Save the Green Planet - Yorgos Lanthimos

Hot off the success of Poor Things, Lanthimos is up to his next cinematic adventure

I've seen the original South Korean movie. It's gross, disturbing, audacious, outrageous, darkly funny; in other words, well within Lanthimos's wheelhouse.

For those who are interested, the original movie is streaming on Kanopy

The movie is now called Bugonia - but it's still a remake of Save the Green Planet

Directors are wasting their time remaking non-English language films. Especially films that are already great.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

*pearl-clutching intensifies*

I’m not clutching pearls, I’m mourning the loss of originality.

Get real. By your logic, neither the 1939 Wizard of Oz or 1941's The Maltese Falcon should have been made.

I literally read some of the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page for this, and then I see this immediately on the front page of MF. And since I'm finishing Magnolia, a movie about odd coincidences, I'm interpreting this as a sign.

"It is written, then!"

Is Save the Green Planet! an adaptation of a book?

EDIT:

Yeah, and both your examples are films adapted from books. There's a difference between adapting a book (i.e. (re-)adapting a work originally made in another medium) and remaking a film (i.e. creating a remake of an earlier production in the same medium).

If you look really hard, I'm sure you'll find at least one example of a remake that is a decent film, but this doesn't preclude the idea that remaking films is usually a waste of time and a highly creative-less endeavor. One exception for this I can see is directors remaking their own films. As auteurs of the originals, they have full moral and factual right to remake their original work. This often (but not always!) ends up with the remake being better than the previous version (think Ozu and Hitch).

Of course, there's a whole quasi-philosophical discussion to be had about this, and I'm sure you, Crumbs, and Yoda would absolutely love to jump on it, coming up with arguments such as that creating a remake is a sign of respect for the original work (I'd say it's also a sign of wanting to make easy money off the original work) or that throughout history people copied stories with only little changes and that this is a sign of the power of the original story (I'd say redistributing film and remaking film are two different things and there's usually little point in remaking something great - I disagree that "more people will see it" is a good reason, just make the original more popular and make people see it!).

Geez, just don't buy a ticket then, stay home and clutch those pearls a little tighter

That’s a cop-out, and you know it. We all have the right to express our concerns and opinions. Dismissing them doesn’t make them any less valid.

You’re free not to engage in the discussion, but dismissing somebody’s viewpoint outright and resorting to sarcasm is not conducive to a healthy dialogue. Of course, you're free to do it and play around the forum in a facetious way. I have no problem with it.

I only wish you could understand that most of my opinions about cinema do not come from a position of ostentatious pearl-clutching you allude to, but are rather based on a genuine love for the art form and a desire to fight against misinformation and bad practices to preserve accuracy and integrity in the world of film. My wish is to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of cinema, also by promoting the best ways in which one can engage with films.

Then you're doing a lousy job of it. I think something like 90% of everything you post is all about the things you don't like. You don't think that gets old fast?

If you don't want to watch this remake, don't. Yorgos is a very talented filmmaker and even if I don't love everything he does, I still look forward to his next films.

To be truly open to artistic expression, you have to at least have an open mind....

Even if that's true, this only proves my point. By showing what I dislike and what I think shouldn't be done within the realm of cinema and film-watching, I'm sketching a more-or-less coherent image of what dignified cinephilia should look like. I'm pretty sure I do post about stuff I like, too, and I always respond to people's questions about whether I liked something. Even more salient is the fact many people assume I dislike something and then find out I actually do like that film. The recent exchange with AgrippinaX in the Shoutbox about The Shining is just one example of this.

I don't think my point was that somebody forced me to watch this remake. But, as I mentioned earlier, a cinephile has standards and merely voicing them is far from engaging in some sort of pearl-clutching or whatever you accuse me of. If you love something very much, you also have a small dose or group of things you hate or do not approve of within that something. I believe that I'm one of the least strict cinephiles, but that doesn't mean I cannot be discerning.

If you think Yorgos is talented, then the point that he should be making his own original work instead of resorting to remakes should resonate with you even more..

I could risk an educated guess that I'm more open-minded in terms of film than 99% of members here.

Ever accidentally watch a porn movie just to say it's a really bad movie? Ever educate yourself on the truly worst movies ever made as opposed to Razzie noms? Ever sift through the deeper cuts of finer directors like Corbucci just to find some hidden western or peplum gems? How about literally studying Coppola's history before watching his semi-autobiographical Tetro? And this is only speaking for myself. I'm sure many other users here are doing more than just going through our own list challenges or any edition of a Sight and Sound poll.



I think the real issue here is that you're at least partially comforted or even entertained by your own negative outlook, as a negative outlook is a often form of protection against something or other, either stemming from disappointment at certain careless people or of one's own experiences. Whether this stems from a worry that optimism looks foolish in the world of careful critiquing or whether or not the idea of an argument as opposed to a discussion entertains you is for you to find out for yourself, but being highly negative most of the time is not only unfair to those who deserve a shot at future projects but to yourself as "negative" and "careful" are often mistaken for the same thing, and can lead to misconceptions as easily as positive outlooks. If this is about openmindedness, then it's best to balance out mentioning the positive and the negative as multiple angles are oftentimes what makes for the best outcomes and even the best movies, a la Magnolia.

Sure, I never claimed there are no MoFos who watch many different films. I claimed that my choices are probably EVEN MORE eclectic. But this is beside the point anyway, as it was a response to a very precise thing FilmBuff was trying to say. Namely, that I'm allegedly not open-minded because I dislike some contemporary remakes, or contemporary movies in general.

I don't think it's comforting. I wish I could say something else about many films I criticize, but that would be insincere. Maybe I'm leaning way too much toward bashing films versus praising them, but if that's true, this is only because most of the stuff I see that requires some sort of reply is something I disagree with/dislike. Nevertheless, I sometimes stay quiet about films or opinions I agree with, as I see little point in saying something like "I agree" or "You're right".

I don't mind if people take my actual or alleged careful assessments/opinions as negative responses. I'm here and if need be, I'm generally happy to elaborate on my hot takes posted in between watching two movies. That being said, I don't think I owe anybody any sort of positivity or a well-rounded, balanced outlook on the films/topics that are mainly discussed here. The world of cinema, like any other art form, is not immune to mediocrity, crap, wrong actions, and manipulation. Therefore, it’s crucial for us as film lovers to be able to tell what is good and what isn't, what looks good and what doesn't, what is seemly to do and what isn't, and so on.

This is not always possible or even the right thing to do. There are films or ideas of what cinema should be that can be simply unacceptable to somebody in one way or another. Finding good things in bad films is something I excel at, as I mentioned in my thread called something along the lines of "I don't know how to hate films". But... sometimes one should stand by one's opinion and convictions and just express the negativity. As I said, loving something means you are opinionated enough to have some things that you hate about/in that thing.

I never said you owed positivity to the users here. But if it becomes habitual, and even personal, then don't you think you owe yourself a little more positivity?

I think it goes beyond "positivity" - it's more that when someone pretends to know a lot about something but continuously makes it clear they don't, you know you shouldn't take them seriously.

I've been a dedicated film buff since the late 80s and have seen almost everything that's been made since then... I would consider maybe only 3% or less of the movie I've watched were truly good or memorable, and even less quality as really, really cool. But what makes them even more precious to me is the fact that for every one of those pretty good or better movies, I must have watched hundreds of forgettable ones and even more mediocre ones.

To be a real film connoisseur, you must be able to have the patience to go through hundreds or even thousands of movies in order to find the ones that are truly outstanding to you (and your choices may be different from others, of course)

Not understanding that the overwhelming majority of movies you're going to watch (if you're anything more than a casual moviegoer) is going to be dull, mediocre or forgettable is the sign of an amateur, and sounding as though you expect every movie to be a masterpiece is a sure sign of something even worse than being an amateur - but I will not say it here.