Patrick McGoohan made a perfect thing, leave it be. With respect to Uma Thermin, there was only one real Emma Peel, amd that was Diana Rigg, there's only one real Danger Man / No.6, and that's McGoohan. Enough remakes already, write something new.
Face the facts... most people have never heard of the film & have no intention of watching anything that isn't in an HD resolution.
Sadly, if you want new generations to experience these works of art, yes, the remake is a necessary evil. They at least need to reformat & re-release the originals for the sake of modern convenience.
Get real. You have a weird concept of "most people", and embrace the kind of thinking that caused the pathetic colorizing of classic b&w movies back in the 1990s. The orginal shows have been airing on IFC every Friday for weeks now to promote the poxy remake and they look great.
No. Quite aside from the question of whether a remake is necessary/desirable (The Prisoner was McGoohan, without him and the zeitgeist you are going to end up with something like that pile of excrement that was The Avenger's movie - bad script, bad acting, a wanking exercise on the part of the people who thought they could produce something to equal the original) there is the question of pouring money into such a project when there are so many original projects worth developing. Except of course studios are just too damned frightened to take any risks these days. So we end up with regurgitated pap. The creative industries hocked their backbones years ago. Time for a revolution.
NO! If all they are going to do is remake the original series or just do episodes that are more of the same, that's a waste of time and money,.
If, however, they are going to take the story forward and show some sort of plot or theme development and move on from where it left on, then I would say they should go for it. To be honest though, I doubt that this is likely to happen.
Let me expand on that NO. "I am not a number. I am a free man", means one thing in the context of the '60's and something very different in the age of sociopaths in high places. In the '60's the message was anarchist and by implication leftist. McGoohan's character refused to cooperate with a system he despised, He did so for his own reasons, which he refused to reveal and he accepted the consequences of his defiance. I'm afraid that any remake of The Prisoner would be about the kind of selfish weasel behavior that passes for individualism today. Instead of "I am not a number..." we would probably hear something like, "Yo, I do what the fuck I want and none 'a y'all bitches tells me no. That's just the way I roll." Worse yet Number Six would likely be played by a white pretty boy type. Also, The Prisoner was psychedelic and absurdist. How would it be played nowadays? Sneering and ironic? The Prisoner is a masterpiece of it's time. So leave it in it's time.
If it is a remake ala Battlestar Galactica maybe. If it is like most American/Hollywood remakes then no
ReplyDeleteNo!
ReplyDeletePatrick McGoohan made a perfect thing, leave it be. With respect to Uma Thermin, there was only one real Emma Peel, amd that was Diana Rigg, there's only one real Danger Man / No.6, and that's McGoohan. Enough remakes already, write something new.
What she said.
ReplyDeleteNO
ReplyDeleteThat's right. NO!
ReplyDeleteFace the facts... most people have never heard of the film & have no intention of watching anything that isn't in an HD resolution.
ReplyDeleteSadly, if you want new generations to experience these works of art, yes, the remake is a necessary evil. They at least need to reformat & re-release the originals for the sake of modern convenience.
Get real. You have a weird concept of "most people", and embrace the kind of thinking that caused the pathetic colorizing of classic b&w movies back in the 1990s. The orginal shows have been airing on IFC every Friday for weeks now to promote the poxy remake and they look great.
ReplyDeleteNo. Quite aside from the question of whether a remake is necessary/desirable (The Prisoner was McGoohan, without him and the zeitgeist you are going to end up with something like that pile of excrement that was The Avenger's movie - bad script, bad acting, a wanking exercise on the part of the people who thought they could produce something to equal the original) there is the question of pouring money into such a project when there are so many original projects worth developing. Except of course studios are just too damned frightened to take any risks these days. So we end up with regurgitated pap. The creative industries hocked their backbones years ago. Time for a revolution.
ReplyDeleteNO! If all they are going to do is remake the original series or just do episodes that are more of the same, that's a waste of time and money,.
ReplyDeleteIf, however, they are going to take the story forward and show some sort of plot or theme development and move on from where it left on, then I would say they should go for it. To be honest though, I doubt that this is likely to happen.
Let me expand on that NO.
ReplyDelete"I am not a number. I am a free man", means one thing in the context of the '60's and something very different in the age of sociopaths in high places. In the '60's the message was anarchist and by implication leftist. McGoohan's character refused to cooperate with a system he despised, He did so for his own reasons, which he refused to reveal and he accepted the consequences of his defiance. I'm afraid that any remake of The Prisoner would be about the kind of selfish weasel behavior that passes for individualism today. Instead of "I am not a number..." we would probably hear something like, "Yo, I do what the fuck I want and none 'a y'all bitches tells me no. That's just the way I roll." Worse yet Number Six would likely be played by a white pretty boy type.
Also, The Prisoner was psychedelic and absurdist. How would it be played nowadays? Sneering and ironic?
The Prisoner is a masterpiece of it's time. So leave it in it's time.
No, in thunder!
ReplyDeleteThey might as well re-make it. They fuck up everything else.
ReplyDeleteWhat we really need is a remake of Chucklevision.
ReplyDelete