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>1. The Karate Kid has a GREAT story. It's why the original is
>a 4-star film. It's not about nostalgia-- it's about it being
>a legitimately very good movie. And it's not because it has
>movie stars or big action in it. It's all in the story and the
>characters. The remake also relies on the story and
>characters: there are maybe two big fight sequences, and the
>biggest star is not only in a supporting role, he hasn't had a
>hit movie in America in forever.
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i agree with you about the original Karate Kid being a great story. my gripe about the way they're remaking things wasn't directly pointed at one movie i haven't seen yet. though i do more than half expect it to apply here too. the gripe is that great stories are being brought back so they can *market* on people's nostalgia, yet not deliver on that, and to be used as tried and true raw material to apply a current formula to. that's my problem with "updating" old classics. i don't mind remaking classics (in a creative way), but "updating" means you take the successful story (hard part out of the way now) and put it to cornrows and linkin park music, with extra cgi for good measure. oh and make it more X-TREME. most remakes today appear to have been created in a business meeting.
i'm not saying the original karate kid is only good for nostalgia. i'm saying these remakes in general tend to use nostalgia to sell something, but don't even follow through on that level. and my expectations (not declarations) are that this is more or less in that boat.
>2. They did do something brand new with the remake of Karate
>Kid. Several things, actually. The setting plays a big part.
>The training techniques are different. The motivations of the
>characters are different. While the film keeps several
>elements of the original film, especially in the structure of
>the end, the road it travels to get there felt surprisingly
>fresh-- and there are a million ways in which it could have
>gone wrong.
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i'm still open to that. skeptical but open.
>Also, the race, while never explicitly talked about, really
>does play a big part. You get the sense that Dre is more of an
>outsider than Daniel ever was. In this movie, you feel like
>Dre is the first black person that most of the characters in
>the film have ever seen-- people keep asking to touch his
>hair. Not that this means the bad guys are motivated by racial
>hatred, but the fact that Dre is so different from everyone
>else they've ever had to socialize with, especially for the
>family of the girl, certainly plays a part in Dre's loneliness
>and his inability to fit in.
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ok. i mean, while i do think it's cool that a movie addresses the idea of a black kid in china, it's still pretty weak to me if that's an example of the most imaginative twist they came up with. let's see "Daniel was out of place culturally and class-wise...let's make the new Daniel MORE out of place...make it x-treme: make him black in china."
>So... yeah. I don't think the generalizations regarding
>remakes fit in here. They took a great story and kept it that
>way. They gave it some semblance of originality with the
>changes they made, making it feel familiar and fresh at once.
>It was earnest, well acted, and well shot-- I can't say that
>about the overwhelming majority of remakes.
>
>Trying to use the normal logic about remakes doesn't apply
>here, because this one wasn't lazy in its execution, period.
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fair enough, and like i said don't take my skepticism for not being open to it. that would be good news if true. the way it's been promoted screams "lazy rip-off crap" but marketing doesn't always fairly represent the product.
i still feel real fucked up watching 11 year olds beat the living crap out of each other to the cheers and spectacle of adults in the stands.
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