The truth is arrogant. Tough.
I saw Metropolis at an art house movie theater accompanied by an old Wurlitzer Pipe Organ. Very cool.
I honestly can’t imagine why anyone would think they would like to remake “Metropolis”. What’s the point? Why would anyone think the name “Metropolis” would help sell the movie? I can’t see how anyone who had any appreciation of the original movie would think that anything even remotely resembling the original would have anything to say that the original wouldn’t say better. And anyone who didn’t care and just wanted to cash in, well, it’s not like Metropolis is exactly a franchise ready blockbuster. Sure, they could make an action movie with lots of explosions and a female robot, but why bother naming the movie “Metropolis” then? It’s not like anyone outside of film buffs have ever heard of Metropolis, and the people who have heard of the original won’t be interested anyway.
The Metropolis anime wasn’t too bad. I saw it the weekend before A.I. was released in Tokyo and of the two, Metropolis was much better. Sticking to Tezuka’s rather dated 40’s art style for the characters with lush 3D backgrounds was rather wonky and was hard to get over to take the movie seriously, but the ending scene with I Can’t Stop Loving You playing won me over.
I read the original manga and it has almost nothing to do with the movie beyond the look of the key characters.
Then shouldn’t it have been:
* **
~~ NO! ~~
** *
I’ve seen the original several times, both the Moroder version, with live accompaniment, and the recently reconstructed version. It’s a masterpiece.
The original is iconic, the designs are so abstract it’s almost like a coloring book inviting me to fill in the details of how that world works and what parts of it we don’t see. And I remember it more as a series of scenes than the story as a whole. There’s the ruling class and the children of privilege, the workers who are slaves to the machines instead of the other way around, a female android to impersonate and undermine the inspirational Maria; I think someone with vision and talent could make some stunning sequences from those themes.
But that still leaves two things that I can’t see a way for a remake to handle well. The whole bit at the end where the hands and the brain decide to work together, with the heart to guide them, would be laughed out of the theater these days. It needs a more fulfilling climax. The other problem is all the rest of the story. The original is amazing to look at, and must have been even moreso in 1927. I didn’t watch it for the story. But I don’t know if you can lure audiences in just with great pictures anymore. I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and it’s gorgeous to look at, but there wasn’t anything more to it, and it flopped.
Well done sir!
I really hope they get Queen to do the soundtrack on this one.
Or maybe The Darkness; I can imagine Freder in front of the giant machine rocking out with the proles to “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” to woo Maria’s heart (played by Kirsten Dunst).
I have that copy (or, did, until a friend ‘borrowed’ it), and it is a good quality edition.
I’m there.
Or they’ll borrowthe costume from BBC Wales!
