Last Century's TV = This Century's Movies?

By Ryan Riley, Contributor

Thanks largely to the tremendous success of "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight", comic-based movies dominated the box office in 2008. 2009 seems to be following a different trend. "Watchmen", while (for the most part) well-executed, didn't quite make the impact that we expected it would. And "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" didn't take home as much money as it could have thanks in some part to internet bootlegging. No, the movie genre that seems poised to make a large impact at theaters this year is TV show-based movie remakes.

I'm talking about the studios churning out movies based on TV shows that only older fogies like me would remember watching back in the 20th century. While this is not by any means a new trend, it has definitely become more pronounced since the start of the new millennium. This year alone has seen the release of remakes based on Star Trek and Land of the Lost, with a new Transformers film due out later this summer.

While some remakes work out well (like Barry Sonnenfeld's brilliant "The Addams Family"), others get an "A" for effort but don't quite hit the mark ("Lost in Space" comes to mind). And then there are the ones that are just bad beyond words. I think it would behoove all of us to review some of those flops in order to remind ourselves that we should choose the TV series remakes we sacrifice our $10 (or more) to see more judiciously at the theater.

Aeon Flux

This movie was based on a series of animated shorts with the same name that aired on MTV in the 1990's. Mind you, this was when the network still actually played music videos more than occasionally. Back in the day, MTV was also known for showcasing some of the most innovative animation around (Beavis & Butthead notwithstanding), and the ultra-violent, hypersexual Aeon Flux stood out from the crowd. The story is set in a fairly bleak future, where the anarchic nation of Monica is engaged in a Cold War with their nearest neighbor, the science-ruled state of Bregna. Aeon Flux is a Monican secret agent that is out to inflict some pain on her country's enemies. While she is quite skilled at acrobatics and killing people, she hasn't really mastered the fine art of living through her missions. Series creator Peter Chung had a penchant for killing his cartoonishly-skinny leading lady in almost every episode, starting a trend that Matt Stone & Trey Parker would make funny with Kenny's many demises in "South Park".

The movie version, starring Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron, toned down the sex & violence to PG-13 levels, and a lot got lost in the translation from animation to film. Despite a valiant attempt to flesh out the futuristic world only hinted at in the animated series, the film failed to capture what made Aeon Flux so captivating in the first place. Peter Chung felt the same way, calling the final film product "a travesty".

Masters of the Universe

This movie was based on the insanely successful cartoon "He-Man & The Masters of the Universe". The series took place on the planet Eternia, which showcased the never-ending battle between He-Man and his allies and the sinister forces of Skeletor, was your basic sword & sorcery romp of a cartoon. Because it was based on the toy line of the same name (a standard practice in the 1980's), it boasted a colorful cast of characters on both sides of the fight, like Ram-Man, Tri-Klops & Trap Jaw. Yes, it was rather simplistic compared to some of the other cartoon fare of the day, and Orko, a whimsical imp of a character clearly created to appeal to the toddler set, got on the nerves of the rest of us. Despite those drawbacks it was still an entertaining show, at least for children.

Even though a couple of years had passed between my watching the series and the movie coming out, I figured that it would be at least as enjoyable as the cartoon. I could not have been more wrong. They got Dolph Lundgren (he played the Russian boxer Ivan Drago from "Rocky IV") to play He-Man, and although he definitely looked the part, he didn't quite bring the right sensibility to the character. It didn't help that although the characters were from Eternia, the story took place on Earth, or that the many colorful characters from the series were largely left out of the movie. Orko was axed, but he was replaced by Gwildor, a Yoda ripoff played by the High Aldwin himself (gold star for the reader that actually gets this obscure reference), the late Billy Barty. All in all, they would have been far better off ditching the horrible idea all together and putting together an animated movie, like Paramount did with the "The Transformers: The Movie" back in 1986.

Bewitched

The original "Bewitched" television show, which aired from 1964 to 1972, followed the adventures of an advertising executive named Darren Stephens and his wife Samantha, a housewife that happens to be a witch. Samantha fell in love with mortal Darren and married him despite the fact that her relatives disapprove of any relations with mere humans. The awkwardly hilarious situations revolved largely around their attempts to hide Samantha's power from other humans and her family's repeated pranks on husband Darren. All of this made for a brilliant show, and many years later a remake seemed like a natural fit. If only the script writers had come up with a worthy story!

Instead of a straight-up homage to the TV show, the story is about (brace yourself) the making of a movie remake of "Bewitched". Will Ferrell plays an egotistical Hollywood star hired to play Darren in the remake, and Nicole Kidman plays the unknown actress hired to play Samantha. The twist is, Kidman's character is actually a real-life witch, and hilarity ensues once the stage is set. At least, that was what was supposed to happen. What actually happened was a train-wreck of a movie about making a remake, which was topped off by a lack of romantic chemistry between Kidman & Ferrell.

The Winning Formula?

To the writing team that is working on the upcoming "A-Team" remake with Liam Neeson & Bradley Cooper, consider this a good piece of advice. It seems to me that if you are going to do a movie based on a television show, you should, at the very least, do extensive research on the show to find out what made it click with viewers in the first place. If you don't carry over at least the spirit of the source material, the movie is more likely to be a flop.

As usual, if you folks feel that I left something important out (or just think that I'm full of it), by all means leave some feedback below.