Escape From New York: yet another remake

01 September 2007

Gerard Wood

Escape from New York is the latest John Carpenter film to receive the back-handed compliment of a Hollywood remake. True, that's a somewhat jaded way of looking at it (hey, that’s a great idea, um, but we can do it better…) but what other possible reason could there be to remake a movie?

Surely not an apparent scarcity of original ideas in Hollywood, or the reluctance of some studios to take creative risks, preferring instead the relative financial security of a proven and recycled idea?

Nah.

In Carpenter’s 1981 dystopian vision of an American future (his futuristic film was set ten years in our past in 1997) crime has gone through the roof and Manhattan island has been converted into a maximum security prison. The President’s plane is hijacked by a terrorist organisation (alternatively a resistance movement) and is blown up over the island (ok, they’re a resistance movement employing terrorist tactics). Snake Plissken, a disillusioned war hero and recent convict played by Kurt Russell, is offered his freedom if he rescues the President, sole survivor of the crash.

In a nut shell, that’s the plot...

This role was, without a doubt, the high point in Kurt Russell’s career. Snake Plissken, whom he seems to have modelled on any one of many Clint Eastwood performances, is a truly memorable anti-hero.

If my hand hasn’t already been given away, it’s time to lay my cards on the table: I am not a fan of remakes. And I am a fan of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York. So news of a remake really doesn’t thrill me.

Frankly, I just don’t see the point.

It’s not that a remake can’t improve on the original. On rare occasions it can be done, as Carpenter himself proved with his version of The Thing (1982), also staring Russell. But let’s face it, for a remake even to compare favourably with the original it has to be so much better simply because it’s not bloody original! If it’s just a matter of updating the special effects or the setting, as is so often the case, why bother? (Recent cases in point: Assault on Precinct 13, King Kong, The Omen, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Wicker Man… sadly the list could go on and on and on.)

At the risk of making yet another generalisation, SF readers and viewers might return to a favourite book or movie numerous times but fundamentally we are driven by novelty – by the excitement of a new idea. (Is that a paradox? Give us something new so we can enjoy it time and again?)

And it’s not as if there isn’t an incredible number of amazing ideas in fiction to draw on for film.

Of course, in the end it all boils down to money. Studios are in the business of turning a profit and since the financial stakes are so high it’s not surprising that the tried and true is attractive to them.

Now that I’ve ridden my hobby horse into the ground, what does this remake of Escape from New York have going for it? What might make me eat my words?

Well, there are in fact some promising elements. Rumour has it that it is to be a prequel and remake – presumably giving us Plissken’s back-story before setting off to rescue the President. Now that might actually make the project worthwhile.

Or, more likely, it will end up explaining away the mystery behind the character. Like many a nameless Clint Eastwood hero wandering into town, it is the unknown quality (who is he, where did he come from, what does he want?) that draws us to the character. Carpenter’s twist with Snake Plissken is that everyone seems to know Plissken’s name. But his past is only ever hinted at.

The remake will be directed by Len Wiseman, who brought us the very stylish Underworld and Underworld: Evolution, and more recently Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard, in which the action is so good it was possible to forgive the previous two instalments.

The screen play was written by Ken Nolan who wrote Black Hawk Down, although given the one-dimensional portrayal of the Somalis in that bloodbath I’m not sure that constitutes something in favour of the remake.

It will star Gerard Butler in the role of Snake Plissken, which is promising. Butler has more than redeemed himself with his ferocious performance as Leonidas in 300 after the dire Beowulf and Grendel.

And last, but not least, and most promising of all, John Carpenter is slated as an Executive Producer.

Anyway, I’ve printed this out, ever hopeful that I’ll be able to eat my words.

No news on a release date yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

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