Hit or Myth?

I’ve brought up this subject once before in this post. But a couple of things have happened since then that I feel I have to put in another two cents. For another film is in the works which has a great deal to do with the original two cents from the first post.

So here ‘goes:

Clash of the Titans. The remake.

To reiterate what I said before, when I first heard of this redo, my first thought had been: WHY? Yes, I’m pretty much annoyed with a remake of this movie. Even though it’s now passé in terms of its F/X, there is a marvelous charm to the way it IS depicted… I’ve already expressed my appreciation of Ray Harryhausen. Sure, it could, I suppose, use an “update” through no fault of its own. But (and here’s the two cents) why THIS story? Why bother to update something that doesn’t need to be redone? By which I mean — Greco-Roman mythology is teeming with other tales. Leave Clash of the Titans as is. They don’t (although it does make my stomach turn a little) have to keep in direct line with other mythological stories. After all, Clash is already a re-written hodgepodge. (The Kraken isn’t even Greco-Roman.) Point being, if you want to do a mythology film, give us something new by ransacking the multitude to choose from in order to do it. [For more ranting on this, it’s in the other post.]

After seeing the pix and the trailers for it, I’m not as excited as I could be. I’m not exactly disappointed, either. It just looks too “gritty,” along the lines of 300 and Gladiator. Although I can see why a myth film might look as such, I’m not so much a fan of the look. Also, having seen what’s been presented, it doesn’t so much look as if it’s been expanded beyond the original too much (which had been a "selling point" for me.) But I’m still hoping I’m convinced otherwise. [And no, I’m not going to see it in 3-D, since the original film hadn’t been intended/filmed as a 3-D movie… and in this case it seems more like jumping on the bandwagon than trying to re-capture magic as they did with The Nightmare Before Christmas and as is wanted to do with the original Star Wars trilogy.]

ANYWAY, I’ve read an article about another mythology movie in the works. And it’s doing exactly as should be done… i.e. creating a new story based around elements from the wealth of characters, objects and situations.

That film is War of the Gods, and it’s being done by Tarsem Singh, who also did The Cell and The Fall. The Cell I found visually stunning, but the story had left a lot to be desired. I thought it missed the mark entirely. Bart and I watched The Fall quite recently. We liked it. A little disturbing, but in the good way. Also visually stunning. So given that the story bits are borrowed, and that mythology needs to be visually stunning, perhaps we can look forward to this movie. War of the Gods centers around Theseus leading men into battle against the gods.

But I ask you… why can’t we just get Theseus in a good Labyrinth and the Minotaur movie?