Today,
the film industry is wrought with movies trying to relive the glory of the
'80s. You would think it was a golden
age, one that is to be relived again and again.
To be clear, this happens every decade where the nostalgia of 30 years
prior is glamorized. It was no coincidence
that one of the top shows of the 2000s was That
'70s Show. And in the 1980s, one
would think the 1950s were being relived.
This was even the joke in Back to
the Future II when Marty goes into an '80s restaurant and it looks like a
'50s diner.
But
there was a specific quality to '80s movies which made them worth remembering;
what inspired so many of us to want to become filmmakers. What's crazy to me is that, despite all the
'80s remakes, producers can't seem to figure out what that formula was. The basic element of why they were special
eludes them. And yet it was simple.
THEY
WERE ORIGINAL!
Despite
the '80s copying so much of the '50s, the movies made during that era were
still mostly original. The filmmakers of
the time certain drew from the past for inspiration. Star Wars and Indiana Jones, perhaps the two
biggest tentpoles of the decade, were derived from old serials, but they were
not remakes of old serials. They weren't "properties to be
exploited," they were original stories that took elements from the past to
improve their stories.
Today,
when studios try to remake an '80s film to recapture its glory, they are
missing the basic element that actually made it special, it's newness. If you want to truly recapture the '80s, do
something original.
