Sometimes Crazy Works

A couple of months ago I saw Red Dawn, the original 1984 version, on Pluto TV.  I remember on TNT one time they showed it with a host and expert who basically described it as the most ludicrous war scenario ever.  And really it is.  I mean somehow a bunch of Cubans and Nicaraguans and Russians avoid radar detection for hundreds of miles--if not thousands--through Mexico and the southwestern US to drop troops in some little town in Colorado. 

I mean if you think about it, it's utter nonsense.  How do you sneak thousands of soldiers on planes through Mexico and New Mexico/Arizona to Colorado?  And if you were going to do that, why would you attack some pathetic little town that has no strategic value at all?  Wouldn't you attack Colorado Springs with the Air Force Academy or some of the military bases?  Or capture some power plants or natural resources?  I mean as it is it'd be like invading Mayberry first thing.

And within hours after dropping a bunch of troops these guys have Soviet armored vehicles.  They dropped those from planes?  It's possible with huge cargo planes like the Il-76 but how the hell do you get that in there without being noticed?  That'd be like a blue whale trying to hide in my local pond--presuming it were salt water.

So even before you get to the notion of child soldiers led by Patrick Swayze defeating professional soldiers for months, the whole story is completely ridiculous.

Yet the remake, which tried to be slightly more realistic in that they were in Oregon and there was some Doomsday weapon the North Koreans were setting up, wasn't nearly as loved or financially successful.  What happened?

Sure Reagan-era foaming at the mouth about the "Evil Empire" had died out--now Russia is our best friend!--but also I think people liked the absurdity of it.  They bit on this little fantasy that commies could drop out of the sky into their little town and only they could stand up to the enemy!  It's kind of a power trip where you think only you with your daddy's hunting rifle might be able to thwart a Soviet invasion.

I was thinking Robocop was the same way.  The original movie is just so absurd and over-the-top with violence, gore, and goofy TV shows/commercials.  Then they remade the movie without all of that stuff and what happened?  It was so boring that I almost left the theater before it ended and financially it fared poorly.

A couple of months ago The Onion's AV Club ran an article about Jaws the movie vs the book--even stealing my Page to Screen title!  The movie is a straight-ahead adventure with not a lot of moral shading.  Shark bad, people good.  Good people kill bad shark.  The book has some darker elements, like the sheriff's wife sleeps with the marine biologist and the mayor has mob ties.  It occurred to me that someone remaking Jaws would probably put those elements back in to make it "gritty" and "real."  And then like those other remakes it would probably flop.

Because when you think about it, what are most of the top movies financially?  Space fantasies and superheroes.  Guys riding around in spaceships with glowing swords or jumping off rooftops in capes.  People don't really want gritty and real.  They want the fantasy.  They want to buy into the absurd idea that Soviets could invade a central US small town and nearly be run off by a bunch of teenagers with hunting rifles.  They want absurdly violent and gory revenge fantasies.

Sometimes crazy works.  And a lot of times it doesn't.  But fortune favors the bold as someone famous once said.  The problem with a lot of remakes is they aren't bold.  By definition they're not usually bold endeavors.  They're just trying to cash in on a name.  And most of them try to play it as safe as possible to appeal to the widest audience.  They're cooked up by studio heads, not artists.  A few have not fallen into that trap like The Fly or The Blob back in the 80s.  The former especially is about as different as can be.  I guess in those cases they weren't so much trying to "remake" the movie as reimagine it.

Anyway, the point is that sometimes it's better to foresake "real" and do something crazy.  Sometimes it works.  If it doesn't, well, there's plenty of time to play it safe.