Tom DeMichael on “Escape from New York” Remake

Twentieth Century Fox recently announced they will be remaking the film, Escape from New York. Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ author Tom DeMichael weighs in on this announcement in the following post!

Let’s be honest – a guy named “Snake” is always going to raise a few suspicions.

Imagine the parents of a young girl when they’re introduced to her new beau.

“Mom…Dad – This is Snake, and we’re engaged!”

Hoo-boy.

The Snake in our case is, of course, Snake Plissken. He’s the ex-soldier, turned bad guy (then turned good guy) in John Carpenter’s 1981 sci-fi action flick, Escape from New York. Set in 1997, World War III has left America in shambles (the long-recurring dystopian future sci-fi setting) and the Manhattan Island in New York has become a maximum security prison (in other words, the Big Apple has a lot of worms in it.) The US government recruits a reluctant Snake to save the President, who has become a hostage of the inmates. He accomplishes the task, but the whole affair leaves Snake in a more cynical state than when he started.

Escape from New York offered a pretty enjoyable cast, with ex-Disney star Kurt Russell as the eye-patched Snake. Other performers included Donald Pleasance, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, and Adrienne Barbeau. It did well at the box office in 1981, grossing more than 25-million dollars and prompting a sequel fifteen years later. Escape from LA brought back Snake, with a new cast of supporting characters. Budgeted at 50-million dollars, the sequel bombed by grossing only half that amount. 

Now, in the opening weeks of 2015, 20th Century Fox has secured the rights for a remake once more. But this isn’t the first rodeo for a remake of Escape. Since 2007, remaking the film has been a recurring topic, first with Gerard Butler slated to play Snake, then Jeremy Renner mentioned. But many movie projects can languish in “development hell” for years, so there’s no guarantee that Snake will be escaping any city very soon.

Understand that movies are remade – not to improve on the original (which hardly ever happens anyway) – but to introduce a “new” product to a new audience. Even with the multitude of alternative sources for films (video-on-demand, DVD/Blu-Ray, digital download, Hulu, etc.,) folks younger than forty or so were barely in kindergarten when Snake first attempted to Escape from New York. 

So, with Fox obtaining the rights for a remake, they’re hardly concerned about how fans of the original will react – heck, they’re in search of new fans, from a different generation. And, as long as there’s another sci-fi film to keep us engaged and entertained for a couple of hours, that’s all that really matters anyway.

Get to the choppa: A Modern Sci Fi Films FAQ excerpt

Thirty years ago, we saw Arnie take to the screen in his most iconic role as the Terminator! Modern Sci Fi Films FAQ (new from Applause Theatre and Cinema Books) includes a special synopsis of this classic robot action film. Don’t worry – we won’t include any spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet.

 

Robots and Robot Wannabes

Do You Worry About Rust?

The word “robot” is Czech in origin. Their word, “robota,” refers to drudgery, and, in general, a robot is a device designed to perform tasks usually done by a human (apparently, my time spent up to my elbows in dish soap would make me a “robot”).  As such, robots tend to appear in humanoid form, at least in the cinematic world.

The concept of a humanoid robot made sense in Hollywood, as the easiest way to portray one was to build a stiff metallic costume that could be worn by an actor or stunt man. That is, at least, until robots became reality in the 1960s and 1970s. Function overtook form, as the real robots of the world—such as the Stanford Cart—looked more like overloaded tea carts than mechanical men.

The miniaturization of technology took the “man-in-suit” out of the equation in many movies that featured robots. Still, actors Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker served robots C-3PO and R2-D2 well from inside their stuffy confines in the Star Wars epics. Ditto Peter Weller in RoboCop.

Stop-motion animation and computer-generated graphics made non- humanoid robots an alternative to men in suits. Take, for example, 1984’s The Terminator. Once stripped of its cyborg flesh, the T-800 skeleton was presented by way of a full-sized remote-controlled figure built by Stan Winston, as well as stop-motion animation by Doug Beswick, Gene Warren Jr., and the Fantasy II effects team.

The Terminator

Synopsis

• 1984—American/Orion—108 min./color
• Director: James Cameron
• Original music: Brad Fiedel
• Film editing: Mark Goldblatt
• Art direction: George Costello

Cast

• Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator)
• Michael Biehn (Kyle Reese)
• Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor)
• Paul Winfield (Lt. Traxler)
• Lance Henriksen (Det. Hal Vukovich) 


In 2029, a raging conflict persists between an army of war machines and guerrilla soldiers. The machines send one of their own back to 1984 Los Angeles, where they intend on killing Sarah Connor. If they don’t, she will give birth to John Connor, who is the leader against the machines in the future war. This killing machine, a “terminator,”—Model T-800—is an incredibly sophisticated cyborg. It’s constructed of human tissue, with a high-tech hydraulic skeleton and a single mandate—to kill Sarah. It arrives in a flash of lightning and immediately clothes its nude body by killing a group of toughs and taking their clothes.

But the Terminator is not the only time traveler. Kyle Reese also arrives from the future, sent by John Connor to save Sarah. She is a young single girl who seems dependent on many people. Looking in a phone book, the Terminator finds three Sarah Connors listed. He seeks them out, coldly killing the first two. Going to Sarah’s apartment, the Terminator kills her roommate and room- mate’s boyfriend. 
Sarah is not home, and she is disturbed when she hears on the news that two Sarah Connors have been murdered. She becomes even more fearful when she observes Reese following her. She calls her apartment from a disco, but only gets her answering machine. Not realizing the Terminator is still there, she leaves a message telling her roommate where she is. She then calls police, and Lt. Traxler tells her to stay put. 
In the disco, the Terminator arrives and zeroes in on Sarah, but Reese saves her by firing a salvo of shotgun blasts into the cyborg. It doesn’t faze him, and he responds with fierce gunfire, killing dozens of innocent patrons. Sarah and Reese escape in the fray, but the Terminator takes off after them. They duck him in a car chase, where Reese lets Sarah in on the whole story.

 Read more from Modern Sci Fi Films FAQ here