Last night I finally got round to watching the South Bank show on Pixar. Brad Bird was talking about how Disney during the 1980s and 1990s was petrified of having anything scary or exciting or racy in its animated movies. Over time, the highs and lows were removed, omitting emotive content and, in Bird’s words, ‘flatlining’ the movies.
SFGate now has an article with the headline Maurice Sendak tells parents to go to hell. In it, Sendak, creator of Where the Wild Things Are, has a to-and-fro with a reporter about the movie adaptation of his 1963 picture book:
Reporter: “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?”
Sendak: “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”
Reporter: “Because kids can handle it?”
Sendak: “If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.”
If only more people responded in this way. I’m not suggesting kids should be presented with the likes of Saw or Friday the 13th on entering a cinema, but it’s insane how do-gooders constantly try to revert children’s media to something that Mary Whitehouse would have been satisfied with. Surely, creating children’s movies with a full gamut of emotions is better for them and their parents than more grey mush?
I today discovered The Fly is being re-remade. Cronenberg is to return to the property that he worked on in 1986, which was based on the 1958 original. My question is this: what is the point? 1986’s The Fly is still a great film, and even the special effects remain of a very high quality, due to the reliance on puppetry rather than then-embryonic computer graphics.
I therefore don’t understand what a remake would bring to the party. There’s a pretty huge gap between 1958 and 1986 in terms of film-making, but not nearly the same gap between 1986 and today. Also, the story isn’t really strong enough to sustain sequels, and so unless it’s radically altered, The Fly will remain self-contained. And although CGI has moved on in leaps and bounds, it mostly still lacks a feeling of reality—CGI creatures typically lack gravity, a tactile quality, and feel slightly out-of-place.
But this is apparently the season to take advantage of 1980s nostalgia and drop the risk factor significantly. It’s safer to remake Robocop and Flight of the Navigator, The Karate Kid and Short Circuit. But in the cases where the original films remain fine, it all seems terribly pointless and wasteful.
LA Times reports that Norwegian lamp maker Luxo is suing Disney. Its reasoning is that Disney has moved from a purely animated Luxo to a physical animatronic in a theme park and actual lamps, bundled with the Blu-ray release of Up.
On the face of it, one might have sympathy for Luxo, because the company showed goodwill in letting Pixar/Disney ‘get away with things’ for so long, and it’s easily to argue that Disney’s current lamps are a clear breach of IP rights.
Despite this, one phrase is curious from the Norweigian company: it states Pixar lamps would “cause devastating damage to Luxo and dilute the goodwill which Luxo has built up”. Right. Perhaps the Luxos in the Up package will be relatively shoddy and potentially cause problems, but it’s surely undeniable that Luxo the character has added a hell of a lot of value to Luxo the company. But then again, lawsuits are also a fantastic way to get lots of press and added value.
