We’ve had our differences with Seth Grahame-Smith here at the ZRC; his ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ novel kickstarted the truly unfortunate trend of ‘Put Zombies Into Anything, Especially Public Domain Works No One Owns Anymore’ Trend. (Aka: the Zombie Flavored Creativity Substitute).

Don’t get us wrong; a thoughtful Zombified remake of a classic work can, at least in theory, reveal nuances and explore ideas that would go unnoticed in the original presentation, and for various reasons both historical and prejudiced, Zombies are tragically underrepresented in the Classics.

Still, perhaps those poor souls out there still unmoved by the plight of the Differently Animated will see Mr. Grahame-Smith’s apparent madness for rehash for what it is with this news:

Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice is one of the world’s most perfect movies, but does it really need an installment? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith apparently thinks so, and he’s developing a new version with his producing partner David Katzenberg (son of Jeff).

Yes, it’s a ‘reboot’, aka a remake, aka ‘When Hollywood has no new ideas’.

I dislike remakes, on the whole. It’s almost infinitely more interesting for me to see something new than, at best, a competent refashioning of an old idea. Isn’t that the case with most people? Even if, hypothetically, you can improve the original work, it’s still not a new thought, not a new idea. What drives creative people to stop thinking for themselves and start reaching for something that’s already been done?

If I knew the answer to that question I’d be able to explain a whooooooooole lot of direct to DVD Zombie-Exploitation movies.

I suppose Zombies might have been the canaries in the coal mine, and looking back ten years from now, our culture a blasted heath of innumerable retreads and not one original concept, we will raise our fists to the sky and demand of a God who has surely abandoned us to a well-deserved fate, ‘Why?! Why, Seth Grahame-Smith, why?’

Tags: Movies, Zombie Flavored Creativity Substitute

This entry was posted by John Sears on Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 10:39 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.