It was announced Friday that “Labyrinth,” the Jim Henson-directed and David Bowie-starring ’80s fantasy cult classic, would be receiving a remake/sequel/reboot/whatever in the near future. Ignoring the questionable taste in announcing the regurgitation of a film so closely tied to its lead actor only 12 days after his passing, the plans to resurrect “Labyrinth” are an unfortunate reminder that ingenuity remains an ever-dissipating quality in American film.
Although remakes and adaptations have long been woven into the fabric of American cinema, the last 10 years have seen sequels, remakes and reboots come to define our filmic output. With the one-two punch and runaway success of Christopher Nolan’s reboot “Batman Begins” and Marvel Studios’ adaptation of “Iron Man,” film studios have rushed to push pre-existing stories and properties into production.
Despite many of these films having landed in theaters with resounding thuds, being panned by critics and ignored by moviegoers, producers haven’t stopped, well, producing them. Did anyone see, much less know about, the “Point Break” remake that just came out? Seriously, we’re asking, because many of us in the office had no idea it even existed. And don’t even get us started on the abomination that was “Terminator Genisys.”
Although an exception to the critical and commercial phenomenon mentioned above, it’s worth examining “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” now the third-highest-grossing film ever made, for the sake of example. “The Force Awakens,” although a perfectly serviceable film in its own right, settles for being a remix — that is, not quite a reboot, not quite its own totally independent entity — rather than introducing story beats and concepts of its own. It mixes and matches the character tropes and plot points of the original “Star Wars” trilogy, mostly those of “A New Hope,” rather than introducing novel concepts or unexplored themes to its universe; to call it a full-fledged sequel would be self-deceiving at best and disingenuous at worst.
It is well established that the original “Star Wars” film is no paragon of originality, either. However, while the film took inspiration from Japanese cinema, sci-fi serials of old and the comparative mythology studies of Joseph Campbell, it did so while innovating film techniques and exuding a sense of scale and wonder audiences had never seen before. For better or for worse, “Star Wars” changed the course of moviemaking and audience expectations forever. Of course, not every film has to be “Star Wars” or an impenetrable avant-garde film. However, the options available to the average theatergoer should not be restricted to the latest superhero adaptation, sequels to and/or reboots of already-filmed superhero fare, Michael Bay films or poor attempts to construct a Marvel-esque franchise when the source material itself has already run dry (here’s looking at you, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”).
Good, and even great, distinctive cinema is out there; you just have to look for it. Living in or traveling to Park City, Utah, the location of the Sundance Film Festival, certainly helps, but you shouldn’t have to be a Mormon, a filmmaker or wealthy in order to watch atypical films (shoutout to the Hippodrome State Theatre right here in Gainesville). There was a time when big-budget Hollywood productions could inspire wonder and still make bank hand over fist. When cinema serves only to peddle product and inspire nostalgia, rather than creativity, it is tantamount to cultural suicide. If last summer’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Inside Out” taught us anything, it’s that awe, magic and excitement for the new or different are still possible in big studio films: It is up to us as consumers to not settle for less. But then again, we are the ones who allowed six sequels to “The Fast and The Furious” — maybe we do deserve “Fast 8.”
