It's amazing how the mindset of screenwriters changed in a little over twenty years. This movie remakes a few of the classic 'Twilight Zone' episodes from the original series. It's incredible how political correctness has taken the edge off of these stories.
The prime example of this is 'It's a Good Life', which I consider to be one of the best of the original 'Twilight Zone's. Based on an inventive short story by Jerome Bixby, it's a chilling story of a world ruled by one omnipotent child, Anthony Fremont (played perfectly in the original episode by talented child actor Billy Mumy).
The story poses a simple, terrifying premise: one child has wished away most of the United States, and most of the people wished away into 'the cornfield'. Anthony Fremont has the power of life and death, and you'd better not think bad things about him lest you wind up in 'the cornfield' (the burial ground for Anthony's victims).
Despite some clever visual effects in this new version, the story is all but undone by the addition of a teacher at the end of the tale, who is going to teach Anthony to use his powers for good, not evil. Apparently, the writer's felt the need to tack on some sort of happy ending to this story. Why this was done I do not know.
But it comes down to this: don't remake 'classics'. Why Gus Van Sant 'remade' 'Psycho' in color (stealing Hitchcock's camera shots) is beyond me. You leave classics alone. It's amazing how well the old 'Twilight Zone' episodes hold up after all these years.
The original story's ending, with Anthony suddenly making the world snow (thus ruining his father's crops) leaves Anthony's dad furious, but still having to say 'it's a good thing you made it snow'. This is terror. If television audiences in the sixties could handle a dark theme like this, why, some twenty years later, do movie audiences need a disingenuous 'happy' ending to the tale?
In another botched attempt at a classic 'Twilight Zone', 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' is all but destroyed by John Lithgow. Lithgow is a fine actor, but he is so wrong for the part that was played quite effectively by William Shatner. Shatner LOOKS sane, as he is a man just recovering from a nervous breakdown. Lithgow looks like a loose cannon, so it's not surprising to see him act like a lunatic. The upshot is that the story has been compromised, and once again Serling's original treatment still rings true.
If anything, this movie only makes true fans of the original 'Zone' series fondly remember the old episodes and possibly inspire them to buy 'Twilight Zone' DVDs of the original series.
I will not even discuss the terribly unfortunate filming of the Vic Morrow episode. Morrow literally lost his head (and his life) while making this silly story. It appears in his last roles, Morrow was type-cast as some sort of white supremacist. I happened to catch 'Humanoids From the Deep' (a hilarious horror film) in which Morrow is cast in pretty much the same part.
This is years before the emergence of 'Law and Order', in which many times minorities are made out to be the criminals, but in the last ten minutes, it is usually revealed that all of the evil came from some Caucasian character.
Of course, this is all part of the political correctness that has seeped into our lives since the seventies.
I love the old 'Twilight Zone' series. I hate this movie. Even the 'humorous' scenes with Danny Aykroyd and Albert Brooks fall flat. Best to stick with the black and white TV program.
The prime example of this is 'It's a Good Life', which I consider to be one of the best of the original 'Twilight Zone's. Based on an inventive short story by Jerome Bixby, it's a chilling story of a world ruled by one omnipotent child, Anthony Fremont (played perfectly in the original episode by talented child actor Billy Mumy).
The story poses a simple, terrifying premise: one child has wished away most of the United States, and most of the people wished away into 'the cornfield'. Anthony Fremont has the power of life and death, and you'd better not think bad things about him lest you wind up in 'the cornfield' (the burial ground for Anthony's victims).
Despite some clever visual effects in this new version, the story is all but undone by the addition of a teacher at the end of the tale, who is going to teach Anthony to use his powers for good, not evil. Apparently, the writer's felt the need to tack on some sort of happy ending to this story. Why this was done I do not know.
But it comes down to this: don't remake 'classics'. Why Gus Van Sant 'remade' 'Psycho' in color (stealing Hitchcock's camera shots) is beyond me. You leave classics alone. It's amazing how well the old 'Twilight Zone' episodes hold up after all these years.
The original story's ending, with Anthony suddenly making the world snow (thus ruining his father's crops) leaves Anthony's dad furious, but still having to say 'it's a good thing you made it snow'. This is terror. If television audiences in the sixties could handle a dark theme like this, why, some twenty years later, do movie audiences need a disingenuous 'happy' ending to the tale?
In another botched attempt at a classic 'Twilight Zone', 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' is all but destroyed by John Lithgow. Lithgow is a fine actor, but he is so wrong for the part that was played quite effectively by William Shatner. Shatner LOOKS sane, as he is a man just recovering from a nervous breakdown. Lithgow looks like a loose cannon, so it's not surprising to see him act like a lunatic. The upshot is that the story has been compromised, and once again Serling's original treatment still rings true.
If anything, this movie only makes true fans of the original 'Zone' series fondly remember the old episodes and possibly inspire them to buy 'Twilight Zone' DVDs of the original series.
I will not even discuss the terribly unfortunate filming of the Vic Morrow episode. Morrow literally lost his head (and his life) while making this silly story. It appears in his last roles, Morrow was type-cast as some sort of white supremacist. I happened to catch 'Humanoids From the Deep' (a hilarious horror film) in which Morrow is cast in pretty much the same part.
This is years before the emergence of 'Law and Order', in which many times minorities are made out to be the criminals, but in the last ten minutes, it is usually revealed that all of the evil came from some Caucasian character.
Of course, this is all part of the political correctness that has seeped into our lives since the seventies.
I love the old 'Twilight Zone' series. I hate this movie. Even the 'humorous' scenes with Danny Aykroyd and Albert Brooks fall flat. Best to stick with the black and white TV program.