Tuesday, March 13, 2007

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.

11 comments:

Jody said...

Escape From New York is one of my favourite movies, I am so bummed to hear this news.

And I agree wholeheartedly that Snake Plisskin is a character that shouldn't be tampered with.

Anonymous said...

I just blogged about this myself and you know I haven't seen one person say anything positive about this!

Oh and thanks for convincing Tracey to watch Alias!

Anonymous said...

When will movie makers learn to leave classics alone????

That's why people like the originals...they're already good...it's what makes them classics...GRRR!!

Mayren said...

WTF!!!!!!?????!!

NOOOO! Firstly:
I'm seriously getting upset that
they would re-make Escape from New York. That means Escape from LA too. Secondly: Snake Plisskin
is like an archtype you just don't
screw with.

I'm so hella bummed. (pouts)

SamuraiFrog said...

That's bad, bad news. Although I admit I'm holding out hope for the Halloween remake. But The Fog, Assault on Precinct 13--I didn't bother to see those. And I'm not going to bother to see Escape from New York either. I've already seen it, and Snake Plissken is a favorite.

MC said...

Jody: I think this spur in remakes is hurting our cultural legacy. It is sort of reprehensible really.

Lee: I shouldn't think so... the track record is very bad for these remakes. And you did get the two really good seasons of the show... season 3 was when Abrams started working on Lost and it shows.

Tracey: If people stopped going to see them, or if the studios rereleased the originals at the same time at the theatres and they outperformed the new version, I think that would put a serious damper on the practice.

Mayren: Like in the movie, Snake Plissken is a man you don't want to screw with indeed... or else you feel the pain.

Samuraifrog: With Assault on Precinct 13... don't ever see the remake... it will make you very sad.

Anonymous said...

Well, if I had to choose a Kurt Russell movie to screw around and remake, just don't touch my Big Trouble in Little China, dammit.

MC said...

I could name 4 Kurt Russell movies that they could remake and I wouldn't say a word... at least 4. You choice isn't amongst them BTW.

SamuraiFrog said...

Why couldn't they remake Tango and Cash or Overboard instead? They should only remake bad movies, so they can do something better.

Anonymous said...

They already remade Escape From New York. It was called Escape From LA. :P

MC said...

SF: Amongst others... Used Cars, Best of Times, Captain Ron, Unlawful Entry...

Jim: Touche.