There is nothing new under the sun

In Ecclesiastes 1:9, Solomon tells us that there is nothing new under the sun. Now, I’m not entirely sure that was meant to be taken exactly the way it reads, because obviously, there are things we know now that they didn’t back then, and we have technology that wasn’t around. However, when it comes to the movies that are coming out, I’m beginning to think this statement fits rather well for describing many of the movies and books that are coming out now days.

Some are disguised better than others, you may not realize it until you’ve gotten half way through the book/movie that you are basically reading/watching the same love story, again. Yes, it may be a different town, and the characters have different names, but the story line is there. I have stopped watching a number of shows because I just cannot do Luke & Laura/Greg & Jenny/Ross & Rachel again, I can’t.

There are those that are blatantly remakes, be it trying to make a British comedy work as an American comedy, or vice versa (the humors do not usually translate…), or someone just feels they can make the movie better than it was, originally, and then you have the sequels. Cannot come up with something new and different, so lets build on something that is already out there.

It is as if people are finding their creative cupboards bare; no new ideas, no creative spark setting a passionate fire for something that hasn’t been done before.

Now, don’t get me wrong, some of the remakes and sequels work, and Lord knows I certainly couldn’t give them something new and wonderful, but come on – just how many versions of Cinderella do we really need? An article I read recently states that IMDb credits over 100 movies to the telling of this fairy tale. It seems a bit excessive, but yet we watch them, and fall in love with this story again, and again.

This is just something I have pondered off and on over the last couple of years, and yesterday, someone pointed out an article stating that Sony will be remaking The Craft, a movie that I truly enjoyed and just cannot understand why anyone feels that it needs to be redone, causing this ‘rant’ of sorts to start up again.  I can only hope that Leigh Janiak is able to create some magic with it, I do have some hope though, the article stated that Doug Wick, The Craft’s original producer, will once again be the producer, working with Leigh as she remakes the movie.

For the record, Fairuza Balk, who played Nancy in The Craft,  had this to say about the remake, on Twitter:

Personally I don’t care for the idea of remakes. There are great scripts & ideas out there that have yet to be made!

— Fairuza Balk (@fairuza) May 14, 2015