I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!

July 10, 2024 8:01 AM

Taika Waititi is remaking Time Bandits as a TV series for Apple TV. The original was one of the funniest movies ever, when it came out. Eminently quotable, it featured a large cast of big name actors and a slew of not-so-big unexpectedly awesome actors who don't normally take the spotlight.

The new version is not without it's problems. An actress is alleging assault by a fellow actor and big issues with receiving worker's comp for it. Taika Waititi himself is not without problems with one of his films getting blasted for transphobic issues with the portrayal of a transgender character, despite his stated interest in and support for LGBTQ causes, not helped by some old tweets coming to life.

The new series has no little people, to avoid negative commentary and controversy., which failed after Abbie Purvis, granddaughter of Jack Purvis (who played Wally), blasted him for not providing opportunities for litle people.

Time Bandits (original trailer) always has been and always will be one of my favorite movies, despite all its problems (aging British actors (archived), mostly), the suicide of David Rappaport (not because of the movie) and the unexpected death of Jack Purvis .

All I have to say is "Nipples for men! ... Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?".

Little things hitting each other. THAT'S WHAT I LIKE!

posted by JustSayNoDawg (93 comments total)

I just rewatched Time Bandits on the big screen (we have a cinema society who does themed runs at our local indie movie theatre) and had heard about this. Now, generally, I'd be all like HOORAY TAIKA WATITI AND JEMAINE CLEMENT, but I'm not sure.

*pulls up old lady soapbox*

I would like new original stories to be told instead of finding something from the past and remaking it over and over and over and over and over (not limited to TB)

*gets off old lady soapbox*

But Jemaine Clement does appear be to doing a pretty good David Warner impression.
posted by Kitteh at 8:06 AM on July 10 [25 favorites]

I am ambivalent about Waititi's work.

And I love Time Bandits. Watched it a lot as a kid with Dad.

I will try my best not to become a nostalgia monster if I don't like it.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:18 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

I just wish people would stop giving Waititi work. But apparently it's cool to be an arsehole if you just style yourself as an LGBt ally, everyone will overlook your transphobia.
posted by Dysk at 8:19 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

Brilliant movie until the very end. Abandonment by caretakers is a primal childhood fear. I've always wondered why Time Bandits ended so. Why my children watched it, I always watched with them and assured them that Kevin is an actor, and his real parents were still there to take care of him.
posted by mojohand at 8:26 AM on July 10 [8 favorites]

Apparently in the 1970s, most kids liked the ending. Parents were disturbed by it. But kids were just like "Vool. No parents means he can keep going on adventures." I think that probably points to a deeper social change than can be addressed in a discussion of Time Bandits.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:28 AM on July 10 [17 favorites]

Abandonment by caretakers is a primal childhood fear.

Right?? That ending stuck with me. It scared me to bits as a kid, and I gotta say, even as an adult, it still hits hard.

I just wish people would stop giving Waititi work.


My best friend is one of those people who wants to like Waititi more but is like, "Something feels off. If he is revealed as X, I won't be surprised."
posted by Kitteh at 8:29 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

Huh. That is one that I did not expect to be rebooted.

I liked Timewasters for my comedy time travel fix.
posted by credulous at 8:30 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

Not to spoil, but a big part of the movie was Kevin escaping from his uncaring parents and finding a father in Sean Connery's character who even adopts him in an elaborate ceremony. The movie even includes Connery as one of the firefighters who very deliberately winks at Kevin as they're leaving the scene.

Kevin hasn't been abandoned at the end of he movie, he's been set free. He even has a copy of the map. After the shock wears off, he knows what to do.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:34 AM on July 10 [43 favorites]

It is OK for kids movies to have horrifying endings. The world is a horrifying place, and pretending it is not does everyone in it a disservice.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:36 AM on July 10 [23 favorites]

JustSayNoDawg, i appreciate the care you took in putting together this post
posted by HearHere at 8:41 AM on July 10 [9 favorites]

I guess for me the real question is what's wrong with Time Bandits? Why does it need remaking?
posted by Dysk at 8:47 AM on July 10 [12 favorites]

I like Time Bandits, but I think the movie is very rough around the edges. There are times when it feels like a series of cheap vignettes: robin hood, napoleon, the titanic. Michael Palin's presence as the same character in these different time periods is very jarring and kind of trivializes things in order to accommodate some very weak jokes. The whole movie doesn't really gel until they arrive in Evil's domain.

Maybe this is just me watching the movie with modern eyes, but it feels like it should be way better than it actually is.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:56 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

Dysk:
Some people won’t watch a movie that’s more than a year old.
Some people won’t watch a movie that’s older than they are.

I disagree with these people, but there seem to be quite a lot of them.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 8:57 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

I generally assume that things get remade, not because someone wants to make them better, but because someone believes there are people who are nostalgic for the original, from whom additional monies can be extracted. But I'm not sure I understand Time Bandits as a target for this kind of thinking either.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 8:57 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

None of this needs remaking. It's just that people have these dollars that can be easily taken, and this method taking something good and remaking it (almost always worse) has proven very effective in recent decades.

I always liked the idea that we should not remake classic good movies, but rather remake movies that were flops for some reason but had good potential in their stories. But that will never happen as a major project, because it's just too easy to rake in money lazier and safer ways.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:58 AM on July 10 [6 favorites]

It is OK for kids movies to have horrifying endings. The world is a horrifying place, and pretending it is not does everyone in it a disservice.

Exactly. That is precisely why I loved it as a kid - it was one of the rare bits of "kids' media" that acknowledged that sometimes everyone didn't always live happily ever after. When I was about nine and ten, I appreciated the stuff that was honest about that - otherwise I felt like the story was being dumbed down for my sake, because the grown-ups thought I'd be too upset otherwise, and that felt like an insult.

I think the original is a perfect film for tweens as a result. It's not too "babyish", but it's also not too gritty or adult.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:59 AM on July 10 [10 favorites]

Nooo, don't touch it!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 9:03 AM on July 10 [12 favorites]

Apparently in the 1970s, most kids liked the ending. Parents were disturbed by it. But kids were just like "Vool. No parents means he can keep going on adventures."

I don't know about most kids, but I found it absolutely terrifying, and thats why I loved it. It was like, "most stories that are made for me are safe, but this story respects me, it's not afraid to show things as they really are"
posted by Zumbador at 9:10 AM on July 10 [6 favorites]

trailer looks good. There is a lot of basic story packed into the the original movie's running time. I can see how stretching things out some might be feature vs bug.

My best friend is one of those people who wants to like Waititi more but is like, "Something feels off. If he is revealed as X, I won't be surprised."

can we please not do this? If you've got a good solid reason for not liking some artist's work, by all means share it. But just tossing vague innuendo based on "feels" feels careless.
posted by philip-random at 9:11 AM on July 10 [8 favorites]

Well, you can take it up with the bestie as it's not my viewpoint. Dig?

For my money, Waititi is someone who does pretty good for the most part and Thor:Ragnarok is the best Marvel movie.
posted by Kitteh at 9:15 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

Also, the transphobia stuff is literally listed in the FPP and corroborated by other MeFites. Transphobia is definitely something that feels off to those who are subject to it.
posted by Kitteh at 9:17 AM on July 10 [8 favorites]

Hm.

2.37 time index in the trailer.

I SEE LITTLE PEOPLE.

Yup.

Nothing wrong with that, but they are right there !
posted by Faintdreams at 9:18 AM on July 10 [3 favorites]

He even has a copy of the map. After the shock wears off, he knows what to do.

Exactly. In my mind, he uses his photo of the map to head back to Agamemnon, presumably having new adventures on the way.
posted by fings at 9:20 AM on July 10 [4 favorites]

That's really interesting. I like the idea that Connery is inviting him to find him back in time and go on more adventures. As a kid though I definitely always intepreted the ending as a senseless and random abandonment, and Agamemnon not noticing or caring.
posted by johngoren at 9:28 AM on July 10 [2 favorites]

Time Bandits (original trailer)

Now that is a trailer that does its job!
posted by trig at 9:32 AM on July 10 [4 favorites]

Brilliant movie until the very end. Abandonment by caretakers is a primal childhood fear. I've always wondered why Time Bandits ended so.

raises hand the ending of Time Bandits also delighted me as a kid... I vividly remember seeing it and thinking "wow... he can do anything now!"
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:55 AM on July 10 [6 favorites]

it has a standard fairy tale ending -- the German kind.
posted by philip-random at 9:59 AM on July 10 [10 favorites]

Brilliant movie until the very end. Abandonment by caretakers is a primal childhood fear. I've always wondered why Time Bandits ended so.

This is interesting to me, and I wonder how much it depends on the age of the kid watching the thing. Like, Home Alone was, for a time, one of the 20 highest-grossing movies of all time, and caretaker-abandonment is the initial wish-fulfillment premise of that movie.

Of course, that's a set-up so that Kevin McAllister can have character growth and come to cherish his family, but it's an understood aspect of the movie that kids would respond to the family "disappearing" with the excitement of all the possibilities that would open up. That said, I remember a bit from MBMBaM where one of the brothers mentions that his young child calls the movie "They Left Him Alone" because the premise was terrifying, so YMMV and all that. Also, in Home Alone we the viewer know that the situation is bound to be temporary even if Kevin McAllister doesn't, which isn't the case in Time Bandits.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:02 AM on July 10 [2 favorites]

Just to derail: Why do they keep remaking films about that play. That play, you know, the one actors are too superstitious to say out loud, the scottish one.

Any hoo, I'll have to watch this all the way through some time soon, probably seen most of it in clumps, but a rewatch of Battlestar Galactica was much more satisfying on a rewatch.
posted by sammyo at 10:03 AM on July 10

The director defends the ending, on grounds that kids would love it and parents would not.
posted by credulous at 10:05 AM on July 10 [8 favorites]

I'll watch it because it's Time Bandits and I couldn't not watch it. But it will have a high nostalgia bar to overcome.

Of course, I say that and I was able to watch The Watch and find some enjoyment in it, even though it only resembled Pratchet's work ... well, not at all, really.

They could have at least tried to get Peter Dinklage. I mean, C'mon. That dude loves cheese!
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 10:08 AM on July 10

I think with hindsight Time Bandits is an obvious choice for a TV series. Existing IP, already episodic, indefinitely extendable - what’s not to like?
posted by Phanx at 10:16 AM on July 10 [2 favorites]

I saw Time Bandits on an airplane. Back when there was one big movie screen at the front of the cabin. We were directly in front of it. It loomed over us like an uncaring god. The ending roared over us like a bleak pyroclastic flow.

And that’s all I have to say about that
posted by kerf at 10:20 AM on July 10 [7 favorites]

It is OK for kids movies to have horrifying endings

I am still scarred by ET falling to his death from that bike basket. That was bad enough, but the post-credits scene of them being eaten by wild dogs really felt like it was belabouring the point.
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:23 AM on July 10 [13 favorites]

I find much of Waititi's work to be a bit cloying. No reason to remake this. I agree the original is sloppy and does indeed feel like a series of vignettes strung together with a story that doesn't really gel until almost the end.

No thanks. The original exists.
posted by SoberHighland at 10:30 AM on July 10

one of my all-time favorite films! yes a little rough around the edges but overall, just fantastic. i will probably not watch the reboot but will now re-watch the movie. i loved the ending as a kid, and my thoughts align with the others in this thread who did.
i remember with fondness the discussion of og's project: the pink bunkerdoo: it was 500 feet tall, bright pink, and it smelled terrible!
posted by rude.boy at 10:31 AM on July 10

If we’re remaking Terry Gilliam someone needs to do The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen which I absolutely loved. Interestingly one of the most remade movies going back to 1911 with George Mélièrs Dream and including the 1943 Nazi version called Münchhausen. Many versions over the years and many are on YouTube. A rabbithole worth pursuing.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:36 AM on July 10 [13 favorites]

I was unaware of Waititi's problematicness, but I'm never surprised by those things any more.

I like Waititi-as-director. He's got a good eye for cinematography, his pacing is excellent, and he tends to bring great things out of his actors. But....

I can't stand Waititi-as-actor. At all. Something about his performance just rubs me the wrong way (and, honestly, this goes for Jemaine Clement, too).

I love Time Bandits. I'll probably try this show, but I've a feeling I won't make it to the end.
posted by hanov3r at 10:45 AM on July 10

I do think the question of remakes is an interesting one. People are constantly "remaking" theater, doing different productions of Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, etc. Movie versions exist of many of those plays, but people still find value in revisiting them.

I think if artistic teams had a very interesting take on an old story, then it could be interesting, but most of the time movie remakes seem like a way to cash in on nostalgia or make a quick buck without really bringing a new perspective to the original material.
posted by brookeb at 10:45 AM on July 10 [2 favorites]

The best line has already been referenced in the post title, but the full speech has to be one of the greatest and most 1980s-est villain monologues of all time.

"I just can't wait for the new technological dawn!"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:51 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

Hollywood is dead set on re-using every piece of existing IP they think they can possibly squeeze a little more money from, so it's really no wonder they landed on Time Bandits.

I was ready to scoff at this, but the trailer has me willing to watch at least the first episode to see what they do. I like the original film quite a bit. I was already college-age when it came out, so I never had that childhood reaction element. I do recall being disappointed at the time that it wasn't more Monthy Python-esque, though as I watched it later (multiple times, as it ran on HBO a lot) I got over that and found a real appreciation for it.

I was unaware, but am unsurprised, about Taika Waititi.
posted by briank at 10:51 AM on July 10 [2 favorites]

The only moral answer here is to halt production of media. Eventually problematic things will be found associated with at least one person associated with all works, thereby tainting the work. To avoid this taint, media must be stopped.

(I appreciate the post, JustSayNoDawg.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 10:57 AM on July 10 [9 favorites]

As a kid though I definitely always intepreted the ending as a senseless and random abandonment, and Agamemnon not noticing or caring.

Of course, Agamemnon is not the best person to have as a father….
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:58 AM on July 10 [4 favorites]

I loved this as a young teen when it came out (80s, not 70s). The whimsical/spooky vibe was unique. My Monty Python loving dad made sure to see it with me in the theater.

And as a neglected child back then, I absolutely ate up stories that empowered children to overcome adversity on their own. Parental abandonment was reality, not just a fear. But I can understand this being too scary for most kids the same age now. As for a remake, who knows.
posted by mubba at 11:08 AM on July 10 [2 favorites]

In my opinion, no one gets the combo of funny and deadly serious as well as David Warner. Between this and TRON, he was the go-to villain of my childhood.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 11:15 AM on July 10 [6 favorites]

David Warner suffered digestive issues later in life from all of the scenery he chewed up in the original. SO perfect.
posted by delfin at 11:17 AM on July 10 [8 favorites]

Poor David Warner. He was never quite the same after The Omen.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:27 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

The only moral answer here is to halt production of media. Eventually problematic things will be found associated with at least one person associated with all works, thereby tainting the work.

This is a poor take, that normalises the idea that abuse is an inevitable consequence of what, working in media? It serves nobody but the abusers and bigots to suggest it is not possible to do better.
posted by Dysk at 11:35 AM on July 10 [7 favorites]

I've only seen Taika Waititi's Thor movies. On that basis, not very interested. Hopefully he rises above but I'm not very hopeful.
posted by doctor_negative at 11:56 AM on July 10

Waititi cast himself as God didn't he?

Also: No. Watching this just encourages people to Pet Cemetery more things from the past.
posted by Grimgrin at 11:59 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

"I'm sorry I killed you, Fidgit." That was my favorite line.

I was 17 when I saw the movie, so I had a reaction that was kid & adult at the same time. "Wait, his parents just died??? That's awful!!! Oh, well, they were kind of dumb, and he still has Agamemnon, so I guess it's okay . . . . what a fun movie!"
posted by JanetLand at 12:31 PM on July 10 [3 favorites]

Waititi cast himself as God didn't he?

I'd be surprised if He didn't. The IMDB listing doesn't have anyone else listed for that role, and His role isn't listed.

Also, the ending of Time Bandits isn't horrifying: it's hilarious.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:31 PM on July 10 [4 favorites]

This is a poor take

No, it is a good and rich take, encompassing the many forms of harm that can accrue to filmmaking and any other project that involve many hands. Obviously the comment is intended as facetious, but I think anyone who thinks large-scale projects operate without the presence of bigots, racists, sexists, or other problematic types has never had anything to do with making art at scale.

It doesn't "[serve] nobody but the abusers and bigots to suggest it is not possible to do better," because that rests on the assumption that good and bad people exist. If you believe they do, kindly, you are incorrect and understand humans neither on an individual nor a species level. If you believe that you do, wait twenty years and see how many of your favorite antiracist, non-sexist, true ally creators have turned out to have done wrong. I'm not saying that in service of anyone: in my experience, if an artist (or a person generally!) lives long enough, there's something in the closet you're not going to like. We should look to allies and people of good intent, and strive to good ourselves, absolutely, but always keep an eye out for a banana peel.

And that's before you get to the problem of art that does not age well. I loved Time Bandits as a child, but as many have pointed out, and as the post itself indicated, it's not an uncomplicated work to try to remake!

(Speaking personally, I've been gutted by some of the recent news about creators doing shitty things, to the extent that I haven't been able to engage with the discussion here or elsewhere. Even so, I'm always leery of the idea that a person or org is somehow "unproblematic." People make mistakes, have bad opinions, and change over time. Simple analyses lump monsters together with more run-of-the-mill people, yet so often here and elsewhere I see very, very simplistic takes on creator morality. It's disheartening.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:38 PM on July 10 [16 favorites]

sammyo, do you mean Macbeth?
posted by evilDoug at 12:52 PM on July 10

"Oh dear. Ahh.. well... that's your money or your life!"
posted by revmitcz at 12:56 PM on July 10 [2 favorites]

→ Abandonment by caretakers is a primal childhood fear

Palin was born during WW2. While he was too young to have experienced the Evacuation, it hung over the British psyche for decades
posted by scruss at 1:06 PM on July 10 [2 favorites]

in my experience, if an artist (or a person generally!) lives long enough, there's something in the closet you're not going to like

Reducing bigotry and abuse to "something you're not going to like" is dismissive in itself.

The answer to someone getting away with something (getting very publicly visible, high-status, high-paying jobs where they make hiring decisions while being a bigot or abuser) is not to continue to let them do so.

There are lots of people out there who aren't known to have skeletons in their closets - give them the spotlight. If it turns out they do have some bullshit going on, take it away.

This isn't about some decades-old tweets with Waititi (who is the goddamn director - "art at scale" isn't much of an argument when it's the main guy in charge) it's about recent serious issues with how he chooses to portray trans characters, all while loudly calling himself an ally.
posted by Dysk at 1:13 PM on July 10 [1 favorite]

I saw Time Bandits when I was eight, and it was a milestone movie for me. I had never seen anything like it, and it was as if they had made this entire movie just for *me*. It made a huge impact on me.

I didn't find the final scene upsetting. If anything it was kind of funny and ironic (though I wouldn't have used that word at the time). The scene that did blow my young mind and fueled nightmares for many a night was the bandits locked in a steel cube, suspended over nothingness. Their escape by swinging over the next cube and cutting the ropes...my palms are still sweating over that one.
posted by zardoz at 1:22 PM on July 10 [5 favorites]

It is OK for kids movies to have horrifying endings. The world is a horrifying place, and pretending it is not does everyone in it a disservice.

I have kids. When they were young, one of my favorite things to read to them were the Frog and Toad stories. In one of them, Frog reads a scary story to toad. It's a legitimately scary story, particularly if you are young.

The end of the story (about Frog telling this tale to Toad) goes as follows:

"Frog and toad sat close by the fire. They were scared. The teacups shook in their hands. They were having the shivers. It was a good, warm feeling."

This is crucial. If you learn to understand stories as stories, then even the scary ones are good. And plus, it has the added benefit of getting kids accustomed to being scared. They're going to be scared at some point no matter what. When they face real, actual, non-fictional fears, art and literature can help them deal with those fears.

When you don't let your kids experience fear safely, you're just depriving them of knowing how to handle those fears when it's possibly not as safe.
posted by nushustu at 1:27 PM on July 10 [17 favorites]

dismissive in itself.

No, that's wrong. It's a very broad brush, intended to cover everything from rape to murder to bad representation to shady business dealings to shilling for fascists. I encourage you to think holistically about the ways in which people can say and do terrible things. Add onto that the fact that we are (in the U.S., at least) living with the probability of the utter undoing in the next four years of a great amount of the gains in society's well-being since the Great Depression being wiped away by people who believe in a completely different kind of government. I don't know about you, but I can't fill every moment of every day with explicit discussion of in-work or creator-associated sexual assault, torture, rape, assault, murder, racism, explicit or implicit support of erosion of rights, genocide, warfare, poverty, erasure, or the destruction of society, so sometimes instead I say things like "something you're not going to like." As people do.

The answer to someone getting away with something (getting very publicly visible, high-status, high-paying jobs where they make hiring decisions while being a bigot or abuser) is not to continue to let them do so.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I disagree with your proposition that you can find someone without a skeleton in the closet. You actually said "people out there who aren't known to have skeletons in their closet," and that's (for me) the problem. I don't know enough about Waititi's overall work, people who have worked with him, etc., to make a judgment in this case, but in general I am willing to listen to someone who says "this guy's egregious, he's gotta go." I am too cynical, though, to think that there are many people of good heart and high integrity and genuine allyship out there in Hollywood--folks who are familiar enough with or otherwise able to work in the Hollywood system--who are going to get the nod to work on high-profile properties. I don't know! I'm not an insider in Hollywood, and I'd love to be proven wrong.
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:37 PM on July 10

There are people who don' t have a 'skeleton in the closet', even people within the US film industry. Such people will also exist within the US political machine. I am not sure how it helps us to conform to the 'every one of them is corrupt' mindset, which benefits only the corrupt.

It amazes me that Gilliam got to make so many movies, because all of them are actual art with a heart, even though the recent ones have been forgettable.
posted by asok at 2:12 PM on July 10 [2 favorites]

One of the great things about the original was how weird and off-putting the SFX were - the way the head looked, the way the wall just kept pushing in, the monolith portals. It was a view of a kid's imagination that reflected the actual depth of pathos, horror and wonder that goes on in such minds. Similarly, David Rappaport et al were a brilliant casting choice because they were grizzled adults but were, height-wise, on the level with the main actor, and in that respect acted almost like avatars of his imagination and fears. I also don't remember him being all "WOW! AW GEEZ!" like the kid in the remake trailer.

1981 was also the height of latchkey kids and a general culture of lazziez-faire parenting which sometimes bordered on (or just outright was) neglect. So it fit that his parents were basically drones that didn't GAF.

Anyway, won't watch. I love Lisa Kudrow, but as soon as she said "We're the Time Bandits!" I realized this was not for me.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:32 PM on July 10 [10 favorites]

"At last, I can reeeaally cough!"
posted by abraxasaxarba at 2:43 PM on July 10 [3 favorites]

Abandonment by caretakers is a primal childhood fear

Abandonment, abuse, and coldness by - and illness and death of - family or caretakers are also staples of children's stories and literature since at least the Grimms and Perrault. The fact that Harry Potter grew up an orphan locked in an understairs cupboard and would have been thrilled to find the Dursleys gone (did he, at some point? I don't remember) was as much a classic/derivative setup as the boarding school environment.

Granted, all this grimness is usually set up at the beginning of a story rather than the end, and often it's a handy way to get responsible figures out of the way so that the kid(s) can have adventures. But a lot of books I read as a young kid that were written in the '60s, '70s, and '80s really played up how hard it was on the kids, how unhappy it made them, and how good it felt to finally find themselves on their own.
posted by trig at 3:04 PM on July 10 [2 favorites]

"It amazes me that Gilliam got to make so many movies, because all of them are actual art with a heart, even though the recent ones have been forgettable."

... buuuut Gilliam certainly falls under the umbrella of "problematic" if one is a person that finds severely traumatizing children to be a problem.

I'm not trying to be flippant, just that I find the use of the term "problematic" to be so unspecific as to be nearly useless, and the dividing of persons into problematic/non-problematic to be a matter of degree, and the point of view of the divider. From people that knew him, it does not seem that Terry Gilliam had a mean bone in his body, but he was also deeply careless of other people's comfort and safety. It's possible to wound people without being mean or hateful.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:47 PM on July 10 [4 favorites]

Abandonment by caretakers is a primal childhood fear.

That’s a valid take on the ending, and a rough fear to have to deal with. I’d argue, having looked at Gilliam’s other stuff, that there’s an undercurrent of a very different sort, the idea that one has been born to, or been raised by, the wrong parents, and that someone will, someday, come and set things right. I could start listing examples, (Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, those are some of the low hanging fruit), but once you steer exploring things from that standpoint, there’s a good amount of stories out there where the young character, in addition to feeling wronged or misunderstood, secretly longs for the terrible thing to happen so that he can be free. While it was stunning as a kid, it was a story made by an adult, and it has that kind of revenge/wish fulfillment ugliness to it that’s unsettling in its nakedness.

There are a lot of different arguments to be made from that point. One, Gilliam is presenting the kid with the terror of his secret dreams coming true, and being all alone as a result of the dreams he harbored, of the feeling that his parents were the source of his troubles. The other, darker one, is that Gilliam had executed his own revenge, and once it was complete, he had no interest in the tools he used to tell the story, and left him abandoned and alone. Either one is dark as hell, and the willingness to put darkness like that on the screen again and again, is one reason why, I think, so many people love his movies, but also one of the things that keeps his films from reaching wider audiences. Most people want happy stories. They don’t want that level of malice around the corners making them confront its reflection in themselves.

Having seen the trailer, honestly, I don’t see a reason for the series, and have no plans to watch it. If you need to see Waititi allowed to do whatever he wants and indulge his whims, look at the last Thor movie, which managed to waste two of the better Thor stories. Tine Bandits as a concept is already pretty self-indulgent, and with Waititi, I imagine it’ll just be a mess.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:57 PM on July 10 [3 favorites]

"No one user wrote me! I'm worth millions of their man-years!"

Sorry, wrong movie...
posted by credulous at 7:11 PM on July 10

And am I wrong that Time Bandits is perhaps the first movie where the depiction of little people is as a badass group of protagonists? I think it's a misstep to leave them out.

But I think the whole thing is silly because Gilliam movies (and Burton) are visual first and story second, why remake the story part who cares
posted by credulous at 7:48 PM on July 10 [5 favorites]

Nah, I'm good.

Some things in your past, good or bad, should just be left alone, as they are. A lot of their value and meaning is in the context, including the timing in your life.
posted by Pouteria at 9:08 PM on July 10 [1 favorite]

As a kiwi I have to come to Taika's aid, he's something of a national hero having started out making what are now iconic kiwi movies like Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Eagle vs Shark - and starred in Scarfies
posted by mbo at 10:41 PM on July 10 [3 favorites]

I'll give it a watch, even tho I agree its one of those things that didn't really need a remake.
I enjoyed the original a lot, more so than the 'Jabberwocky' but not as much as 'Baron Munchausen'

As a Kiwi, I kind of feel Taika is over-rated (but then so is Peter Jackson - really needs a tight editor to keep him on task + theres the union busting antics to contend with). Loved Taikas 'Ragnorok', and 'Wilderpeople' was OK, 'JoJo Rabbit' also pretty good. Enjoyed his 'Our Flag Means Death' series even if series too seemed overlong. 'What we do in the shadows' worked better as a film but seemed to really draaaag as a tv-series once the novelty wore off.

On the plus side, he did help with 'Reservation Dogs' which I really loved.
posted by phigmov at 11:49 PM on July 10

Casting Sean Connery in Time Bandits
posted by Phanx at 12:24 AM on July 11 [3 favorites]

I'll probably give this a try because Kevin seems endearing, but ... yeah, I dunno. Time Bandits is a masterpiece because of its rough edges and weirdness. I don't see anything here that can replace the instant terror of God's face or the bizarre extension of Kevin's room. And what about the ogre couple? Michael Palin and Shelly Duvall? Sure, they didn't contribute anything to the narrative flow, but c'mon!
posted by Countess Elena at 6:00 AM on July 11 [4 favorites]

This reminds me of something the actor Michael Caine said in a review: why not remake *bad* movies?
posted by doctornemo at 7:18 AM on July 11 [7 favorites]

why not remake *bad* movies?

Exactly! Better to be Manfred Mann making a hit out of "Blinded By The Light" than literally anyone trying to improve upon "Hey Jude."
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:44 AM on July 11 [2 favorites]

Exactly! Better to be Manfred Mann making a hit out of "Blinded By The Light" than literally anyone trying to improve upon "Hey Jude."

I definitely agree with the sentiment, though I'd argue that in this specific example, Wilson Pickett and Duane Allman did manage to improve upon "Hey Jude": Wilson Pickett - Hey Jude (w/ Duane Allman)
posted by bassooner at 8:13 AM on July 11 [2 favorites]

I definitely agree with the sentiment, though I'd argue that in this specific example, Wilson Pickett and Duane Allman did manage to improve upon "Hey Jude": Wilson Pickett - Hey Jude (w/ Duane Allman)


Wow, thanks! I never heard that and it's great. What a voice!
posted by cron at 8:36 AM on July 11

why not remake *bad* movies?

Ocean's Eleven (2001) is the first example to spring to mind for me here. Not that the 1960 original was "bad" necessarily, but it wasn't a beloved classic. Rather just a sort of tossed-off excuse for the Rat Pack to hang out together that happened to have a fun premise and a sticky title. So Soderbergh taking a great screenplay and applying tons of technical filmmaking mastery to it, while he and an absurdly charming cast of leads just have as much fun with it as they can, brought out the best in it.

Of course, the reason that they don't remake "bad" movies is that most "bad" movies don't have the cultural caché that makes doing so appealing to the financiers/studios. The first thing that came to my mind for a "bad" movie with a good enough premise and memorable enough title to be worth the gamble for a studio, and which could also be significantly improved upon remaking it, was Flatliners, but apparently they remade that one in 2017 and I never had even heard of the remake.

This also reminds me of something I read in one or another screenwriting book I read at some point (can't find it right now) that great books tend to make for bad film adaptations, and that the best filmic adaptations of books tend to be from more middling books. The idea being that if you tried to adapt The Catcher in the Rye to the screen, the result would almost certainly be awful, because the qualities that make the book so striking are specific to the medium of the novel - Holden Caulfield's narration and constant internal monologue revealing everything about his character - while the visual story is sparse to put it lightly. Meanwhile, Jaws, Gone with the Wind and The Shawshank Redemption are all wildly successful films based on popular works of fiction that are unlikely to be taught in lit classes.

Additionally, the Greater-with-a-capital-G the novel, the less leeway one is likely to feel they have in changing the material to better fit the new medium. This gets fuzzy with hugely-successful pop-lit (your Harry Potters or Twilights, etc.) where the fans are likely to get possessive over every plot beat and raise vitriol over casting anyone who doesn't look like how they personally imagined the characters, but generally speaking, if you have a book where what people remember about it is a compelling story, rather than the story being compellingly written, you're going to have an easier time getting that to translate to screen.

TL;DR, yeah, ideally if we're going to be doing remakes instead of new stuff (and please please please let us get back to making new stuff already), we should be looking for movies that failed to deliver on solid premises for whatever reason, rather than trying to cash in on stuff that nailed it on the first time out.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:34 AM on July 11 [5 favorites]

why not remake *bad* movies?

They never made Laserblast 2! Or wait, maybe that was Phantom Menace...
posted by credulous at 10:38 AM on July 11 [1 favorite]

→ the less leeway one is likely to feel they have in changing the material to better fit the new medium

To loop this back to Taika Waititi: let's just say he adapted the hell out of Caging Skies when he made JoJo Rabbit.
posted by scruss at 10:48 AM on July 11

most "bad" movies don't have the cultural caché that makes doing [making a remake] appealing to the financiers/studios

* Rollerball has entered the chat
posted by hanov3r at 11:27 AM on July 11 [6 favorites]

I’ll give this a try because it’s pretty rare to have an older woman as an adventure lead as opposed to a mom lead.

It would be really funny if I end up as the only one who likes it considering how much I hate original Time Bandits and Our Flag Means Death.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:13 PM on July 11

I forget where I first heard someone say that most of the history of storytelling is of story-retelling; our novelty-obsessed age is short and weird in comparison.
posted by misuba at 4:04 PM on July 11 [1 favorite]

we should be looking for movies that failed to deliver on solid premises for whatever reason

When I was younger and had more time and money to waste on movies, I saw a *lot* of garbage, and even ended up as a reviewer for my university's newspaper for a while, which only meant I watched even more crap. The category I always reserved the harshest reviews for were the ones that were so. damn. close. Maybe just another look at the script before filming, or a slightly different perspective, and instead of being a movie with a great premise that ended up being a disappointment, it could have been a lasting example of the power of film. To me, that was Dark City, it was Event Horizon, even the original Candyman, and dozens others like this that set up a great premise and then utterly failed to stick the landing. Sunshine is another that maps perfectly onto this type, where the atmosphere of the film was so solid, so well formed that the third act slasher film it becomes just feels like such a waste.

There are just so many of these films.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:34 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]

To me, that was Dark City,

Have you seen the director's cut? If not, try it.
posted by Pouteria at 11:26 PM on July 11 [6 favorites]

I forget where I first heard someone say that most of the history of storytelling is of story-retelling;

For most of history we didn't have the printing press. Books (and then films) becoming commodity changed the game - you don't have to retell a story to experience it again, you can just re-read or re-watch. The natural motivation, reason to retell is no longer there because the technological context is different.
posted by Dysk at 1:34 AM on July 12 [3 favorites]

Hmm. Well the trailer looks ok (Mansa Musa!) so I suppose I'll give it a go.. At least they don't all have American accents.

The film industry has been remaking stuff since the silent days, so I don't suppose the will stop any time soon.

I saw this first as an adult python fan and loved it. Still do, and yes it was quite clear to me that Kevin would be fine at the end because he had a photo of the map.
posted by Fuchsoid at 6:11 AM on July 12 [1 favorite]

There's a director's cut of Dark City?
posted by doctornemo at 6:46 AM on July 12

I dunno, I kind of love how Event Horizon and Sunshine go completely off the rails into slasherville. But they could just as easily have gone in a 2001 direction.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:27 AM on July 12

I still have a deep warm place in my heart for both of them, but Sunshine, especially, could have been so much more than it was. Aside from the slasher ending, there's just so much depth and character there, and the ending, back on earth, with Murphy's voice-over (which I find hauntingly beautiful) just seems like it comes from a different movie than super-sunburn religious fanatic with an automatic scalpel.

I don't know what the movie would be if they'd found a different way to resolve it, but it just feels so much like the writers painted themselves into a corner, got hungry, and decided to throw in a slasher ending so they could go get lunch. And even then, it's one of my favorite films.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:49 PM on July 12 [1 favorite]

Not only is there a directors cut of Dark City, it has a commentary track by Roger Ebert.
posted by rifflesby at 6:42 PM on July 12 [2 favorites]

Not only is there a directors cut of Dark City, it has a commentary track by Roger Ebert.

I did not know that. Thanks for the heads up.
posted by Pouteria at 7:16 PM on July 12 [1 favorite]

Just watched the first episode. This is delightful!
posted by mr_roboto at 8:54 PM on July 26 [1 favorite]