MovieChat Forums > The Dam Busters (1955) Discussion > RE-RELEASE NOT REMAKE

RE-RELEASE NOT REMAKE

posted 11 years ago by bongo-6
10 replies | jump to latest

This movie does not need to be remade. I saw it again over the weekend, as it was the 70th anniversary of the actual event, and it stands up. What would be a good idea if a re-release is possible would be to edit maybe one or two of the special FX where the dam gets hit and the water spouts up; rather like the parting of the Red Sea in the The Ten Commandments; it's one of the old FX which doesn't look real but you can't figure out why. It is such a pivotal part of the movie with the perfect musical cue.
Don't forget the movie was made within about ten years of the actual event; the type of actors in the squads, the style of acting and everything else was in tune with the times and the arrogance of Todd, his size and determination are not the things modern actors can do without looking ridiculous.
As for Cumberbatch playing Guy Gibson??? Really? Goes to show that the suggestioner, if there could be such a word, knows nothing about Guy Gibson. Maybe Martin Freeman!
But leave it alone - get it re-released, digitized and get over the dog's name; it takes place in Britain in the 40s and the values and vernacular are from that era.

[–] mariegriffiths 10 years ago

A remake will not unmake the original but bring people to it. Tastefully done it will bring it to a new generation.

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

A remake will not unmake the original but bring people to it. Tastefully done it will bring it to a new generation. - mariegriffiths

Perhaps. And I'm not opposed to remakes in principle. However, not only is the phrase in your comment "tastefully done" an important one--how much flash and overkill could a Hollywood remake succumb to?--but how much understanding of the war do contemporary filmmakers have?

I say this based on finally watching Memphis Belle a couple of years ago, and that is a movie that is almost a quarter-century old by now. As I was watching it, the sense kept growing in me that the filmmakers developed their understanding of the story and of its real-life roots not from studying those roots and the war, but from studying movies that have been made about the war.

We live in a surreal time in the sense that people's perceptions of history are shaped by the films that have been made about that history and not the actual history itself. Watching Memphis Belle, I felt it was very synthetic, as if it had distilled previous war films for its own narrative and presentation of that narrative, and it had that abstract feel to it, that it was trying to project a reality based on previous projections of reality.

This year (2014) marks the 75th anniversary of the start of World War Two, and it is getting harder to find those still alive with first-hand knowledge of those events. So, we are left primarily with interpretations from subsequent generations.

But my concern about filmmaking nowadays is that, with respect to a remake of The Dam Busters, more care will go into the special effects to depict the treetops flying and the crumbling dams than into the story, which will be a perfunctory, cliche-laden narrative filled with tropes cribbed from countless previous war movies, and no matter how "tastefully done" it may be--Memphis Belle was not a badly-done or disrespectful film, only a very artificial one--it may not have the impact or immediacy of the original film.

And on a different tack: Why can't the "new generation" be brought into the original? I know younger people who don't watch--who won't watch--an older film, particularly if it is in black and white. But do we really need to cater to their limitations? And if they don't care for the format, will they really care for the subject matter? It wasn't that long ago that the phrase "you're history!" was an insult. Are they really going to care for an event that is of interest only to their grandparents, or even their great-grandparents?
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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca

[–] icaptainchaos 10 years ago

I was incredibly fortunate enough to have met George 'Johnny' Johnson yesterday, who was in one of the Lancasters that successfully bombed the Sorbe Dam (he was the bomb aimer).

He told me about the fact that he had met up with Peter Jackson who was "planning on doing" the film but said he would include the bits that the original film left out.

He also said that in the 40s, the dogs name was N*****, which was also one of the code words was N***** and couldn't understand all the controversy over the word, seeing as they call each other that nowadays anyway.

He was (and still is) a total legend.

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

I was incredibly fortunate enough to have met George 'Johnny' Johnson yesterday, who was in one of the Lancasters that successfully bombed the Sorbe Dam (he was the bomb aimer). - icaptainchaos

Very nice! World War Two veterans are beginning to dwindle. How fortunate, indeed, that you got to meet him.

I would hope that any director taking on this project now would avail him- or herself of today's more liberating film environment. Although I'm curious about what "bits" Peter Jackson would include, I'm a little leery of Jackson's tendency toward overkill (no pun intended). Very likely this would be a three-hour extravaganza; let's hope he doesn't stretch it out over the course of two or three films.

As for the use of niger-plus-"g", for the sake of realism and accuracy it would be foolish to amend it just for contemporary convention. However, I'm a little skeptical of Johnson's claim that "everybody" calls each other that nowadays--it depends who the "everybody" is.

Just curious: Was everyone in the RAF with the last name Johnson nicknamed "Johnny" (or "Johnnie")? What about an actual John Johnson? Was he nicknamed "Georgie"?

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History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull$hit. - Hunter S. Thompson

[–] david_colbourne 10 years ago

I can well imagine Peter Jackson managing a trilogy from the subject, I can even imagine the titles

1. The Fellowship of the Bouncing Bomb

2. The Two Dams

3. The Return of the Wing Commander.

Couldn't fail.

Need to get some Orcs in, though.

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

I can well imagine Peter Jackson managing a trilogy from the subject - david_colbourne

Indeed. Barnes Wallis will be wearing a wizard's hat, and just as Guy Gibson goes into his bombing run, he'll turn to his co-pilot while talking into his R/T: "For Frodo."

I imagine the Orcs will pour out of ground from the damaged dams, only to stream up to Belgium, lie in wait for a year and a half, and re-emerge in Allied uniforms just in time for Operation Grief during the Battle of the Bulge.

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History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull$hit. - Hunter S. Thompson

[–] david_colbourne 10 years ago

Good stuff! I hope Stephen Fry's reading this.

[–] icaptainchaos 10 years ago

The idea of the "two lights to gauge distance from ground/bombing distance" could be a mini Eye of Sauron (or whatever it was) to do the same job.

[–] dalbrech 10 years ago

Yeah, Stephan Fry playing Barnes Willis was pretty much confirmed by the Dam Busters mention in the making of Documentary on the Blu Ray of Extended Edition of "The HObbit:Desolataion of Smaugh".

But after seeing what Jackson did to Tolkien's novel in the film,I am getting a bad feeling about his Dam Busters remake......

I'll Teach You To Laugh At Something's That's Funny
Homer Simpson

[–] icaptainchaos 10 years ago

As long as the Germans don't have spotlights (like the Batsignal) declaring "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" to the Lancasters.