Is there any conceivable way one could recapture the magic this movie possesses with any sort of remake? I mean the most obvious angle - playing it up as wink wink nudge nudge high camp - would necessarily result in an entirely different picture that would by definition have to be entertaining for quite different reasons than the original.
I’m sure they could, in a Mars Attacks! sort of way, but then they’d be wedded to Plan 9 specifically, when they could probably do more making a generic sci-fi parody.
…like Mars Attacks!
Which is to say, I am sure the answer is “theoretically, yes,” but I question whether there would be a drive to do so.
They did:
Looks like they ran with a parody. So I guess the answer is ‘no’.
Maybe somebody could do something with the basic plot outline, which IIRC is:
Aliens attempt to prevent humanity from destroying the universe. Aliens fail. Presumably humans then destroy the universe, but the ending leaves that hanging.
I think you’re ruling out a knowingly campy remake or parody, which is what ASL v2.0 and Czarcasm were referencing. So, by definition, no, you can’t recapture the “magic” of the original.
The original Plan 9 from Outer Space was a genuine attempt at making a serious, exciting and scary sci-fi/horror movie by a hilariously incompetent auteur. You would have to have a would-be auteur who thinks that there is a genuinely good sci-fi/horror plot buried in a schlocky production, who then tries to remake it as a genuinely serious, exciting and scary sci-fi/horror movie, but approaches it with the same self-serious oblivious incompetence that Ed Wood did. And that’s actually really difficult to pull off.
Most bad movies are just bad. They’re boring. Making a bad movie that’s entertainingly bad is really hard - and by definition, you can’t do it on purpose.
To remake it without spoofing it would take a director/producer/writer who is a complete incompetent but thinks she/he is a cinematic genius willing to redo the movie, really bad actors(with a few non-actors thrown in), and a budget in the thousands.
Maybe get Tommy Wiseau to direct/produce/write it, then?
There have been successful parodies of bad moviemaking, such as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. I liked both of these, but I don’t know what the point would be of remaking Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Plan 9 is funny because it was incompetently made. Everyone knows it. A remade Plan 9 wouldn’t be as funny because the audience would know the badness of the original. That knowledge would prevent a remake from being funny.
I think to recapture the magic it would require an earnest but thoroughly inept production crew with a seriously underfunded budget and that had no knowledge of the original. Impossible in other words.
All which is not to say that an entertaining film couldn’t be made based on the original film but it would probably be as others have suggested a crafty parody.
One way it could work would be making into a Zucker Brothers type comedy in the mold of Airplane! or The Naked Gun.
But it would have to be funny enough to stand on its own as a comedy and not just alluding to the magnificent badness of the original. A tough line to walk.
I think you could make a fairly decent, serious remake. Make the aliens more alien. Make the zombies more Romeroesque. Dumber plots have scored at the box office and this one already has universal title recognition.