Discussing a The Princess Bride Remake

[Winter]

Remakes/Reboots/Adaptations are as old as the written word, series like Robin Hood and King Author have changed so much from what they versions we're familiar with barely resembles the older stories. Tales like Hou Yi and Chang'E has several other versions some of which have it as a tragedy others could be made into a comedy with little to no change. Amaterasu and the Cave has some versions of the story where Amaterasu is drawn out of the cave when she sees a reflection of herself and others because she saw Ame-no-Uzume's naked body. Most of Shakespeare's plays are adaptations that GREATLY Altered the story they were adapting and some of that was a result of Propaganda.

The list is basically endless because stories change all the time either because someone wanted to add something or because there was a demand for the story and something had to be changed due to the nature of adaptation.

But there are some stories that don't really change that much if at all. Eros and Psyche, as far as we know there are no alternate versions of this story, what we see is what we get. If Disney was to come around to make it into a Disney film they would have to change little to nothing because it's basically a Disney film before Disney was even a NAME. Winnie the Pooh has had almost no alterations to his story over the decades he's been around. The story of King Midas turning everything he touches to gold has only had ONE thing added to the story (that being him turning his daughter and some times even his wife into Gold Statues) when originally it was just him realizing he couldn't eat that made him realize his gift was a bad idea.

This is why I'm NOT against the idea of remaking The Princess Bride BUT I don't think one is needed... But if a remade is to be made I would rather have it be a foreign film. Maybe a Chinese wuxia film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It would be interesting to see how another culture would go about handling this story, see someone else's take on the story much like how A Fist Full of Dollars is a remake/ripoff of Yojimbo or how the Magnificent 7 is a Remake of Seven Samurai.

And there's another idea a Japanese adaptation of The Princess Bride but with Samurai and Ninjas. Akira Kurosawa famously made 3 film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays (Throne of Blood, The Bad Sleep Well and Ran) and all are still seen as classic films to this day. Hell, I would love to see any culture make a version of TPB just to see how it would turn out.

It's going to happen, soon or later someone is going to remake TPB regardless if there is a demand for it or not because a studio demands it, because someone wants to try it out or because it's been a century since the story was made and some fans make a Intergalactic Web Series because they love the original film and want to pay tribute to it... Don't give me that look you know that's going to happen at some point.

[hammerofglass]

https://twitter.com/Cary_Elwes/status/1 ... 30816?s=20

[Riedquat]

https://twitter.com/Cary_Elwes/status/1 ... 30816?s=20

Amen to that!

Remakes should be for films that had potential in their idea but ended up badly due to their execution. Remaking something well-loved never turns out well for anyone. But studios don't seem to understand that. Remake? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

[McAvoy]

https://twitter.com/Cary_Elwes/status/1 ... 30816?s=20

I second that!

[Frustration]

This is just greed. Copying something that was successful, because it's perceived as less of a risk.

[Winter]

This is just greed. Copying something that was successful, because it's perceived as less of a risk.

Well... Yeah. It's called show Business. Like it or not a story is a product that a company is trying to sell. Now a story is more then that but 9 times out of 10 the people making the story are usually just trying to make ends meet. And like I said at the start, stories have been retold countless times and have changed as time goes by.

Now, do I personally want a Princess Bride remake, no, at least not an American one. I would be fine and even interested in a remake that was made in a different country just to see what would change as a result of the culture. And keep in mind that adapting stories from other cultures is almost as old as retelling stories from our own history.

At some point the Princess Bride is going to get a remake of some sort and I doubt that it will be as good the original but we remake The Wizard of Oz every few years and few complain about that. We're STILL retelling the story Greek Legends and the ones we're familiar with aren't even the original stories. Even stories in the Bible have been changed. My point isn't TPB should be remade and I love the original and don't see any need to do so but rather that it WILL be remade. Because of greed or because someone wants to remake the story it doesn't matter it's going to happen.

And when that comes I would hope that we can try something new, even if it's just having it be a Japanese retelling with Katanas, Samurai and Ninjas.

[Frustration]

Since when do we remake The Wizard of Oz every few years?

[hammerofglass]

I actually don't know if a TPB remake even makes sense from a business perspective. A lot of it's humor is based on parodying fairy tale conventions while playing them up in a way that shows a deep love for the genre, but 35 years on it's so much the touchstone that others imitate and playing those cliches straight is so dead that I doubt kids today that would be the target audience, kids who grew up with Frozen and Moana and Star vs. The Forces of Evil, would see it as anything special.

Plus it just... never made much money. Not in theaters. It's very much a cult movie by Hollywood standards.

[Winter]

Since when do we remake The Wizard of Oz every few years?

Films - Live-Action

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Wiz (1978)
Return to Oz (1985)
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)

Films — Animation

Journey Back to Oz (1974)
The Wizard of Oz (Oz no Mahōtsukai, 1982)
Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz (1987)
The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz (Space Oz no Bōken, 1992)
Lion of Oz (2000)
Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz (2011)
Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz (2016)
Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014)
The Steam Engines of Oz (2018)

Comic Books

Oz (Caliber) (Caliber, 1994-1996; Arrow, 1997-2000)
Fables (Vertigo, 2002-2015)
Oz (Marvel, 2009-2013)

Anime/Manga

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz no Mahōtsukai, 1986)
Toto The Wonderful Adventure (Weekly Shōnen Magazine 2003-2005)

Live-Action TV

Lost in Oz (2002)
The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005)
Tin Man (2007)
The Witches of Oz (2011)
Emerald City (2017)

Theatre

The Wizard of Oz (1902)
The Wiz (1975)
Wicked (2003)
The Wizard of Oz (2011)
The Kansas Collection (2016-2019)

Video Games

The Wizard of Oz (1993)
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (RIZ-ZOAWD, 2009)
Emerald City Confidential (2009)
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. (2015)
LEGO Dimensions (2015)

Western Animation

The Wizard of Oz (1933)
Tales of the Wizard of Oz (1961)
The Wizard of Oz (1990)
Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz (2017)
Lost in Oz (2017)

And this isn't counting the novels that were written AFTER Baum's death and we're STILL getting new stories and remakes to this day. Sure, there aren't many live-action films but yes, every few years there is at least one Oz story made, be it a remake or an attempted a sequel to the 1939 film or some story that is adapted from the other novels but ALL of them are clearly based more on the 1939 classic and all are trying to recapture the magic of that film, parody it or deconstruct it.

[Frustration]

There is a difference between making an Oz movie and remaking "The Wizard of Oz".