that now, when you type in movies like The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, or Aladdin (all three of which are also in my top ten), you have to differentiate between the original classic or the vastly inferior live action remakes, which often come up FIRST (!!!). West Side Story is my #1 favorite movie too, so I hope the same thing doesn't happen for it and the upcoming remake, though I'm pretty sure it will.

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Good points, StrongRex. I've never seen "Aladdin", but I have seen the original "Dumbo", Lion King, and Lady and the Trump, although I've never seen "Beauty and the Beast", either. They've got more than one live-action remake of "Cinderella" although the original 1950 animated "Cinderella" looks far better.

I honestly don't know why inferior remakes of great, golden oldie-but-keeper movies, especially classic films, are in such fashion these days. It bothers me no end. I hope that what you're predicting will happen with the original 1961 film version of "West Side Story" won't happen. Contrary to what other people say or think, however, I am not going to rush out to see Spielberg's reboot/remake of the film version of "West Side Story", even if they decide to treat me to a viewing of this film.

What also worries me is the possibility that younger people who've never seen the old, original 1961 film version of West Side Story will think that the reboot/remake of it is the cat's meow, and that the old original 1961 film version might just disappear into the dustbin of history.

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I highly recommend Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. I consider Aladdin my second favorite Disney movie and Beauty and the Beast my fourth favorite. There's plenty of adaptations of Cinderella, but the 2015 adaptation is considered the remake of the 1950 animated Cinderella.

The easy answer why Disney is pushing this live-action remake trend is making more money with less effort. To be honest, I can't see any other reason for it. Disney used to be known for taking risks, and there were times it cost them dearly. They still did it anyway. Now Disney has more money than they know what to do with, but rather than trying more new projects they're buying companies and franchises that are already successful and didn't already belong to them (ABC, Fox, Star Wars, and Marvel come to mind), making sequels to their biggest hit in a long time (Frozen 2), and this live-action remake trend. This one is not really a risk because they're remaking their movies that were already considered beloved classics to begin with. If they insist on remaking any of them, I wish they'd remake some of their bad ones because they did have some good ideas - they just weren't executed very well (i.e. Black Cauldron). But Disney is not going to do that because they know their fans will see their animated classics done in live-action.

In doing so, they tend to forget what made these classics so great to begin with. The remakes themselves are mostly watered down versions - in trying to "improve" on mistakes that weren't mistakes at all, they just end up creating more problems. That was the case with Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, while The Lion King was just pointless because they just made the exact same movie.

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Now when you type in West Side Story in the search column, the sh***y remake comes up first. Pisses me off.

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I've kind of been noticing that, too, StrongRex. It's rather disgusting.

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Okay yeah, Spielberg can afford having a bomb or two. Anyone remember the BFG?

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If Spielberg's reboot/remake of the film version of "West side Story" flops in the box office, he'll have people jumping all over him like frogs, if one gets the drift.

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I hope the search engines give more weight to the original 1961 film version of West Side Story, and give fans of this movie a choice between watching the original 1961 film version of West Side Story or the reboot/remake of this film. It would be nice if both the original film version and the remake of the film West Side Story were played in movie theatres at the same time, and alongside each other, and not just on TV, DVD, or video.

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you might be right:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8441133/Ansel-Elgort-accused-sexually-assaulting-17-year-old-girl-2014-meeting-social-media.html

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That Ansel Elgort sounds like an absolutely and totally disgusting individual.

I, too read that article about how Ansel Elgort was accused of sexual assault on a 17 year old girl a few years ago, bozo. It gave me yet another reason to vote my pocketbook and boycott Steven Spielberg's reboot/remake of the original 1961 film version of West Side Story--inotherwords, not go to see it when it hits the movie theatres at around Christmastime of this year.

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Makes me wonder if they will try to reshoot the movie and edit him out of it. It seems rather stupid for a studio not to erase him from the film they way they did with Kevin Spacey when the dirt on him started coming out. In this case it seems even worse since the movie is aimed more at younger girls and women than the Spacey movie was, you would think they needed an even squeakier clean cast for West Side Story.

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Spielberg must've be absolutely furious over this. His latest movie since RP1 , his first musical, potentially jeopardised by the LEAD actor getting metoo'd ..Can you imagine how awkward and embarrassing it must be for this Anson dude pising off the absolute king of Hollywood with this sordid affair, not to mention potentially devastating to his career..its not like even big names can survive scandal now.. let alone young up and comers the general populace has never heard of

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Not trying to defend Elgort, but Spacey had like 24 accusations against him. I mean it was a staggering amount, plus he was not the lead actor as Elgort is (Spacey shot the movie in 9 days and his replacement, Christopher Plummer did it in 10). However, if more accusations or stronger evidence comes to light I can see them re-shooting his scenes as the movie is not nearly under the time crunch of All the Money in the World.

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I have a sinking feeling Elgort is another Franco and more accusations are going to be popping up like mushrooms. Remember Johnny Depp's Pirates franchise was killed by the accusations of one woman who had a history of domestic violence herself, so it isn't like Hollywood requires the line of women popping up, 1 is sometimes enough.

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I knew that Elgort wasn't such a good, decent person even before this latest news of his being accused of sexual assault on a 17 year old girl just six years ago broke. Rachel Zegler, who is supposedly playing Maria in Spielberg's reboot/remake of the film West Side Story admitted on Social media that she was in love with him, and Ansel Elgort sort of took advantage of her in a way. Ansel Elgort is clearly not a nice guy, but Rachel Zegler was old enough to have the good sense to be more careful with her wording on Social Media than she was.

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The original is one of the greatest musicals, and films, ever made. Remaking it is like going after "Lawrence of Arabia."

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That's no lie, johnmiller! The original 1961 film version of West Side Story IS the greatest musical and film ever made! That's why I go to see it whenever it plays at a movie theatre anywhere in my general area, or even within reasonable driving distance of my general area, if it's not playing in my area at the time, and I get the itch to see it!

Glad to see that there are other people on this forum who, like myself, are huge fans of the original 1961 film version of West Side Story, which is my all time favorite movie, hands down!

Pardon my rambling.

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Now that Ansel Elgort is being accused of sexually assaulting a 17 year old, this movie may never see the light of day.

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That's a good possibility, modica. No great loss if that happens.

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Very true. They have would have to do so much refilming that the cost of making this movie will be enormous. They will have to either release it as is or not release it at all. I can't see them refilming, but it is Spielberg, so who knows.

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You know, I will admit that back when I was a teenager, I fantasized about starring as Tony in a West Side Story remake, and if I had known then that there was going to be one and Steven Spielberg was going to direct it, I would have considered it a huge honor to work with him. My perspective has changed on a lot of things now, especially with how Hollywood works.

"Elgort, 26, is set to star as Tony in Disney's upcoming film adaptation of the musical "West Side Story," directed by Steven Spielberg. He also starred in 2019's "The Goldfinch" and 2014's "The Fault in Our Stars.""

Okay, I didn't know this - DISNEY is behind this remake?!?

Man, Disney just has to touch everything now. Not every piece of art has to be owned by Disney. OMG...

www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/06/21/ansel-elgort-denies-he-sexually-assaulted-17-year-old-girl/3224507001/

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Look what Disney did to Star Wars, so nothing to do with this remake can be good. Maybe the allegations against Elgort are an omen of bad things to come with this movie. The original is canon and nothing can touch it.

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Disney's getting behind lots of things these days. It's crazy! Frankly, I think that the allegations against Elgort
may well be an indication of something coming that's NOT so good, if one gets the drift!

I didn't see Disney's version(s) of Star Wars, so I don't have anything to form an opinion on that one about, but Disney has ruined a lot of stuff by getting behind them. Although Disney has made some good movies, Disney has a long history of taking out real stories of tales and books, such as Pinocchio, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, and rendered them into rather cutesy animated films. Some of Disney's movies, such as Old Yeller & Davy Crockett ( both Live action), the original 1940 Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, are quite good, however.

I have a feeling that the real story will be taken out of the upcoming reboot/remake of the film West Side Story, and retold in a way that's way too gritty, dark, graphic, and profanity-filled, with no lightness to it at all. I'm not looking forward to seeing Spielberg's remake of the film West Side Story, at all, and I stand by my decision to vote my pocketbook and boycott it.

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Don't get me wrong. The Disney from years ago was awesome. Disney today is crap. It's all about money now.

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That's very true, modica. Hollywood, overall, is into making money, hand over fist! That's what it's all about. Disney is certainly no exception. Producing and producing is all they're interested in--just for the money--and it suffers, because they've been peddling tons of junk.

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Again, I see what you're saying about your perspective of Hollywood having changed, StrongRex. Mine has too, somewhat. Hollywood these days is simply putting out too many sequels, reboots and remakes of good, older classic films. It's a big turn-off for me, to be honest. Disney has done some good movies, both animated and non-animated, but to get behind something like West Side Story--that's kind of out of their element, imho. Frankly, having seen a number of the photos of Spielberg's upcoming reboot/remake of the film West Side Story, I think that Spielberg's kind of getting way above himself on this one. Spielberg's done some good films that I've really liked, but this one--uh-uh!

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I thought Into The Woods was out of Disney's element when it was released in 2014, but to be fair it did end up being a pretty good adaptation of the stage musical. I was kind of surprised because I didn't think it would have been smart for any studio to adapt Into The Woods into a movie, given the type of musical it is. However, it did still have its issues - one big issue being that Disney wasn't brave enough to kill off Rapunzel despite that it's a big turning point in the story and that not doing so lowers the stakes to a severe degree.

But West Side Story for Disney? There are many stories out there Disney could do well, but a straight adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is not one of them, and neither is a musical that is adapted from that exact same story. Disney was able to make stories like Fox and the Hound and Hunchback of Notre Dame work in some ways, but that's because there were many things they changed, and issues still arose from the changes that didn't work - which keeps these movies far from being Disney's absolute finest. I've heard someone state that Disney can do dark, but Disney can't do bleak, and I fully agree with that sentiment. West Side Story only gets worse starting from the scene of the rumble, and it has a very sad ending. Disney is not known for their movies having sad endings. To its credit, they did keep the bittersweet ending in their adaptation of Into The Woods where the characters face an unknown future, but it wasn't received well by audiences, and for Disney fans and people unfamiliar with Into The Woods I can't really blame them.

If West Side Story is severely altered and they change the ending to a happy one, I will be enraged. I will come down hard on Disney, Spielberg and the writer(s) for it.

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If they severely alter the film West Side Story by making it too graphic, the romance scenes between Anita and Bernardo, as well as Tony and Maria too steamy, graphic and explicit sexual, and if the film's laced with obscenities and profanities, and if the fights are too graphic and bloody, the rumble's too bloody, the deaths of Riff, Bernardo and Tony too bloody, and if guns, rather than switchblade knives and fisticuffs are used during the Rumble, I will be ticked off, as well, and not the least bit surprised.

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I don't think any of that is going to happen if Disney is behind this. Like I said, Disney cannot do bleak. They're more likely to swing to the other extreme of the spectrum, which would be just as painful.

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You mean like making it way too dull, treacly, and blasé all around? That, too, is entirely possible, StrongRex.

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Yeah. Bubblegum-y and saccharine. Or at least more lighthearted. Might keep some of the darkness but not follow through on it.

And since you mentioned that in the photos, the gang members look more like rich suburban prep schoolers than street hoodlums, who knows what kind of tone they're trying to set for this movie.

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Not only do the Jets & Sharks in Spielberg's upcoming film version/reboot/remake of West Side Story look like wealthy suburban prep school kids, but so do their girls, as well.

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What makes you think that all generations will come together to see Spielberg's reboot/remake of the film version of West Side Story? It's clearly kowtowing to today's younger generations, not generations of the past.

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This. This remake will be for young people that have no nostalgic feelings for the original.

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Most important film ever made???

More important than Schindlers List?

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Oh, shut up, Roguemail. Nobody said that Schindler's List isn't an important film. That's one of Spielberg's much better films. Unlike you, Roguemail, and tons of other people, I don't see Spielberg's West Side Story as being any good, especially given the allegations drawn up against Ansel Elgort, who's scheduled to play Tony in the reboot/remake of West Side Story. Elgort sounds like an absolutely disgusting individual. I've got even more reason and justification for boycotting his film version of West Side Story when it hits the theatres this Christmastime.

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I think you're being a little too hard on Roguemail, mplo. The way I read his/her message, he/she was responding to the OP in disbelief. I read it as if they were saying, "really? are you kidding me?"

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You're right, StrongRex! Roguemail, if you're listening in, I apologize to you for coming down on you so hard.

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That's exactly the point, TheArgentinian!

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To Hollywood Oscar voters and woke-oids it will be epic. To people who are familiar with the original and musicals of the '30s, '40s, and '50s, it will probably be a disaster.

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