CG Tom & Jerry, Yogi Bear & Jetsons?

[frogboy4]

Variety reports that WB wants Chipmunk-like success with the Tom & Jerry property. Also there are plans for Yogi Bear and a Jetsons picture helmed by Spy Kids and Sin City director Robert Rodriguez. No word on the Smurfs film that is due out in the next year or so.

Remakes of familiar properties are a fact of life. There's no stopping them because they do have an instant audience that will show up on opening day. I just hope the quality will live up to the status of the beloved icons. I also hope they don't have Tom & Jerry talk like they've been doing in their last few projects. Ugh!

Any thoughts? I'm partial to the idea of a Snagglepuss Movie even!

 

[Telly]

Oh My God I Lov Snagglepuss!

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Yeah, I just heard about the Tom & Jerry one. But what you said... I hope they live up to there name.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Oh dear frog! *facepalm*

Why must they take perfectly good cartoons and kill them with CGI?

 

[Drtooth]

Remakes of familiar properties are a fact of life. There's no stopping them because they do have an instant audience that will show up on opening day. I just hope the quality will live up to the status of the beloved icons. I also hope they don't have Tom & Jerry talk like they've been doing in their last few projects. Ugh!

Hey, have you seen Tom and Jerry Tales yet? I highly recommend that series. It does more justice to the old Tom and Jerry cartoons than any other television version... even the Hanna Barbera produced "The Tom and Jerry, but Mostly Grape Ape and Muttley...errr... Mumbly Show." It's not quite up to the originals, but they don't talk, they aren't friends... and the overall TV toning down the violence didn't ruin the project. Of course, second season is where the show really took off, but it was only 2 seasons.

All I can say is this... Anything they do in a Tom and Jerry movie couldn't possibly be worse than making them friends, and shoving them into an uninspired Rescuers/All Dogs Go to Heaven clone.

 

[chrisfason]

yeesh, these kinds of news bits slowly work to chip away at my childhood. yes, there's nothing new under the sun, but most efforts to bring back or "revitalize" properties from the past are half-hearted at best. i do, however, have faith in rodriguez as he's usually pretty loyal to the heart of the source material. i don't mind something looking new or shiny for today's audience but please, for the love of all that is holy, have an understanding of the heart and soul of the original material and what made it great in the first place!

:crosses fingers:

 

[Drtooth]

yeesh, these kinds of news bits slowly work to chip away at my childhood. yes, there's nothing new under the sun, but most efforts to bring back or "revitalize" properties from the past are half-hearted at best. i do, however, have faith in rodriguez as he's usually pretty loyal to the heart of the source material. i don't mind something looking new or shiny for today's audience but please, for the love of all that is holy, have an understanding of the heart and soul of the original material and what made it great in the first place!

No matter how close or far away from the projects they get, they always yield the same results. It's always a massive failure. heck, people even hated the Popeye movie, and that was closer to the original Thimble Theater Popeye than any of his post Fleischer cartoons ever were.

Let's look at Rocky and Bullwinkle... now, they did their research to the point they even sang the Pottsylvanian anthem that was only used once in an episode during the first story arc. Boris and Natasha were perfectly cast, and we had June Foray reprising her role as Rocky, while a veteran voice actor and Jay Ward historian took on Bullwinkle, Fearless Leader, Boris, and the Narrator.... but by adding a female agent, they blew the whole thing. I still love it, and it was close to the show without having the movie break into segments (which was a huge mistake, but then again, how would they be able to?)

And now look at Underdog... little research into the subject matter, they took all that was unique about the series, and stripped it away to make Disney's 2 times a year Talking Dog feature. A Miscast mish mash that tanked at the box office, and made the fan base ticked off. I remember cartoon writer Paul Dini had a scathing critique of it. And it was to the letter accurate.

Sure, the first Flintstone movie did pretty well, and the Alvin and the Chipmunks film was a surprise hit (could it have anything to do with the Christmas Song tie in? Hmmm?) but for the most part, these do nothing at the box office, and the ones that even get buzz enough for merchandise... well, they flop AND they have millions of little toys on the shelves no one will ever buy... trust me, seeing CVS pretty much give away the Bullwinkle Bean Bags crushed me.

That said, they've been banging down the doors of a Jetsons film for years now. Ever since the Flintstones. There was even a script being kicked around by the people that wrote the Andy Kaufman bioflick "Man on the Moon" in 97. I wonder if this is ever going to happen at all, and if this is the one they actually get made. It reminds me of how they planned a Wacky Races movie as soon as Flintstones came out (with Dustin Hoffman as Dick Dasdardly- if you watch his performance in Hook, he would have been perfect for the role).... nothing happened after that.

 

[chrisfason]

i agree. the sole reason to do these types of remakes or whatever people want to call them, is the all-mighty dollar. i've tried and come very close to selling a property for tv / film development in hollywood, and the fact is that production companies don't want to shell out the money to secure an unknown property. they'd rather butcher something that people have cherished for generations and produce a crap project in order to buy a new masion.

in neil gaiman's short story collection "smoke and mirrors", there's a story "the goldfish pool and other stories" that might as well be non-fiction in the way it portrays the development of a book to film. it starts out nice in that everyone is in love with the book but meeting after meeting elicits small changes, agents come and go to the project until a book about the children of charlie manson is turned into something resembling wes craven's "shocker" movie from the late 80's.

it's just sad.

 

[Drtooth]

i agree. the sole reason to do these types of remakes or whatever people want to call them, is the all-mighty dollar. i've tried and come very close to selling a property for tv / film development in hollywood, and the fact is that production companies don't want to shell out the money to secure an unknown property. they'd rather butcher something that people have cherished for generations and produce a crap project in order to buy a new masion.

I would agree with you up until the part about making money... these things cost more money to make than they take in. So it's like a double, what's the point I must say...

I can take a project like it if it's well done. Personally, I loved George of the Jungle... while not 100% accurate to the TV show, it was very much in the same spirit, right down to characters arguing with the narrator, and people saying the wrong word and the narrator correcting them. Fat Albert, I felt was a fine production, making it an enjoyable movie. And considering Cosby never actually wrote the TV show himself, it was great that he wrote the script... the ending even almost made me cry...

I'm looking forward to the Jetsons, as long as it's done right. It's been so long since they've got a decent project for those guys going. Even the animated movie from 1990 flopped... I liked it and everything, but replacing Janet Waldo with some at the moment pop sensation was a huge mistake on their part. Plus, half the cast passed away while they were making it. There is a very heart breaking story about the guy who played George Jetson that I don't want to go into.

As long as they don't get as bad and cheaply made as Underdog, I think they'll be alright. I actually think the idea of a live action Tom and Jerry like cartoon thing movie has merit.... if they take a real mouse and a real cat, and just use the CGI to enhance them, that would be very interesting. Yogi, however... nahhh... it has some potential, if they did it more Roger Rabbit style with an actual cartoon Yogi...

 

[Oscarfan]

I still want to hear more about the upcoming Marvin the Martian movie.