At 09:16 PM 5/28/01 -0600, Ellynne G. wrote:
Remake films that worked. I suppose Mission Impossible (although I didn't see it or the series), Star Trek (although they get it wrong every other film), and Beverly Hillbillies . . . made money. The first couple Superman films weren't exactly travesties and I suppose Batman was pretty on target.
The X-Men movie is by far the best example of a really good movie based on (and surprisingly faithful to) a really good comic book. "Fight Club" springs to mind as a great movie based on (and incredibly faithful to) a really good book. Can't come up with any really *good* movies based on TV shows, but I thought the Avengers movie was quite faithful to the spirit of the original.
But I suppose the Trek movies would be a much closer analogy to what (I presume) the B7 movie wants to be, though--less "based on" than "a continuation of" the show, characters played by the same actors, etc...they are stupid good fun, but not brilliant, and I'd never in a million years have watched any of them if I hadn't been a trekkie (fortunately for the Trek movie makers the trekkie market was a large and loyal one, television's answer to deadheads)...
Let's just try and be hopeful, here. _Maybe_ they'll get it right. _Maybe_ the past year was spent listening to fan concerns and making revisions. Maybe Travis really knew how to aim and Servalan actually did have as much dress sense as she thought. It's possible. Maybe.
I think making a successful transition of this sort requires the moviemakers to navigate a treacherous course between the Scylla of Camping It Up (which must be a *very* powerful urge in the case of B7, although perhaps not quite on a par with The Avengers ;-p) and the Charybdis of Taking It Seriously (cf. Lost In Space or the X-Files movie). I think the Trek movies did manage that...every second time, at least, as you say.
Well it'll be worth a look, in any case, won't it? Like a car crash which may or may not inadvertantly twist itself into an aesthetically pleasing abstract sculpture (;-p).
--Penny, Captaining the Ship of Confusing Metaphor through the Treacherous Waters of Lysator, Blindfolded, Three Sheets to the Wind... -- "You mix your laundry list with your grocery list and you'll end up eating your underwear for breakfast."