Rod HiltonJan 7, 2023

Hollywood is always taking flawless #Movies and remaking them because they were so great, which is a waste of time because they're already perfect, so the remakes are always bad.

So here's a list of crap movies with great concepts that should be remade:

Cowboys and Aliens
Passengers
The Invention of Lying
King Ralph
8MM
The Island
Pixels
The Wizard
In Time
Limitless
Downsizing
Waterworld
Old
The Purge
Voyagers
Speed 2
The Core
Clockstoppers
The Butterfly Effect
Jumper
Now You See Me

Show threadmadskyJan 7, 2023
@rodhilton I’ve got a vague memory that the Director’s cut of The Butterfly Effect saved it somewhat? So long ago I might have dreamt it though.
Show threadRod Hilton

@madsky the problem with Butterfly Effect is that the premise is too easy to drift into comedy. You go back in time and change one thing and then discover now everything hilariously different. It's inherently funny.

I think to pull it off you need to either lean into the dark comedy, or figure out a way to play it a lot straighter.

The movie cast a famous comedic actor in the lead role, but then tries to be very serious. The DC, if anything, worsens this by being even more serious.

Jan 7, 2023 at 2:41pmWeb
Show threadMichael KrehanJan 7, 2023

@rodhilton @madsky I enjoyed The Butterfly Effect and I saw it as a dark comedy. I mean, it's by Bress and Gruber, who co-wrote the first two Final Destinations.

That said, it does have issues with tone. I mean, the director's cut features an (off-screen) prison rape and all (oh yeah, I forgot about Eric Stoltz as a creepy child molesting neighbor), but overall I laughed at many of the seemingly dramatic moments (like the father being killed) because I felt they were played as a comedy.

Show threadRod HiltonJan 7, 2023
@EboMike @madsky yeah the material the movie deals with is too dark for a comedy but everything plays out like a dark comedy so it's like this tonal whiplash and the main actor is a comedic actor so it just doesn't gel cohesively. But it's such a great idea!
Show threadRod HiltonJan 7, 2023
@EboMike @madsky the director's cut is even funnier to me. The ending being a fetus strangling itself with its own umbilical cord is the darkest and funniest shit I've ever seen but I do not think I'm supposed to be laughing as much as I am because if you listen to the commentaries or read interviews they changed it because it was too much of a downer according to them so I think the filmmakers thought it was serious.
Show threadRod HiltonJan 7, 2023
@EboMike @madsky and because they cut that they had to cut an entire subplot about Evan's mother having multiple miscarriages before him and how grateful she was to have him, implying that all of her children eventually go through this and then go back in time to kill themselves in the womb. And there's a subplot about his father and grandfather going crazy, all of that is to support the idea that this is genetic. That's all played totally straight.
Show threadRod HiltonJan 7, 2023
@EboMike @madsky the whole movie has one of those vibes where the writer and the director were not on the same page about the tone and so like the writer wrote a satirical comedy but then the director played it straight. Kind of like Slumber Party Massacre. But in this case the writers and directors are all the same people so it's just so strange.