LeJackal posted:

I'll just collect some of the things I said in the other thread.

This is a PG-13 focus-group tested slickified 'safe bet' remake of a popular franchise from the past loaded with nostalgia that pretty much ensures the exclusion of:

A) Any form of intellectual exercise, including difficult questions on the nature of identity and the process of death, the machinations of corporatism and subsumation of the individual, or the quintessential struggle for humanity to separate the self from technology.
B) Any visceral or 'gory' visuals that would shock the viewer into a state of mental/emotional vulnerability that would allow for penetrating observations or reflections on a number of topics or that would add a sense of realism to ground the fantastic elements.

In short, the film promises to be sterile and impotent both visually and intellectually - the exact opposite of Cronenberg, who has always sought to push the limits of the essential question; Who am I? Either by questioning the boundaries of the body and its uselessness as a border of self, or the mental/emotional aspect of identity which is even more malleable and less reliable than flesh, Cronenberg would seem to be the antithesis of the presented film in scope and depth.



This is an idiot in a plastic open-face balaclava. Notice how he looks like a dude at a costume party.


This is the remains of a human corpse wedged into a cradle of silicon and steel, a dead man's face mockingly affixed to its front. Notice how this closely resembles more a golem than a man and highlights the nightmarish waking death that has befallen the souless shade of Peter Murphy.

(Really, the makeup effect they used in the original made it look as though OCP literally harvested his face and strapped it on as something close to an afterthought. It really struck me, and still does, as representing the thin veneer of false humanity they wished to slap on for the sake of some PR intern.)