Pete's Dragon Remake

[droosan]

Hey, the Freaky Friday remake was great!

While I was poking fun at the idea of Disney remakes with my fake 'coming soon' posters, I personally have never felt that any remake is inherently a bad thing.

Certainly, a remake has as much potential to be a good movie, on its own terms, as any other movie. It doesn't often turn-out that way .. but the potential is there.


I do think Disney's 2003 Freaky Friday remake was rather well done. But this has always made me laugh more:



(from John McNamee's hilarious -- and occasionally 'PG-13' -- Pie Comic)

[Dan]

Bringing the thread back to the proper topic, the teaser trailer has been released (as seen on the front page). Shows a bit more of Elliot than was seen at D23. And still very interested in seeing how well they pull off this version.

[droosan]

Pretty cool teaser.

Definitely a different 'vibe' from the original (which is neither a good nor bad thing, in itself).


My apologies for being 'off-topic' in my previous posts in this thread .. though, it was a fun way to waste a weekend.

[EricJ]

Wait, this is contemporary! So, no Jim Dale medicine-show villain? No Shelley Winters? No lighthouse? And we've already established, no musical.
Is there anything actually IN the movie from the original besides the dragon?? (Okay, and Pete.)

Hey, the Freaky Friday remake was great!

Yeah, but the original had Jodie Foster, back when she still liked boys!

Not to mention remakes of The Parent Trap, Flubber, The Shaggy Dog and Freaky Friday.

Hence, stuff like Pete's Dragon coming up in rotation.

Throw in the 90's "That Darn Cat", and three of the first four named (including Flubber trying to keep John Hughes on the payroll after the Glenn Close 101D) was Disney's 90's attempt to reboot the live-action films.

Pete's Dragon, for some Elliot-related reason, gets lumped in with the animated titles, and we're in the post-Cinderella "Live-action animated" phase.
(Ie., the "quality" titles that are trying to cash in on Disney-icons after Cinderella and Maleficent, not the cheap clones of Tim Burton's Alice that started the craze in the first place. Even they're off that one by now.)

[Ben]

The Freaky Friday remake felt small and devoid of any magical charm to me. They tried to explain the heck out of it and then just ended up with a cheapo school concert instead of a big chase finale? No thanks. We watched the original with the 13 year old girl in the family last year and she loved it. Even she asked why the new one wasn't as good.


Droo...that Apple Dumpling poster still makes the film look too cute! I loved both these flicks growing up (actually all the Disney 70s stuff is much better than given credit, and mostly much funnier than anyone remembers), but you just can't make that first one come over all mean with Knotts and Conway's faces in there!


So, the new Pete's Dragon teaser has debuted. First impression? Interesting that they have updated it to contemporary times, but I sure hope there's a dollop of more lightheartedness or flat-out comedy in the final thing. It's coming over as close to the Witch Mountain remake than anything.

I'm also hoping the Dragon (is he even called Elliott this time around?) is more cute when we see him for real. The point was that Elliott was a sweetheart in the '77 original with his tiny pink wings, but here I'm getting more of a Dragonslayer vibe from the silhouette, even though the body remains fairly dumpy.


And I just can't believe how many MASSIVE films, given all their producing units, the studio has releasing this year! They're going to own every other weekend, it seems, although it remains to be seen if some start to cannibalise each other...

[droosan]

Droo...that Apple Dumpling poster still makes the film look too cute! I loved both these flicks growing up (actually all the Disney 70s stuff is much better than given credit, and mostly much funnier than anyone remembers), but you just can't make that first one come over all mean with Knotts and Conway's faces in there!

Yeah, I was trying for EricJ's directive of a 'gritty, Unforgiven-style' poster .. but was also striving to make it look somewhat like a 'Disney' poster (which was the theme for the previous four). The end result skews more toward the latter .. but (I agree) misses the mark, for either intent. Ah, well.

[Dacey]

So, the new Pete's Dragon teaser has debuted. First impression? Interesting that they have updated it to contemporary times, but I sure hope there's a dollop of more lightheartedness or flat-out comedy in the final thing. It's coming over as close to the Witch Mountain remake than anything.

Better for it to resemble the Witch Mountain remake (reboot?) than Return to Witch Mountain, which I can't even remember anything specific about (even though I saw it not that long ago). I just know it was insane.

[Ben]

"I just know it was insane"ly brilliant!

Well, maybe not, but those films were my childhood, a bit. And who can't love nutty old Bette Davis and Christopher Lee trying to take over the world while a bunch of disco-era kids get their funk on?

Can't wait to revisit the Mountains once the Blu-rays get here!

[James]

So which young female Disney Channel star gets to do the Candle on the Water remix?

[Dacey]

Reviews and buzz have been very strong! Seems this one is a (surprise?) winner.

[Ben]

Early reviews were only so-so, but over here at least it's been getting reviews in which the reviewers are actually surprised at what a tear-jerker it is. I was going to pass and wait for disc, but I may bite.

[Randall]

Some reviews I have seen have been enormously positive, even one 10/10. And TV ads in the US have been trumpeting the great reviews.

[manga raw]

I just got back from seeing it. I watched the original A LOT as a kid and have a lot of feelings towards it. The movie generally was good, but for me I felt like the point of Elliot was missed a bit