I was planning to do a re-review of 2017's beauty and the Beast because I thought my last review was a little short. I did not have the opportunity to explain why I don't think this movie is the success so many people make it out to be. The movie is a genuine success in the box office. It is currently the 11th highest grossing film of all time. And it is my discovery of this fact that triggered me to write this. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should make this more than just a review. I want to take this opportunity to discuss the idea of remakes and how to maintain originality in films when reimagining work of arts. This will eventually culminate in a discussion of the movie.
And just to re-iterate, I do realize most people really love this movie. By going against that trend, I am not discrediting anyone's opinion here. I do realize this is my opinion, so do not take it wrongly. I can definitely see why some people would like this movie. It has a some really good production designs and quite a number of actors are really good.
For me, its failure is very subjective. But at the same time, it is very indicative of the direction blockbuster filmmaking is going in these day.
We are living in one of the golden ages of cinema, that much is true. Films are lucrative businesses these days, and the push for quality product is clear. Back in the 1990s, films like Batman V Superman or Independence Day Resurgence would've made tons of money. Yet today, negative reviews and bad words of the mouth have significant impacts on the film's performances. It is still so baffling to me that a movie like BvS could underperform. Yet it genuinely reflects the fact that people do care about the quality of filmmaking.
This has led blockbusters to perform on a higher level. There are more competitions to make movies to sell more. Studios are forced to find ways to make their products more appealing. And it seems remakes; reboots and adaptations are gaining serious steams.
These are films are not immune to the scrutinizing eyes of critics. People do reject bad remakes; an example of this is 2016's Ben-Hur.
Ben-Hur is a bad remake because it failed to serve the purpose of remakes. It's a completely pointless film. The original was already great, why would you need a remake.
A remake is essentially an adaptation of the original. They can choose to maintain the central idea of the original, and most will argue that a good remake should do so. However, a good remake should have its own purpose and this usually falls into one of three categories:
1. Expand on the concepts of the original: This usually involves taking the original concept and doing something different with it. It usually involves changes in settings, characters and at times plotlines. It can maintain the same purpose of the original, but a change in locations; characters or plot points give it a different style, a different look. It's like looking at a similar thing from another angle, through a different filter.
We have seen remakes like these in 2016's The Magnificent Seven. We can compare this to the original Seven Samurai or the original Magnificent Seven, which in turns is a remake of the Seven Samurai. Both versions of MS are already doing something right by setting the film in a different culture. This is a form of expanding on the original concept. Since you've already seen this concept in the form of a samurai sword and sandel film, why not see it in the form of a western? Even the new MS has different concepts from the old. It does this by introducing a more modern cast of characters. The new MS benefits a lot from the current cinema, it focuses on the characteristics and quirks of the characters, making them less the cowboys and more the individual characters. In the new versions, the characters have different personality from the original film. It is less realistic but more blockbuster. It borrows ideas from team stories like The Avengers, where the siginificance of the story is in the different characters interacting with each other. This gives a different perspective from the original movies where the characters are looked upon more as a team. On a side note, the new film also includes a black cowboy, a native american, an asian american and a mexican. Clearly, this is a very on the nose way to add diversity to the cast.
