No, not Snake Plissken too

I guess Hollywood is just aching to wreck every movie I loved as a kid by remaking them. The latest victim, if it wasn't obvious from my title, is Escape from New York, the 1981 John Carpenter film based on the premise that New York City was turned into a maximum security prison, and when an international crisis looms, there is only one man tough enough to go in and do the job... Snake Plisskin, an eye-patch wearing anti-hero played brilliantly by Kurt Russell.

After the success this weekend of the 300, the name bandied about to replace Russell in the remake is Gerard Butler, the actor who also played the title role in Dracula 2000 and appeared in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Timeline

Now, I am not saying that Gerard Butler is a bad actor, not at all. It is just that Kurt Russell IS Snake Plissken, it is one of his iconic characters, much like the Man with No Name and Dirty Harry ARE Clint Eastwood or Mel Gibson IS Mad Max. There is nothing any film maker can do to make me forget those performances.

And those of us who have played the modern versions of the Metal Gear Solid series know that the English language version of Solid Snake was heavily influenced by the Kurt Russell performance in that movie.

In short, Snake Plissken is one of those great B-movie badasses, and I am very distraught that someone else may play that role.

I still stand by my conviction that remakes, especially of John Carpenter's work, basically suck.

Tags: escape from new york, snake plissken, metal gear solid, kurt russell, john carpenter, remake, gerard butler, dirty harry, mad max, clint eastwood, mel gibson, b movie, anti-hero, 300