Okay, so I haven't seen Avatar, yet. 3D movies give me headaches. However, you'd have to be living under a rock not to hear all the buzz about supposed racism in the film. Everything I've heard, from media sources as well as friends who've seen it, says that it is, in fact, the same old Pocahontas story-line all over again. That's sort of disappointing, given the amount of money, time, and effort that went into producing the film. Big, amazing graphics...tired, re-hashed storyline. That equals disappointment for me.
Anyway, what I found interesting was the movie I watched last night. The remake of Race to Witch Mountain. The interesting part is that it was the exact opposite. (If you haven't seen the movie, consider this a spoiler alert.) It was two alien kids (who, granted, looked like Aryan poster children, but still aliens) who wanted to save unsuspecting humans from their own race of violently-inclined people, who wanted to decimate the human race for natural resources. Sound familiar? The movie was better than I thought it'd be, nothing even remotely like the original, and with a few tweaks, could probably have been a kick-ass thing all on its own, without riding the wave of nostalgia. Let's face it, the original wasn't all that ground-breaking, either.
However, it's just another drop in the cinema bucket of movies that either re-invent, re-interpret, or at least offer a mildly unique perspective on one of a million tried and true (and tired and old) storylines. Not all of these endeavors succeed, and some of them drop the ball (Hello, Mimzy), but at least they're trying. And I'd wager that at least half the ones that drop the ball are suffering from a case of the re-writes. The painful fact is, people don't want something new. They don't want something original. They don't want something that points the finger at them and calls them the bad guy. At least not in terms of sci-fi or fantasy.
Anyway, what I found interesting was the movie I watched last night. The remake of Race to Witch Mountain. The interesting part is that it was the exact opposite. (If you haven't seen the movie, consider this a spoiler alert.) It was two alien kids (who, granted, looked like Aryan poster children, but still aliens) who wanted to save unsuspecting humans from their own race of violently-inclined people, who wanted to decimate the human race for natural resources. Sound familiar? The movie was better than I thought it'd be, nothing even remotely like the original, and with a few tweaks, could probably have been a kick-ass thing all on its own, without riding the wave of nostalgia. Let's face it, the original wasn't all that ground-breaking, either.
However, it's just another drop in the cinema bucket of movies that either re-invent, re-interpret, or at least offer a mildly unique perspective on one of a million tried and true (and tired and old) storylines. Not all of these endeavors succeed, and some of them drop the ball (Hello, Mimzy), but at least they're trying. And I'd wager that at least half the ones that drop the ball are suffering from a case of the re-writes. The painful fact is, people don't want something new. They don't want something original. They don't want something that points the finger at them and calls them the bad guy. At least not in terms of sci-fi or fantasy.
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