Dam Busters is a classically British story about an untested idea seen through with typical wartime derring-do and stiff upper lip-ness. Or at least it was before Peter Jackson decided to have a crack at it.
That's right; Peter Jackson of Lord Of The Rings and King Kong fame is going to remake legendary British WWII movie Dam Busters. However, Peter Jackson won't be directing the Dam Busters remake, only producing it, which upsets us greatly. Will our dream of seeing a Peter Jackson-directed 900-hour-long version of Dam Busters shot entirely in the mountains of New Zealand from a script written solely in Elvish with giant penis monsters instead of bombs and a soundtrack by Enya ever come true?
On the surface, you may think that a remake of a timeless movie like Dam Busters is completely superfluous to anybody's needs, but you'd be wrong; the original Dam Busters movie is 52 years old now, the book it was based on is 55 years old and the actual event the book was written about – Operation Chastise – happened 63 years ago. Think of the technological advances that have happened between now and then that will make Peter Jackson's Dam Busters even more realistic. Even if the only change Peter Jackson makes is to call the dog in it something other than Nigger it'll be an improvement, let's face it.
But that's not all; King Kong director Peter Jackson has his own, actually quite sensible, reasons for wanting to remake Dam Busters – or Dambusters as he's insisting on calling it – the British Official Secrets Act stomped all over the original movie:
“So much of it was still secret. They weren’t allowed to show the bomb itself and had to create a fictionalised bomb. We also want to include a lot more about the development of the bomb. Barnes Wallis [who invented the bouncing bomb] had to overcome incredible bureaucratic hurdles to get the bomb taken seriously. It was seen as a crackpot, vaguely nutty idea. The RAF, as were all defence departments, was always being approached by eccentrics claiming they had the weapon to end the war. But he persevered. [the original movie] had to be polite, but in reality he was up against a lot more stringent opposition than was shown.”
For instance the Official Secrets Act has, until now, withheld information about the 90-minute machine-gun fight that Barnes Wallis had with a battalion of fire-breathing goblin dinosaurs on the way to the RAF base and the way that he, after having his idea rejected first time round, went on the rampage through the streets of London, flinging bus after bus at Big Ben and other landmarks with nothing more than his bare hands.
However, Dam Busters – about the creation and implementation of a bomb which could destroy German dams by being dropped from a low height and bounced across the water into them – will not be directed by Peter Jackson. Instead, Christian Rivers – the Oscar-winning art director for King Kong – will take up the mantle while Peter Jackson produces, repeating his role on the Halo movie.
Of course, it could have been worse. For a while Mel Gibson was genuinely attached to direct the Dam Busters remake, although it's though that his idea of turning the bouncing bomb on all the fucking Jews didn't go down well at an early script development meeting.
Read more:
Dam Busters bounce back with Lord Of The Rings at the controls – Times
[story by Stuart Heritage]
Dave says
Calling the dog ‘nigger’? It’s name was ‘niger’ and is french for black. I don’t see the racism in that?
This is NOT just any old film, it is part of our heritage and as with all historical facts should remain just that!
pc correctness gone bonkers..
Bill Campbell says
How about calling the dog “Foo Foo” and make it a poodle.
Get off the politically correct high horse. Guy Gibson’s dog was a black Labrador Retriever and was named “Nigger”.
Mark Glover says
Black characters in films like “Pulp Fiction” can call each other “nigger” in a film, but heaven forbid a white character should do so – even when they’re not refering to a black person, but a dog, and using it as a code word!
This story should be told the way it happened. Political correctness be buggered.