infinite1 wrote:
GaryP11111 wrote:
I've wondered if a Frankenstein cable series might work along the lines of The Fugitive or Kung Fu in the sense of having the monster searching for his humanity in his encounters with humans, perhaps with his creator pursuing him. The following week it might be the Wolf Man searching for a cure or his own death. The next week it is a reincarnated Kharis searching for his Ananka. Dracula would be searching, well, for more blood with Van Helsing in pursuit. This would sort of work like the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie that rotated McCloud, McMillan & Wife, Columbo and Hec Ramsey.

Somehow I just can't picture the Frankenstein monsterĀ as a kung fu fighter or on an endless search for a one-armed man who killed his bride.




I didn't mean a literal immersion of the Frankenstein monster into those two shows' story lines. I meant the Frankenstein monster as a wanderer, more or less what he was in Mary Shelley's novel.

Anyhow, the monsters can be successfully updated. Universal can maintain and yet refresh their iconic look, their personas, etc., while updating other aspects--how they move, how they clash with their victims or each other, how they kill. It always bothered me that Universal's original Wolf Man was never as agile as Paramount's '31 Hyde. That can be easily rectified today. I understand that Rick Baker once designed an updated Creature from the Black Lagoon that was easily recognizable as the original and yet it was somewhat modernized and streamlined. That's the right approach to take.

Universal's remake, THE WOLFMAN, got a lot wrong. But it got some things right. The Shakespearian father-son relationship (more emphasized in the DVD release than in the theatrical release) was a masterstroke but required a deft scribe to pull it off. Talbot became Prince Hamlet confronting not his father, but rather the horror of the "father" murdered by the "Uncle Claudius" beast inside.

As a killing machine the new wolfman was impressive, but Universal took a good thing too far when they gave him video game super-abilities. I rolled my eyes when the werewolf tore through the gypsy camp and assembled hunters, taking limbs and throats like, well, a wolfnado. But contrast that over-the-top carnage to the point when the wolfman pursues a hunter into a bog, forcing the hunter to put his gun to his own temple to escape a brutal death. When the hammer of the gun strikes the empty chamber and the hunter comes face to face with his inevitable fate, I thought that moment was as fine as anything in Universal's original. I think the biggest mistake in the remake was having Larry Talbot start out as a rather morose character who simply became more morose and tragic. Chaney's original Talbot evoked much more pathos because his character arc went from charming, hopeful, happy-go-lucky Americanized Brit to a sorrowful soul facing the monster inside him.

Universal simply needs to find the right combination of writer and director. They already have access to the heir to Jack Pierce in Rick Baker. But they'll never regroup and and successfully empower their stable of classic monsters with new life until they hand over the task to filmmakers who understand what made the original monsters classic in the first place.



GARY L. PRANGE
I'm not all bad, just mostly.

"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc."