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Weekend Discussion Thread: Gritty Reboots of MSTed MoviesCresilda & Thomas suggested:
And to throw it wide open, instead of MST3K you can pick any MSTed movie and come up with a reboot for that. Have at it! 64 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Gritty Reboots of MSTed Movies”Commenting at Satellite News
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Can’t really say Gamera, as it’s already had a gritty reboot. Perhaps Manhunt in Space/Crash of the Moons. Rocky Jones is ripe for a reboot in the manner of Battlestar Galactica.
How about a gritty remake of Puma Man with Javiar Badem as the Aztec, Christian Bale as Puma Man, and Bryan Cranston (or the corpse of Donald Pleasance) as the villain? :laugh:
I keep imagining the ending of The Final Sacrifice…
“I don’t like space. He needs to be trapped in the scientist’s basement. And forget the scientist. You see Saw? Well this will be totally different, but very much like that. So the guy is tied to a beartrap in this basement… all alone. No robots! Robots don’t test well.”
I’d like to see 624 – SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN as a gritty remake especially with the modern wrestling techniques now used although I believe karate chops may still be illegal. Cast as follows;
Al Santo Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Tundra Rhona Mitra
Thorina Angelina Jolie
Prof Orloff Will Farrell (who else can do the “Come in, now GET OUT!” line?)
Prince of Space. Darker, more adult, and with 3D digital effects! Casting: Alec Baldwin IS Krankor!
@Larmanius #5
“Your weapons are the ones you deserve, but not the ones you need right now.”
The Violent Years. It would be fun to see it redone with lots of modern sex and violence.
A gritty new “Space Mutiny” using footage from the new Battlestar Galactica. Clearly Lieutenant Lamont is one of the Significant Seven.
If they wanted to *really* change a movie by going dark, how about the gritty version of “Catalina Caper”? Instead of Little Richard whoring himself out for a dopey comedy, the musical act the kids see would have to be a death metal band. Instead of Joel and the bots making white kids/Klan wisecracks, the kids in the movie would really be from the KKK. And the criminals Nazis. And, instead of capers, war crimes.
Or, since the whole “grim and gritty” movement hit superhero comic books, then “Wild Wild World of Batwoman” seems a logical choice. New title: “Dark, Violent Underworld of Batwoman”. No more annoyingly wacky hijinx for THAT film.
Or, perhaps, it’d happen to the show itself. “Push the Doomsday Button, Frank.”
“I Accuse my Parents”
Matt Damon as Jimmy
DeNiro as Jimmy’s semi comatose abusive gambling alcoholic father
Sharon Stone as Jimmy’s mom
Ray Liotta as Blake
Joe Pesci as angry, knife wielding Al who’s burgers ‘may or may not be made from people!’
Claire Danes as Kitty.
get Tarantino or Scorsese to pull off a Pulp Fiction Goodfellas thing
Whenever I watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, for some reason I think of a scene at the beginning of that Bill Murray movie Scrooged, where he’s giving the go-ahead for different holiday-themed programming, and one of them has Santa wielding a machine gun, shooting his foes (I forget who they were).
That would seem like a dark remake of SCCTM, where, out of nowhere, Santa goes all ‘Commando’.
With the Starfighters I always felt if took the re-fueling scenes out and added a vaguely Russian villainous jet pilot, rewrite it a little you’d be pretty close to TOP GUN…
Angel’s Revenge could be redone with a Grindhouse vibe. Maybe Machete meets Kill Bill x 7?
Blood Waters of Dr Z could also be darkly reworked… have Dr Leopold turn himself into something truly monstrous and slowly stalk those who denied him his work, all the while mutating the native wildlife in his wake and twisting them into horrible subservient creations.
As far as the show itself, I could see a prominent film critic being kidnapped by a deranged, down-on-his luck director (who blames this critic’s bad review for his run of bad luck) and being forced – Clockwork Orange style – to watch the worst movies he can locate. The critic, who’s secretly battled schizophrenia for years, cracks and begins hallucinating 2 of his beloved childhood toys (a puppet dinosaur and a robot) there with him. As his imaginary friends/alternate personae begin lashing back at the dreck he’s forced to watch, he soon begins chiming along with them. How long can his sanity last?….
Great discussion thread idea!
If any movie begged for a gritty remake, it’s “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.” My remake would have actual terrifying and flesh-eating ZOMBIES. Jerry would be played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Madame Estrella by Cher. In a let’s-bring-him-back-from-the-dead role, John Reynolds from “Manos” would play Ortega. The dancers would be real strippers and they definitely wouldn’t be chewing gum. The climax of the movie would have many of the elements and camera angles of the famous 1932 “Freaks.”
Beast of Yucca Flats could work. Ridiculously overblown, ham handed social commentary certainly hasn’t disappeared, nor movies about horrible things in deserts. Just crank up the gory makeup on the “beast” to the max (any of the super sized pro wrestlers would do, but I’d say Big Show), and have him do even more and more horrible things to the denizens of the desert. I’m thinking countless digital “fonts of visceral effluence”.
The Touch of Satan, redone in the style of the 80s horror films.
Melissa can be played by Mila Kunis.
Jody can be played by Matt Bomer.
Grandma can be played by Sigourney Weaver.
Manos: The Hands of Fate.
Tom Cruise was born to play Torgo.
I could see the next Tim Burton/Johnny Depp flick as a reboot of THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. Johnny could interpret Glenn’s giant look with whatever strange makeup he can come up with this time. Perhaps a combination of his Sweeney Todd/Willie Wonka looks, only much bigger. Radiation could do that to you. ;-) Maybe throw in Nicolas Cage as an especially overwrought Dr. TheHeartisMadeUpofOneCell, and Megan Fox as Carol. Keep Vegas as a setting for the climax with a subplot of Glenn battling a gambling addiction and being unable to enter a casino, not to mention developing an inferiority complex because he’s only half as tall as the Stratosphere Tower.
The problem is that a lot of the motifs are already being done. I love the Violent Years remake idea but I think it would resemble “The Bling Ring.” Space Travellers would resemble “Gravity.”
I think “Tormented” would be a nice remake in the modern horror genre (let’s face it, is “Tom Stewart Killed Me” any less annoying than “Mama?”)
“It Conquered the World” would also make a great remake (the question of who is infected or not makes for great suspense.)
“Bloodlust” (I love anything that resembles “The Most Dangerous Game.” Although that has been done many times previously.)
Anyone up for “Red Zone: North Korea???”
Lastly, for pure sophmoric reasons “Angel’s Revenge.”
Red Zone Cuba could be remade by Quentin Tarantino. The characters seem appropriate for his type of movies. The story just needs to be ironed out, with a better transition from Cuba to New Mexico.
The Sidehackers, starring Jason Statham as the Ross Hagen character.
@17 – And then, of course, being a (ahem, gay?) Burton/Depp movie, Glenn must now be whitefaced, sensitive, and misunderstood because of his size, by all the mean perfect people living in the perfect little outlying lawn-sprinkler suburbias of Nevada, now that he can’t fit in anymore (literally and figuratively). 9_9
@11 – Shh–I can already SEE some overly cult-struck producer trying for a “wacky” cult big-budget remake of Santa/Martians (and the enticing PD lack of royalties therein) without ever having seen the original in his life. Oh, well, at least we wouldn’t get Dropo in it.
Hmm…
Hellcats? No, that’s Sons of Anarchy…
The Magic Sword? Nah, would look like a Peter Jackson rip-off…
Hamlet? Mel Gibson tried that (as did Kenneth Branaugh, but I prefer Mel’s eviscerated version)…
Starfighters? Actually like this idea – retro movie about USAF pilots balancing the pressures of work and play in 1960’s Las Vegas… Be a little like Mad Men with a military setting. Of course, that Pan Am show bombed…
Santa Claus (the Mexican one)? That might get way too dark, what with the child labor and all…
The Giant Gila Monster? Yes. Starring Bieber. And he gets eaten. Oh, Yes…
Nicholas Cage
is
Master Ninja
Also Starring:
Justin Bieber
as
Max Keller
I think a reboot of THE SINISTER URGE would be perfect to do..Maybe have Michael Rooker as Dirk and Jessica Lange as Gloria.Maybe have British director Steve McQueen direct it and have Quentin Tarantino write it.
I am sick of gritty reboots, personally. The idea of making a fun little “cowtown puppet show” into something dismal and dark does not sit well with me. However, maybe some of the educational shorts could take a darker turn. Mr B. Natural as a succubus? A Date With Your Family starring the Manson Family? It could work.
The Final Sacrifice as a Dark Fantasy. Blockbuster.
“Time Chasers” starring Van Dam!
Gamera could use a gritty makeover. Give him a .45 and a katana, a red headband, some sunglasses, and have Lance Henriksen do the voice over.
Gamera’s a giant mutant turtle seeking to avenge the death of his family at the hands of Jet Jaguar’s evil twin, Ace Lamborghini. And have Quentin Tarantino write and direct it so we know it’ll be super violence with lots of wry comic asides.
Hmm…MST3k: The Remake
Movie 1: In the not too distant future….
Billionaire eccentric genius Dr. Joel Robinson has finished work on his self-sustaining satellite, and is in the process of uploading all Earth movies to the memory core (being eccentric, he’s loading them in order of quality, from worst to best) when his jealous lab assistants, C. Forrester and L. Ernhardt knock him out and send him into orbit in the satellite, planning to hide his death and spend his fortune.
However, Joel comes to in space, and attempts to use the satellite’s systems (now damaged by the inept launching by his assistants) to communicate with Earth. A battle for control of the Satellite ensues, with Forrester and Ernhardt using the ground control systems to sabotage Joel’s attempts to communicate, periodically cornering him in the Theater, where he has nothing to do but watch the terrible movies he had uploaded. Fortunately, he’s got the service bots (also damaged, but comically so, in the launch) for company.
In the final battle, Joel manages to send a feedback loop through the control systems, killing Ernhardt and Forrester.
As the credits roll, zoom in on Forrester.
And…
…
(wait for it…)
…
His eyes open!
I’d like to see Clonus as a big budget Micheal Bay movie filled with explosions, dumb plot twists, and starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, but I doubt that’ll ever happen…
MST3k: The Remake
Movie 2: Electric Boogaloo
As our story begins, failed television clown Francis “TV’s” Frank is lying in a pool of rotgut on the floor of his decrepit apartment. A mysterious envelope slides through the mail slot, waking him.
It’s from Clayton Forrester, now pretending to be a scientist. He’s looking for a “host” for a reality television show/social experiment he’s devised.
Cut to the Satellite. Joel has managed to survive, but the feedback loop has destroyed almost everything except for life support, and that appears to be failing. Joel and his bots are working hard on the systems when the communications light starts flashing. He leaps to the console and starts calling for help.
But it’s just “Dr” Forrester and his new host/assistant Frank. He’s managed to repair the ground control systems, and now has full control of the Satellite — except for the core General Purpose Systems Interface, which appears to be fighting any efforts to destroy Joel. But Forrester doesn’t care. He’s now completely mad, and he wants to do is torture Joel by forcing him into the theater to watch bad movies.
Cut to a dark office. Private Investigator Michael “Hammer” Nelson receives an anonymous phone call telling him Joel is alive and in danger and directing him to the “help wanted” ad Forrester has placed in a local newspaper for a cleaner.
Mike goes undercover and manages to work with the GPSI to free Joel, but he’s knocked out by Frank (who’s figured out Forrester’s evil plan, but has also fallen hopelessly in love with him.) The movie ends with Joel’s escape pod and Mike’s prison shuttle passing each other in space…..
While the movie was creepy enough as it is (puppet spiders be damned, I hate spiders), I’d like to see what Christopher Nolan does with Giant Spider Invasion.
MST3k: The Remake
Movie 3: Yes, Mother!
We start in the fallout shelter deep underneath the now crumbling remains of the Robinson estate. Frank is busy gloating and ridiculing Mike. Frank’s carrying on Forrester’s mad plan of torturing the human on the SOL with bad movies. But where’s “Dr” Forrester?
Right now he’s on the phone: “Yes, mother. Of Course, mother. You’re absolutely right. I am a failure, mother.”
As he hangs up, he goes back to his latest project: converting some of the Satellite’s systems into a doomsday device. His plan is to destroy the world so he doesn’t have to deal with his mother’s phone calls anymore.
Mike and GPSI keep trying to foil Forrester’s plans, but Frank keeps sending Mike back into the Theater before he can make progress.
After one Theater segment, Mike and GPSI trigger something in the Satellite’s core. It’s a hologram of Joel, explaining how to activate the feedback loop.
Meanwhile, deep in the shelter, Frank is arguing with “Dr.” Forrester over the doomsday device: “We can’t kill everybody! What about my comeback special!?” In a fit of rage, Forrester slaps Frank, and he falls over a railing to his death.
Mike and GPSI have finished linking the feedback system to Forrester’s control panel, and call to give him one last chance to give up. “Don’t push that button!” “What do I care? I’ve killed Frank!”. Mike activates the feedback loop, but it causes Forrester’s body to fall right on the Button.
Stinger: the shelter’s airlock cycles, and in walks Pearl Forrester: “Clayton, I’ve decided you need more help than I can give you over the phone — Clayton! Who did this…?”
Dark ‘N Gritty MST3K:
A power surge causes Tom Servo and/or Crow to realize the truth: They’re not in space at all. Joel Robinson is actually a psychotic child-rapist who downloaded the minds of his last few victims into the bodies of robots and created the elaborate charade of imprisonment in space and being forced to watch bad movies to distract them. He routinely abuses them then erases their memories afterward so his next attack will be that much more traumatic.
The Mads are actually hapless scientists Joel’s blackmailed into going along with his cruel and evil scheme. They eventually manage to kill him, which initiates a fail-safe mechanism in the bots turning them into walking bombs capable of extinguishing all life on Earth. To prevent this, the Mads had to create a more humanoid robot, Mike Nelson, install him in Joel’s place, and reprogram the bots into thinking Joel escaped. Eventually, however, Joel, who survived their murder attempt, returns with his partners in crime: Pearl, Bobo, and Observer. They kill the Mads, replace them, and take control of the experiment again.
If Joel discovers the bots have recovered their memories. he’ll just reboot them and start over. Consequently, Tom, Crow, and Gypsy must find a way to stop him without tipping their hand.
(Oh, please. A proper ‘Gritty’ comic book-style rewrite must also make a point of crapping all over the original. That’s the whole point…)
@#29, Cherry — I just spit water on my monitor!! LOL
MST3k: The Remake
Movie 4: The Final Sacrifice
We open on the Satellite of Love. The sun shines from behind it, creating a spectacular lens flare.
From the bottom of the SOL come hundreds of lasers, creating lots more lens flares, and explosions all over Earth.
After 30 minutes of explosions and lens flares, cut to fallout shelter.
Pearl spends a small amount of time explaining that in her ongoing battle with Mike, she’s hired an psychokinetic albino assistant named Brian Guy LaFluer and has created a horde of giant mutant gorillas led by General Bobo. Her plan is to take over what remains of Earth and use all resources to destroy the Satellite. Movies don’t even enter into this one, folks.
Cut to the Satellite, where we spend an equally small amount of time learning that Mike has converted the bots into giant Mechs that he plans to send down to Earth to battle Bobo’s mutant army. He’s stripped all of the tech out of the satellite, so inside it’s a lot of bare metal and glass (creating lots more lens flares.)
Cut to an hour of mechs fighting mutant gorillas, with lots of explosions and lens flares. In the end, Pearl manages to take control of a nuclear missile facility, targets the SOL and starts the countdown.
“Well, GPSI, this is it. There’s nothing more we can do.”
“There is… ONE thing we can do, Mike…”
“GPSI… I… I love you…”
Mike and GPSI program the Satellite to crash into Robinson manor, resulting in a huge explosion (with accompanying lens flares.) This leaves a crater with the shelter, now exposed, in the center.
Meanwhile the nuclear missiles have fired (more lens flares) and locked onto the Satellite. They follow it, right into the crater and the now exposed shelter. Bye-bye Pearl (with explosions and lens flares.)
(directed by Michael Bay and JJ Abrams)
would like to see mitchell and final justice remade into a gitty movie. joe don baker would have a cameo in both films. would be the buglar in mitchell and the sheriff in final justice (will have the editing mistake in final justice).
@33 – (Oh, please. A proper ‘Gritty’ comic book-style rewrite must also make a point of crapping all over the original. That’s the whole point…)
Oh, y’mean, like that recent news story about the 5-yo. kid with cancer who wanted to be Batman for one day?
So they pulled out his IV’s, made him hobble around on a cane for two hours, brought in some guy dressed as Bane with a German accent to beat the crap out of him, made him climb a fifty-foot rock wall barehanded, told him he’d lost all his money, and then introduced him to the cop who’d be replacing him? ;)
A horrifying short film called “Mr. B Unnatural”, about an androgynist stalker who is fixated on a nerdy high school senior.
The senior is in the school band, so Mr. B buys a musical instrument manufacturer. Posing as a salesperson, Mr. B harrasses the boy, getting more crazed in her behavior as she pops up everywhere he goes. After a violent attempt to stop him/her charges massive electric volts through his/her body, Mr. B becomes supernatural.
He/she gets a job starring in commercials on TV, selling Progressive insurance so, when the boy sees him/her on TV, Mr. B comes through the TV set to claim the boy, while two rival insurance salesmen are powerless to stop him/her. That is, until they discover a way to shoot huge brick-like missiles from a giant cannon which can kill the androgynist stalker and free the boy.
Unfortunately, the boy maintained a bit of Mr. B’s evil electric power, and killed the two salesmen by setting their pants on fire. The End.
A dark, gritty reboot of MST3K? That’d be kind of depressing, and it wouldn’t really be MST3K anymore (never mind that I think the whole dark gritty reboot thing was beat to death years ago). Still, I think it would be really cool to update/reimagine the geodesic interior of the SOL bridge and the Tunnel Of Doors with modern cinematic/photographic techniques, but without CGI. I can’t stress that enough. One of the things I loved about the production style of the SciFi Channel episodes is that at a time when good CGI was becoming cheap and widespread, the Brains resisted the urge to do a CGI version of the doorway sequence.
But, aaa-aaaanyway, on to the movie. I’d love to see MST3K — in the form we’ve always known and loved — riff on a dark, gritty, rebooted version of Teenage Crime Wave directed by Quentin Tarantino. Sorry I can’t think of any actors/actresses from our era to play the parts of the teenage hoods as I became disgusted and pretty much gave up on Hollywood fifteen years ago. Still, though, for the old couple in the farmhouse, I’d like to get Tommy Lee Jones and Diane Keaton.
Alternately, a dark gritty reboot of Manos directed by Tim Burton — even inasmuch as he hasn’t done anything decent in years — would be kind of interesting, too.
Also, VERY deep down, there’s a kernel of a good idea in “Werewolf”, especially concerning the yee naaldlooshii mythology. (Yes, that’s the word “yetiglanchi” is supposed to be). Give Paul an actual purpose and the ability to, y’know, actually do anything, and you’re halfway there. The pantsless realtor can stay, though.
Having recently seen two David Lynch movies, I think it would be interesting to use his surreal, nightmarish vision to remake a bad movie.
“Monster A Go-Go”
Scientists and military men ponder the fate of a lost astronaut. They use tough guy quips and random non-sequiturs in various labs, offices, and diners, and you *think* they’re trying to explain how the space capsule happened to appear in a field greatly reduced in size and missing the astronaut. But it’s all so stylized, you can’t be certain.
We see things from the undead irradiated spaceman’s point of view as he wanders through foggy 1950s hotel hallways, sewer tunnels, the inside of a top hat, and a spooky garish nightclub. But suddenly–there is no monster, and the actual astronaut is found on earth of normal size.
Redo ‘Santa Claus’ but really ramp up the demonic forces he has to battle. Pitch is now a huge scary demon in control of a horde of satanic cultists who plan to open the gates of hell on Christmas Eve, using little Lupita as a sacrifice. Santa must enter into the netherworld to rescue her. It climaxes with a huge, bloody battle between Santa, Pitch and the armies of good and evil. Guillermo del Toro directs.
I’ve had a bit of trouble with this one, because I realized that many of the MSTed movies are already pretty dark, if not so gritty. I mean, “High School Big Shot”? “The Brute Man”? “Mad Monster”? Even “Diabolik”, for all its pop art visuals, is about a murderous anarchist.
Still, I did think of these…
“Girl’s Town”: Serafina, instead of realizing how wrong her obsession with Paul Anka is, decides to settle things with him and the other girls using a machine gun and some TNT.
“Century 21 Calling”: Those two clean-cut youngsters get a look at what’s really up ahead for the world in the 21st century. While the newfangled phones look great, the rest of it is just too much, so they toss themselves off the tower.
“Space Travelers”: We discover that Iron Man 1’s engine was actually sabotaged by the U.S. government in an attempt to end the space program, leaving more money free for Vietnam. After Jim gets killed outside, Buzz goes totally nuts and kills himself and Stoney. Then, to maintain the cover-up, the NSA plants a bomb on Ted’s rescue ship so that it blows up during reentry. And the movie ends with a review board finding that it was all an Act of God, with no one blamed.
Steve K;
I would green light those projects….
If I had a studio….
Or a green light.
@ #10 — Good selection, but we need a visible Jack Taylor in this version. Who would you pick?
I think the guy’s reimagining of the “Manos” riff was pretty gritty.
I’ve been resisting the pun, but if you want gritty, you’ve got to remake Hercules Against the Moonmen, except with the SANDSTORM ramped up to extremely visceral levels…
How about “The Sword and the Dragon,” done like 300? Gerard Butler can be Ilja Muromets while Kalin can look like Xerxes. “This is Finlaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd–ish!”
@ #27: As I noted earlier, Gamera has already had a gritty reboot. August Ramone talks about it in the extra on the Gamera Vs Gaos disk.
As for the Rocky Jones gritty remake, I imagine Winky’s sexual conquests would go from implied to actually shown. On the plus side, Bobby would likely die in a horrific manner in the pilot.
You want “Dark”? …
“MANOS” The Hands of Fate 2014
starring:
Krispin Glover as Michael
Scarlett Johansson as Margaret
Miley Cirus as Debbie
Nichlas Cage as The Master
And Torgo as “The Gimp”
(with Seth Rogen making out with Katie Perry in a convertible VW.)