Friday 2 March 2007

More on Saturn 3...

Just a couple of days ago, I rambled for a bit about the relative merits of Saturn 3, a British science fiction film made in 1980, starring Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel. I even went so far as to speculate that if it were remade with modern effects and a more appropriate cast it would be a huge hit, rather than the flop it turned out to be all those years ago.

Imagine my surprise, then, to learn that a remake actually is being discussed, with director James Cameron at the helm. There's even talk of the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, providing the voice of Hector, the robot with more than a few screws loose. This is all quite promising - I enjoyed Cameron's Aliens (though I preferred the Ridley Scott-directed original) and I like all three Terminator films for wildly different reasons (before you write in, I know Cameron only directed the first two). I worry though that the dark themes at the heart of the original Saturn 3 - insecure and unrequited love, getting old, mental illness, loss and isolation - will not be preserved. All the more reason to seek out the original before it gets buried beneath the Hollywood behemoth - you can find it here.

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