What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 1:9
Knight Rider, Transformers...Hollywood has often gone to the well of the past for ideas when new ideas are in short supply, but lately, it's getting crazy. Geeks of Doom just warned me that Disney's got a new Witch Mountain offering in the works.
First reaction: Oh wow, Escape to Witch Mountain... Tony... Tia... Winky! There's no way that can be remade, it's utter cheese and you had to be there:
I'd recently given the benefit of the doubt to the new Knight Rider series, and that hadn't gone so well (fun show, not Knight Rider). Sometimes there's just something intangible about what worked back in the day, and just modernizing the concept and making a new effects-filled redux often fails, especially if you emphasize the fact that it is a remake, trying to appeal to that original audience.
This new Witch Mountain offering, though...the trailer actually looks kinda fun.
I think this time if I can successfully convince myself that it has nothing to do with the originals, I might give it a go and like it.
You know what I'd really like to see? A live action re-do of Rikki Tikki Tavi in the style of Babe or Narnia (or a remake of A Cricket in Times Square, for that matter). But NOT of Watership Down. See, I think in the one case, it would work, but in the other, there's too much nostalgia tied to the original presentation.
And while I'm here, Seth Gordon recently threw out an update on the remake of The King of Kong. The most significant aspect being that it appears to still be a go. This fits today's theme, because even though The King of Kong is not really old enough to evoke nostalgia, trying to capture what was interesting about the original (the real people) is going to be a challenge. We'll see what happens.
Finally, jaQ had something very relevant to add to this discussion:
