First, it’s been forever and a day since the last time I saw the original, and so the news that Hollywood is remaking this classic is both exciting and terrifying. While the trailer looks gorgeous, it could turn into another of those films that is only that (i.e. like Transformers 2). We’ll see if they turn it into something more than just another flashy action flick with no point.
Here’s the trailer:
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin: OK, let’s get to it. Enjoy!
We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
Dr. Shaun Duke © 2010 - 2025. All Rights Reserved.
2 Responses
Are you kidding? That doesn't even look like a "remake". That looks like a completely different movie they decided to call "Clash of the Titans" to cash in on our uncontrollable and illogical nostalgia, which we as a culture frankly need to reign in if we ever want to see any part of any entertainment industry progress at a decent pace again.
This trailer looks like The Mummy meets 300. Yes, it will be plotless save for the "clever" but not accurate uses of historical/mythical devices. And all characters be able to move in slow motion and perform amazing feats of violence. And they'll all be one-dimensional. Every movement will make an ear-shattering sound and the scenery will be either bleached out or overly color-saturated.
That all might even be fun and a "thrill ride" if it wasn't for the fact that we haven't gotten ANY other kind of adventure movie in years. I might bother with this through Netflix when the time comes, but come on – how does this trailer make the movie look remotely appealing? Especially if you're a fan of the original? Does it even seem connected besides the vague-ish time period it takes place in?
Dave: It looks pretty. That's all I'm going on. It'll probably suck, but the trailer has me curious. Granted, the original movie wasn't all that great either. There aren't a lot of adventure movies, even good ones, that have three-dimensional characters.
The problem, Dave, is that people like this stuff. You might not, but most people do. I hate most of the movies being made these days. They're not worth the $10 to go to the theater to seem them for me. I likely won't see this movie in theaters anyway (I haven't gone to the movies in almost four months). But, it looks pretty, and pretty is nice.