Transmutation-Flaw: The Faux-pa of Remaking the Icon

Standing in front of the movie theatre, staring hopelessly at the showings board, I know it's been a long Friday. I know because I must have traveled back in time, somewhere between 1951 and 1984. The obviously post-Millenium light-board flickering with advertisements and showtimes is riddled with remade fanfare. Clash of the Titans. Disney's Alice in Wonderland. A Nightmare on Elm Street. Death at a Funeral. Didn't that just come out a few years ago?

As we buy the tickets, I turn to scan upcoming movie posters, COMING SOON plastered above them in their plastic casings. The Karate Kid. Robin Hood. I'm not thinking about Pat Morita or Kevin Costner. I'm not analyzing the ethnicity of the new karate kid, nor reciting Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham lines in my head. I'm thinking about Jackie Earl Haley.

Jackie Earl Haley has a kind of silly way about him. Like Cypher from The Matrix. Biting wit, sarcasm, maybe we don't entirely take him seriously. He's currently on Fox's Human Target as the staple techno-nerd (think Abby on NCIS or early Gregg on CSI) with his own jargon and a heart-of-gold. The phrase "In English, please" is characteristically pointed at this character. But he'll turn on you. Believe it. We all did in Little Children. So, between Ronnie McGorvey and Rorschach from Watchmen, some of us tried to believe that we could accept him as Freddy Krueger, child murderer and dream assassin. We held our breath in the theatre: am I really going to be able to accept this Freddy as Freddy?

No. Sadly Not.

There are five distinct reasons why I could never accept Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy Krueger:
(1) The Make-up:: Haley kind of looks like a mix between a Naked Mole-Rat and a burned Na'vi. And is it just me or do his burns change their look throughout the film?
(2) That Voice:: Why hello, Rorschach, is that what you look like under your face-bag with the changing expressions? Didn't realize the two fictional characters existed in the same world. Maybe Silk Spectre and Dr. Manhattan can come and kill Freddy in the next one.
(3) Stop Talking, Freddy. And work on your laugh:: The only thing worse than that voice was hearing a lot of it. Krueger was very vocal about the kids learning what happened to him, why he got burned; he was constantly dropping hints that he not only needed to be vengeful, but you need to know why. Did we not learn anything from Oldboy? Exacting revenge on the ignorant is way freakier than leaving breadcrumbs.
(4) The "Have-Mercy" Pedophile:: Quit crying about how "Whatever you think I did, I didn't do!" before getting scorched to oblivion in that boiler room. Craven's Freddy murdered 20 children on Elm Street and didn't bat an eye. In fact, he enjoyed it. You take a few racy photos of a 5 year-old girl, cry about dying in a fire, then seek "revenge." Craven's Krueger was just finishing what he started. And he never cried about it.
(5) Sorry, You're just not Robert Englund:: Major apologies Haley. I know there's nothing you can do about it. But you're just not Robert Englund.

And after walking out of the theatre with my Nightmare-inclined friend looking disappointed and scarred by the direction cinema is taking, I know why this will never work. Remake after remake, Hollywood can rip characters from comics and books and recast and reboot and toy around with, but please, please, please...stop trying to Remake the Icons.

Freddy Krueger was an invention of Wes Craven who was brought to life through eight segments, EIGHT films, by Robert Englund. He created Freddy, mastered him, and turned him into a legend of the slasher screen. As far as we're concerned, Englund is Krueger (just watch Wes Craven's New Nightmare). So when a slasher newbie like Haley steps into wildly oversized shoes, he's going to fall.

And that's not the only one.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory got its remake in 2005 with the eccentric and much-beloved Johnny Depp. No way a new-kid to the weird and wild, the shoes really should have fit him when he took on Willie Wonka. But the role was flat and forced. I found his characterization lay mostly in the hair and hat and Depp's ability to use sharp, theatrical movements (kind of like the way Michael Jackson dances - something unnatural becomes natural) to accentuate the peculiar. But Willie Wonka was made and molded into Gene Wilder in 1971. His creepy-casual disregard for the children's well-being, his matter-of-fact manner, his bi-polar manic breakdown, all added a depth which Depp's Wonka severely lacked. I think, most importantly, Wilder's Wonka was inherently adult. He talked down to the children, and sometimes the adults, as a diligent CEO may speak to a McDonalds employee. Depp's Wonka was a child and came off childish, a man who did not deserve his candyland legend.

Should I even explain Gus Van Sant's 1998 mistake that was casting Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates in his remake of Psycho? I respect Van Sant's attempt to create the shot-to-shot color remake of Hitchcock's indelible thriller, but Anthony Perkin's cannot be remade or replaced as Bates. It's near blasphemy.

When it comes to using different actors throughout a series of films, I can think always of the pained attempt of Julianne Moore to play Clarice Starling in Hannibal. Jodie Foster put devotion and torment, along with a repressed naivety, into Starling. Her characterization made Starling a youthful agent, but smart and adaptable. Despite her inexperience in the field, she was crafty and courageous, doing what she needed to in order to close the case. At the end of the film, she had a further understanding of Lector, but respected and understood her inferior intelligence and could, at best, know she would always be one step behind him. Yet Moore shirked this in her reprise of Starling, and attempted to take on the "I understand him" posit. She pushed her growth of Starling away from brashly courageous in spite of her...lack of knowledge, into a kind of "I know all" confidence that made her less endearing. Less accessible. We're suppose to relate to Clarice to access Hannibal, but they both kept out of reach in the sequel.

The Shining is a peculiar case for me, particularly because I am a Stephen King fan, first and foremost. And while Kubrick's classic interpretation holds heavy (due to its diversion from the psychological freakshow that is the novel), I cannot deny the performance of my second celebrity crush, Jack Nicholson. His psycho-breakdown is iconic in its move from well-adjusted writer to homicidal maniac. "Heeeere's Johnny!" through the doorway has got to be one of the most recognizable breakthroughs in cinema-murderer history. However, in 1997, a made-for-tv movie starring Steven Weber attempted to do justice to the King's novel. The only thing lacking: Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrence. While the justice may have been served by directly portraying scenes described in the novel, Steven Weber was never as psychologically damaged (or damned) enough to remake the icon.

So, I google search the upcoming remakes and immediately I'm assaulted by the thoughts of "Who could possibly play that role?!" The list includes:
- I Spit on Your Grave; Character: Jennifer Hill
- Escape from New York; Character: Snake Plisskin
- Back to the Future; Character: Marty McFly; Character 2: Doc Brown
- Barbarella; Character: Barbarella
Some already cast icons include:
- Russell Brand as Arthur in Arthur
- Jackie Chan as Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid

There are some who will throw their arms up and say, "But what about Heath Ledger's Joker? Can't we accept Edward Norton over Eric Bana as Bruce Banner (Hulk)? And I think we all enjoyed Al Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface...that was a remake of an icon."

Well played, well played. But as with any one-sided argument, there tend to be exceptions. But what's more are the patterns formed by the exceptions. I called them: the Icon Rules.
Rule #1: If a character is widely accepted as many different actors, so their supporting cast may change as well. This applies to movies such as Batman and James Bond. Batman's incarnations include Michael Keaton, Adam West, Val Kilmer, Christian Bale, and George Clooney. And in such, we allow Christian Bale to have his own adversary in Joker, and do not hold a standard of Nicholson's Joker to Ledger. And Q and Money Penny do not have to hold true because Connery is gone and we accept Craig, but only because it took us Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan to get there. (I reference again Silence of Lambs. Perhaps Moore would have been an acceptable Starling had Hannibal Lector been portrayed by someone other than Anthony Hopkins?)
Rule #2: Reboots are not remakes. Reboots are these ridiculous exceptions which hold the idiom: "if it was made within the last 5 years and didn't do as well as expected, we can do it again before it goes stale." Films like Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Spiderman. Because we have yet to fully invoke the icon-presence of the character, we can accept others as trying again. Kind of like being a pinch-hitter: the pre-madonna pitchers got their chance, but frankly, we think you can do it better without getting hurt (in the figurative, career-wise way).
Rule #3: What do you mean that's a remake? If a majority of the world exists blissfully ignorant of the original, then remakes are acceptable. Perhaps even necessary. Without a strong cult following, and the likelihood of seeing the film outside of a film history class at close to zero, then remakes of iconic figures are allowed and perhaps encouraged.
Rule #4: It's foreign. Think....The Departed. Let Me In. The Ring. It's even better if you can change the name to make it nearly unable to find out there exists an original. Hollywood has some belligerent rule that it has the right to make anything itself. The characters were created, shaped, and accepted in a country other than our own, therefore creating them in a world with a different language and look tends to work with a mild respect for the first. We're not trying to do it better, we're just trying to make it more accessible to our audience.

With all the grandeur of "hope for Hollywood," I recognize that the opinions stated above are not always widely accepted. Many respect the process of character transmutation and live by the stigma of "making a character one's own," which is undeniably respectable. But the base factor of the cinematic icon, the truth of reinvention and re-imagination, the only real instances when it DOES NOT and WILL NOT work, is when the actor and character become synonymous in the filmic world.
I return to Freddy Krueger/Robert Englund.
They equal each other, mark each other, they made each other. Englund's career is solely important as an actor because of Krueger. While he can go and play many a role, embrace many an endeavor (often well), he is recognized as Krueger and Krueger as Englund.
Principle Icons that will inevitably end in tragedy should a remake occur include:
Snake Plisskin from Escape from New York
Duckie from Pretty in Pink
Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Pee Wee Herman from Pee Wee's Big Adventure & TV
John McClane from Die Hard
Ripley from Alien

I have accepted and understand that hope does not exist for these Icons of Cinema to be remade. All will continue to smile politely and say "Why yes, (Insert actors name here) did make that role their own," however, we will never truly accept them. They will be constantly compared to the original, definitely ridiculed by die-hard fans, and inevitably deemed a lesser-version of the former. Frankly, I don't know why an actor would want to portray an "Icon". But they keep on trying.