Well, I thought that I’d talk about modern remakes today. I ended up thinking about this after re-watching the rather enjoyable 2010 film remake of the classic TV show “The A-Team”. One of the interesting things about this remake is that, whilst it keeps a lot of the goofy humour, character dynamics etc… the original TV series, it’s noticeably “edgier” in almost every way.
The fight scenes are a bit grittier – with the characters deliberately not missing whilst shooting at the bad guys, the humour is mildly more “edgy” etc… And this made me think about “edginess” and remakes, since it’s an absolutely fascinating subject.
A lot of this is down to censorship. For example, the cliched “shoot to miss” thing in the original A-Team TV show was probably there to give the impression of fast-paced gun-fights whilst also staying within the stricter censorship (and silly moral panics about media violence) of 1980s early evening television.
Ditto with the excellent 2000s TV remake of “Battlestar Galactica” – which is definitely a lot more “edgier” in mood and atmosphere than the more “feel good” style of the one episode of the original series that I’ve seen. Interestingly though, the modern remake of “Battlestar Galactic” actually re-uses a trick that the original TV series used to get around the censors (eg: using made-up words like “frak” instead of traditional expletives).
This sort of thing can also work in reverse too – mostly due to the popularity of the MPAA “PG-13” rating amongst Hollywood studios. Although this means that there can sometimes be watered-down remakes or sequels of things that work best when aimed at older audiences (eg: classic Paul Verhoeven sci-fi films, classic action movie series etc…), it can also mean that remakes of more “innocent” or “feel-good” classics can be made a bit more “edgy” in order to get this lucrative rating.
The 2010 “A-Team” film is a good example of this, with many elements of the film giving the illusion of grittiness whilst actually being relatively puritanical. Whether it is characters deliberately leaving various expletives unfinished, or the fact that the more “brutal” fight sequences are almost always eerily bloodless, or just the slightly more heavy focus on the militaristic elements of the series – this is a film that has been designed to look like a serious “mature” action movie, whilst still having a low enough rating for studios to sell tickets to younger teenagers (who may possibly… maybe… have seen repeats or DVDs of the original series).
So, yes, one of the main reasons why modern remakes can be “edgier” is to do with censorship.
Another major reason is simply context. In short, the world is a bit less of an “innocent” place in some ways than it was when older TV shows, movies etc… were made. A great example of this is the 2000s remake of “Battlestar Galactica”, which was released in the years after 9/11. The gritty visual style and tone of this series was part of a general trend of post-9/11 gloominess in US film and television at the time, but the real-world context also means that the series can include a number of topical elements such as Cylon-based scenes that evoke the fear of sudden terrorist attacks and a story arc that is an allegory for the invasion of Iraq. Since science fiction is about the present day, and the “present day” of the time was a bit more nervous and grim, the series is a bit more “edgy”.
Likewise, there are also artistic and creative reasons for this change too. These days, “feel good” media is less prestigious and popular than “serious drama”. And I can sort of understand some of the reasons behind this, mostly because “serious drama” – depressing as it can often be – usually requires things like more complex characterisation, more complex storytelling and other things that allow for a bit more creative freedom and substantial storytelling.
On the other hand, “feel good” storytelling used to be more popular in the past. The classic example of this is how, in 1982, the family-friendly film “ET” did much better at the box office than the atmospheric, complex, intelligent and melancholy sci-fi noir masterpiece “Blade Runner”. Thankfully the latter has been rightly recognised as a classic in the years since, but it’s initial sales and reception do hint at the greater popularity of “feel good” storytelling in the 1980s. And, yes, the *groan* modern superhero movie trend might also be a mildly “grittier” extension of this trend.
So, yes, context and/or censorship will usually explain why a modern remake of an older film or TV show may be a bit “edgier” than the original.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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