Why '80s Movies Were So Good

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.