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Torpedo the ‘Yellow Submarine’ remake!
I was going to capsule review Quentin Tarantino’s movies as a prelude to Inglourious Basterds, which comes out Friday, but righteous indignation has forced me to change my plans.
I must play the Blue Meanie and vehemently protest Robert Zemeckis’ proposed remake of Yellow Submarine, using the same motion-capture technology he used on The Polar Express, Beowulf, and the forthcoming A Christmas Carol.
To quote the various slogans the Meanies placed around Pepperland: No. No, no, no, no, No, No, NO!!!!
This is a horrendous idea on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start. Perhaps I should just begin with the simple statement that, um … there’s nothing WRONG with Yellow Submarine. In its own way, it’s a perfect little movie that no amount of cutting-edge technology will “improve.” Sure, some of the animation was a little crude, but that’s part of its charm.
Along those same lines, Yellow Submarine was very much a product of its time. To add a modern sheen to it, I feel, would diminish the story’s appeal. Moreover, I am very much against taking hand-drawn animated characters and rendering them in CG. That fundamentally alters their appearance in a way that does a disservice to the original animators.
What’s more, I’m getting rather exasperated by Zemeckis and his motion capture crusade. In fairness, I quite enjoyed The Polar Express and Beowulf, as well as Monster House, which Zemeckis produced, but did not direct. And the Christmas Carol footage I’ve seen does look impressive.
That said, I think the Yellow Submarine announcement shows Zemeckis is getting carried away. He was one of my favorite directors. His directorial debut was the very entertaining I Wanna Hold Your Hand, about a bunch of Beatlemaniacs desperate to see the Fab Four at their first Ed Sullivan show. Even his weakest movie, Back to the Future Part II, had moments of ingenuity. I wish he would get back to the live action filmmaking at which he excelled. Zemeckis seems to fancy himself some sort of visionary, but even looking forward, you can still have tunnel vision, and I think Zemeckis has succumbed to it.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this proposed remake hurts me on a very personal level. Anyone who gets to know me for even one minute knows I have two great interests in life: The Beatles and movies. Those two things formed the very core of my identity when I saw Yellow Submarine at the Victory Theatre in Dayton in 1975. It is the first movie I can clearly remember seeing in a theater, and it is the movie I have seen more times than any other. It saddens me to no end that a new generation of kids would be introduced to the Beatles, or to movies, via this misguided, foolhardy, completely unnecessary remake.
There’s a lyric running through my head right now, but it’s certainly not the title tune. It’s another song on the soundtrack, and I direct it toward Zemeckis and Disney.
He’s a real Nowhere Man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Coming Attractions
Comments
By SRCputt
August 21, 2009 11:19 AM | Link to this
Allow me to be contrarian here. As was shown recently on this blog, there are many examples of good remakes as well as bad remakes. Good artists can take an old idea and make it new again. And Zemeckis has shown inventiveness time and time again. As for the Beatles, if anything has been shown in the almost 40 years since they ceased creating, their music can be reinterpreted and revisited in many ways. While the 78 Sgt Pepper movie was a mess, it did contain Earth Wind and Fire’s clever remake of Got To Get You Into My Life. I enjoyed Across the Universe. And this is Zemeckis. I willing to give him a shot. It could be a disaster, but the great artists take chances, and he could pull something really intersting here.By Not carried away
August 21, 2009 9:04 AM | Link to this
Thanks, Maxwell. You must be free. I’m not just going to blow something off if it’s a remake. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be bad. Bear this in mind, practically every drama and comedy Shakespeare wrote was, indeed, a remake of someone’s earlier work. Does that make him uncreative or insulting?By LA
August 20, 2009 10:05 PM | Link to this
However bad a remake of Yellow Submarine would be, it could not begin to compare with the hideous 1978 Robert Stigwood piece of crap movie based on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. If someone deliberately set out to soil the Beatles legacy, they could hardly top this senseless and shameless train wreck of a movie. The kind of catastrophic movie experience that made theatre owners think about putting speed bumps in the aisles.By FredB
August 20, 2009 4:09 PM | Link to this
Remake “Yellow Submarine”? Well, why not. The upcoming Beatles’ “Rock Band” video game and the Vegas “Love” show demonstrate a willingness to revisit/reinterpret the band and its legacy, even among the surviving members and the departed members’ families. Maybe it will introduce a new generation of fans to their music. Not a bad thing to happen. By the way, you may remember that the band members did not even voice their own animated characters in this movie. The real Fab Four only appear at the end, where their real voices and images are used.By Maxwell Edison
August 20, 2009 3:42 PM | Link to this
Not carried away- You’re thinking of “Across The Universe”. And yes, it was lame. I know you didn’t want to know… Sorry :). But, IMO, nothing from these lads need be copied. EVER. Except the occasional tribute album or something. Long live The Beatles!!By Not carried away
August 20, 2009 2:51 PM | Link to this
As Alfred Hitchcok would say, “It’s only a movie,” Yellow Submarine was my first real intro the The Beatles. While it was hardly their best music, the cartoon had a lot of charm and I was enthralled by it. I have yet to be blwon away by anything CGI. That being said, I don’t think this remake can do any more damage than that stupid musical with a bunch of overly pretentious and jaded Beatles songs used as the backdrop for the yawner of a story. I can’t remember the name, and I’m glad about that.By Me
August 20, 2009 1:47 PM | Link to this
This can be said about ANY movie remake, and that’s exactly how I feel about all of them. They are all a mockery of the original work and an insult to anyone who has ever truly created something original.By Ann Stevens
August 20, 2009 12:23 PM | Link to this
Remaking the Beatles Yellow Submarine movie is sacrilegious. “Artists” who remake things,most of the time anyway,are not creative enough to come up with their own original ideas.