Round 1:
LK: I like the original version of VOTD better than the re-make, not just because it's a better film (although I think it is), but because the re-make is so disappointing. It's just completely a film of lost opportunities. I can see why John Carpenter was attracted to the idea of re-making it: like The Thing, it's a story full of ideas that could do with an update.
The problem is, it never really deals with any of them. For example, I make the point in my review that these days, the story of VOTD is particularly resonant because of this prevailing social notion of "protecting the children". (As Helen Lovejoy would put it - "Won't somebody please think of the children!"). So how does a society bent on protecting the children react when the problem is the children? We don't find out.
And also, the film does bring up the question of abortion, which the original wasn't allowed to; but having done so, it then gets cold feet and backs away from the issue again - although having the embryos "will" their mothers into going through with the pregnancies was a clever way of doing it.
CD: To sum up my review of John Carpenter's version, I think it felt incomplete, like a vanilla sundae without any toppings (hmmm...vanilla sundae...). The plot just jumps forward without any thoughts as to the story's implications or stopping for any real characterization.
Also it seems,
especially after watching the original, that Carpenter's Midwich
has a population perpetually in flux. The population seems to be booming at the
fair, then down to a handful at the church, and then big enough to produce a
healthy, angry mob towards the end. I'm not exactly sure why, but I had an
easier time accepting the Midwich of the original as
a real community. The Midwich of the remake seems to
have an existence as consistent as that of
LK: So many of the minor characters were completely undeveloped. What was meant to be going on with the girl, Melanie? And what about the minister and his wife? We never for a moment see them attempting to deal with their situation - what effect it has on their faith, for instance. We just go from beaming parents at the christening to shotgun- and torch-carrying psychos.
And really, that's the big problem with the Carpenter version: we never really get to know any of the characters. We see what they do, but we've got no idea how their minds are working.
The other thing that bugged me was the depiction of the town in the first place - all lovey-dovey, and everyone likes everyone else--- Gimme a break! And the reaction of the parents to the birth of the children - everyone excited and happy and thrilled - come on!! I guess the kids may have "willed" that reaction, but we don't know that was the case. I think the original film, with all the rabidly angry men and frightened women, was much more honest and realistic.
On the other hand, I thought that the opening sequence of the re-make was very well done. Then again - that part of the story is so powerful, it's pretty much foolproof. And of course, it's quite likely that such a blackout would result in a few gruesome deaths. (Not an excuse for gross-out scenes - not at all!)
CD: I thought the blackout sequence from the re-make was one of the better parts of the movie myself, but I thought the original's approach was better simply because of its subtlety. The sight of a man being grilled to death, while definitely more gruesome, was less creepy than simply seeing a woman collapsed next to an unattended, skipping record.
The other big advantage the original has that I can think of is the character of Gordon (George Sanders). It's always fun seeing the British ideal of a hero - a man of intellect, especially in a story such as this. While there's nothing wrong with the American "everyman" hero, he just didn't fit into a story like VOTD (even if he would go around blowing things up).
It was also great that in the original
there's some ambiguity about Gordon's actions, something that's completely
lacking in the re-make. Is it ethical to end the existence of something strange
and new simply because it seems to pose a threat? How far should scientific
curiosity be satisfied? While George's sacrifice at the end seems to answer
these questions, it is refreshing to have a protagonist
for once who doesn't have the words "UNQUESTIONABLE HERO" tattooed to
his forehead.
LK: The thing I found most annoying about the re-make (and this is a subject I flog to death in my review) is the dividing of the central character, George Sanders' character, into the "emotional" (Alan/Christopher Reeve) and the "intellectual" (Susan/Kirstie Alley). One of the main points of the original is Gordon Zellaby's belief that because the children think, they must also feel; but here we fall back on the old fifties SF trope about the "evils" of intellect, and how "intelligence" and "emotion" and/or "morals" are mutually exclusive.
And why do the children trust Alan anyway? It's not like he likes/is fascinated by them, and it's certainly not because he's not scared of them!
CD: This is one of the many, many things that just made more sense in the original. There, Gordon was the closest thing the kids had to an intellectual equal, so naturally they tolerated him more than the other adults. I suppose that this is just another case of CSSS ('Cuz the Script Said So).
LK: “Tolerate him” is probably just what the children are doing – although Gordon may well think otherwise; he thinks they consider him their equal, perhaps even their superior; that’s his mistake, a moment of dangerous hubris. And that in turn goes back to what you were saying about Gordon as ambiguous hero.
Susan, on the other hand, is just plain EE-vil – being a scientist.
CD: That, and she wears black constantly, just to make it clear. What did you think of Kirstie cast as a villain? I just kept thinking, "Rebecca from Cheers is back...and this time, it's personal!"
LK: I found Kirstie's performance a bit hard to judge. I wish she'd put down that damn cigarette, just once!! Her performance is okay, I think, but the character wasn't particularly well written. They kept making her come across like the "colonies" were going to turn out to be yet another EE-vil Guv'mint Experiment, all "I know but I'm not telling". They'd've been better keeping her a bit more like Gordon/George - fascinated to the point of danger. Also, how could she possibly be stupid enough to keep the alien autopsy where the kids could find it?? Come on!
CD: I was wondering about that too. Why keep the alien body RIGHT IN THE TOWN? What purpose did it serve when it could have been sent to Sp00kville or wherever and studied? In the movie it only seemed to be used as a paperweight!
I wanted to discuss in particular, though, Susan and Mara. Apparently with both of them Carpenter was making a really strange attempt to "feminize" the story. But how flattering and progressive can this attempt be when the two female characters you focus on in the story are unsympathetic and, to use your term, "EE-vil?" Sure, it might be refreshing in a way, since the only other prominent female character in this story is David's mother, Jill (Linda Kozlowski), who doesn't really get to do anything until the closing sequence. Then again, look at the fact that Susan and Mara are both EE-vil primarily because they're devoted to cold rationality while Jill is heroic since she puts her maternal instinct over reason (and reason should dictate that taking in an immensely powerful telepathic alien child programmed with potentially genocidal directives is a tremendously Bad Idea). So much for progress. Maybe they were trying for something different, since they went through a lot of revision to make Mara, not David, the group ringleader and central antagonist, but that's all I could get out of it.
LK: Yes, strange attempt to "feminize", wasn't it!? All females are EE-vil unless they're mothers. How progressive of you, John!
It's interesting to me how much less important, less idealised "Mother" (ad infinitum) was in the earlier version - poor Anthea's just pushed aside at all turns. Of course, you could argue that that was simply part of the overall marginalisation of women in that version, rather than because of any kind of agenda.
CD: I wasn't quite sure what to make of Anthea. I didn't see her so much as marginalized, but that's probably because I was somewhat annoyed with the "heroic matron" archetype Carpenter shoved down our throats in the remake. She didn't do much in the story except fret, though, but I did kind of like the scene where she realizes what George is planning.
LK: One place where both films fell down is that neither of them is ever about the impregnated women! To an extent, I think the re-make handles this better, because we do at least spend some time with Jill; but then it brings in this wimpy notion of how her kid really does have emotions. I'm sorry, but that's a total cop-out. These kids don't have emotions because they can't have emotions. After all, someone born without eyes doesn't suddenly develop the ability to see, just because the people around him keep telling what a good thing it would be!
CD: I agree that the
pregnant women don't receive enough attention, especially given the uniqueness
of their case. I guess you can explain this away by saying more time is needed
to be spent on the children (which makes me wonder if the original novel, free
from the time constraints of the film, does spend more time and energy on the
pregnancy, or glosses over it as the films do), but even then the children
don't receive that much attention. The original is far less guilty of this than
the remake. The original has that interesting scene where the children drop by
the store and call the shopkeeper (with an eerie politeness) on her fear of
them. Yet I felt that even in the original not a lot of detail is given to the
community's reactions to the children. We find out what the military and Gordon
feel, but, outside of that one shopkeeper and the angry villagers later on,
there doesn't seem to be much of a general reaction to the children.
I also liked the fact that the children were painted with a little ambiguity.
The children actually restrain themselves from inflicting harm at a couple of
points, while we're left wondering if the children's objective was merely
survival or something far more sinister. In the remake, there's just David
"the one capable of sympathy" against Mara, "the uber-bitch," with the other children as just cannon
fodder.
LK: It's been a long time since I read the novel, but I have a vague idea that it is terribly masculine as well. Also, I don't think the children had a leader - they were more like a homogeneous mass. I think David's character was developed so some ideas that were only described in the book would have a mouthpiece. (Which was well done, because David never feels like a "inserted" character. Of course, Martin Stephens' performance is quite wonderful. Scary little bastard!)
Those scenes of David waving his mother away and going into conference with his father are damned freaky.
I'm glad you pointed out that scene in the shop - that's an intriguing touch, isn't it, that they (rather kindly, actually) offer to send someone else in the future (someone human, we infer - Anthea?). At the risk of re-writing the story, what needed to happen was for the kids to be taken away somewhere were they weren't facing constant fear and hostility, and being provoked. Might have been interesting....
And actually - I never got the impression that the Carpenter kids with
"unemotional". They come across more as sadistic little bastards!
CD: David was really a far more effective antagonist than Mara was. Not only were some of his actions more ambiguous (and let's not forget he actually told his pals not to put the hoodoo on a gang of town bullies), but he was simply portrayed with more complexity. I guess that shows that just because your character is an emotionless superhuman entity doesn't mean you can't write him or act him with a little depth.
LK: I say in my review that the original version is about ten minutes too short, and while I'm specifically referring to the lack of "women's issues" :), I think the other thing that's missing is Gordon trying to reach the kids on a moral level. Obviously he does try it, but we don't see it. On the other hand, in the re-make we have Alan going straight into "Let's talk about the soul". Sigh.
CD: Oh man, that was really unsubtle. I think it might have worked better if we saw Alan anguish over his decision to kack the kids, but, other than trying rather pathetically to send David "the good one" away, he doesn't.
LK: I guess you could say that Alan is interested in trying to find out how human the kids are, and Gordon is interested in trying to find out how inhuman!
Well - overall, we seem to be very much in agreement on these two films. How dull for our readers! Next time we'll have to find two films we're in violent dispute over!
CD: We can try. Maybe if you're willing to argue that my cinematic
LK: Heh! Pass, sorry.