Bad Movie Remakes are Gateway Drugs

I don't like watching bad movies. But sometimes you find a way to make them work to your advantage.

Example one: Wanted.

My sister-in-law got The DVD for Christmas and insisted I watch it with her since she found out it was based on a comic (me being a geek and all). In the spirit of giving, I decided to spend the next couple of hours biting my lip as she OOHed and AAAHed. When the movie ended, she asked what I thought. Without reply I went to my collection. I pulled my copy of Wanted from the shelf, brought it to her, and said: "I liked it better the first time".

She began reading and was hooked in minutes. She had go soon thereafter, so she asked to borrow my comic. (back in high school I would have thought she was coming on to me) The next day her husband rang me to say that the book was great. He'd read it too! Since Christmas I've loaned them The Dark Knight Returns, 300, and Watchmen.

Example Two: Remakes

Behind every bad remake, there is a history and fanbase which makes filming the remake financially plausible...Especially cartoon remakes.

We've seen it with Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, Inspector Gadget. Hell, they even dragged Rocky's and Bullwinkle's animated corpses out and gave them a dust-off. Dudley Do-Right , Mr Magoo, George of the Jungle. The commonality here? They're all gateways to the past. If you're a parent, like me, you're always looking for something that can link the time you grew up to your kids' time. Some kind of connection. Once my boys see a rancid remake of something i grew up with, there's an opportunity to take them aside and say" you know, i used to watch that cartoon as a kid".

It never fails to meet with amazement and disbelief. They once thought I was off my nut when I told them that I used to rush home from school to watch Transformers. Now? Well, now we have popcorn Fridays and watch the classics on Boomerang. And yes, I know that some of the originals are nearly as bad as the remakes. But it's our connection.

Maybe someday a friend will ask you to see a bad movie remake of a comic book you enjoyed or a cartoon you hold dear. And when he asks what you thought, you can say, "I liked it the first time."