1981 vs. 2010 - Clash of the Titans Redux

I'm the kinda guy who is all for change and progress. I'm a big movie goer who has hundreds and hundreds of titles under my belt. I've always been a big fan of the re-makes of SOME movies like Ocean's Eleven and Scarface (you can check, they are remakes.) whereas if someone tried to remake oh I don't know Star Wars *cough* Lucas is a prick *cough* with better graphics or something I would probably flip out. That's neither here nor there. What is here is in fact a remake of one of the best movies of the 80's and definitely one of my favorite movies of all time: Clash of the Titans.

I've actually just talked to a friend of mine who hasn't seen this movie before...ever. After yelling at her I proceeded to write this as a sort of quick run through of the original movie:

The story follows the birth and adult life of Perseus, son of Zeus who's birth challenges the king of a city who is the "father". In typical Greek tragedy fashion, the king of said country tries to do away with said son and mother who both end up surviving. Zeus gets ticked off and says, "Release the Kraken!" and Posiedon does and the city gets destroyed.

Zeus pretty much declares that Perseus be immune to the wrath of the Gods and offers no help when a Goddess's son is stricken with deformities for hunting down almost all of the great winged-horses. This son was to marry Andromeda, heir to the throne in another city. Perseus wakes in that city's theater surrounded by help from the Gods: A helm that makes him invisible, a sword of Adamantite that can cut anything, and just a regular bronze shield. He uses these items to cut the arm off of the Goddess's son and win the heart of Andromeda, only to have the Goddess get severely mad, and demand that Andromeda be offered as a sacrifice to the Kraken.

Perseus is in love with Andromeda and manages to get to the Sister's of Fate and find out that the only way to kill the Kraken is with Medusa's gaze. Needless to say he killed Medusa, stopped the Kraken and wins the day. Zeus then says anyone who again messes with Perseus will have to deal with him and that's the end.

Now, my only reservation about seeing the new movie is that it will focus so much on visually updating the movie that it'll lose its magic that it had when it originally came out. I don't want it to be just another action/adventure movie, but instead a remake that I can enjoy just as much as I did the first movie, again and again. I don't know, maybe I'm just old fashioned. Either way I'll be seeing the new movie sometime this week or weekend and will be sure to let you know what I think.

-Armand