Years ago, when the brains behind the Karate Kid movies decided it’d be a fine idea to just replace Ralph Macchio with Hilary Swank and see what happens, well that was the moment our childhood ended.
Up until then our chief method for falling asleep at night was to lay there with our eyes closed and sweetly picture Daniel-san kicking Johnny in the teeth. After that we’d always picture him arm-whipping the bad guy from Okinawa to death, and after that we always pictured him literally biting the head off of whoever was the bad guy in Karate Kid III.
That’s not actually how the third one ended, likely due to faulty scriptwriting.
But if you thought it was bad when swank donned Mr. Miagi‘s karate school patch, well it’s about to get worse. Will Smith‘s kid – whatever his name is – is all set to star in a Karate Kid remake. We don’t know, maybe we’ll try falling asleep to the mental imagery of that little kid beating people up… but that seems like a pretty slippery slope if you catch our meaning.
Stupid Hollywood has been in remake mode of late. George Clooney‘s doing the Birds, an all new 90210 has recently been crammed down our necks with promises that Melrose Place will soon follow, and Denzel Washington is going to star in a scene by scene live-action duplicate of Wall-E.
A bit soon for that one, don’t you all think?
Yeah, that’s not true. Another remake stumbling forward through a very congested Hollywood pipeline is the Karate Kid. It’s supposed to be the exact same movie except Jada Pinkett Smith stars as Ralph Macchio. They’ve hired the same kid to play Johnny, Elizabeth Shue will be reprising her role, and the corpse of Pat Morita will be re-animated by multiple string-yanking puppeteers and a voice over.
What’s that now? It’s not Pinkett-Smith? Its her kid? Come again? Help us understand, Variety.com:
“Columbia Pictures is back in the dojo with a new version of the 1984 hit “The Karate Kid,” which has been refashioned as a star vehicle for Jaden Smith…The script is being written by Chris Murphy, and the film will shoot next year in Beijing and other cities. While the new film will be set in that exotic locale, it will borrow elements of the original plot, wherein a bullied youth learns to stand up for himself with the help of an eccentric mentor.”
Well it sounds like it’ll be a fine movie as long as we don’t have to watch it. But you should all know that we don’t think its completely pointless. We have some recommended ways to make it really good. For instance, if you’re already borrowing from Karate Kid, why not rape some other classics as well.
They should include the scene where Dorothy‘s house crushes that wicked witch, that’d probably be good. And that scene where Scarface is spitting bullets while mumbling something about greeting his gun, that would be a solid inclusion too. Throw in a part where Willow makes the baby disappear, a scene where Chunk loves Sloth, and maybe a Care Bear-stare or two – and you’ve got yourself a film for the ages.
Way to go Jaden Smith. That’s quite an impressive future resume.
basheer says
very good