Following on from an earlier post about opening titles, here’s a quick examination of how things change when shows are remade.
First up, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), with the original titles by Chambers & Partners and music by Edwin Astley:
Some of the Chambers titles for ITC seemed to use a lot of solid colours and interesting shapes, with counters for imagery.
Fast forward to 2000, the show was remade with Reeves and Mortimer. Titles now by Tomato, the hot firm at the time, with music by David Arnold (Stargate, The Stepford Wives, and the recent Bond films). Head to 2.40 to skip the opening titles; one YouTube commenter recommends going to 4.11 to see Bob Mortimer as Adolf Hitler. (And Doctor Who fans, that is David Tennant guest-starring, with his normal Scottish accent.)
Still a lot of the primary colours, and still very trendy. It got me liking the Century Expanded typefaces all over again. Interestingly, I think both have dated quite well, and the modernist approach seems to have worked. But there’s not much that’s spooky about the later title, though I prefer it.
Let’s cross Stateside, for Fantasy Island in 1978:
Good but not great. Americana as the main typeface really says quite little, but the cheese factor is high.
Twenty years later, it was remade, and this is one of those times when I thought the later show, being much darker, was superior. Viewers disagreed. Malcolm McDowell starred as Mr Roarke this time out. Head to 1.41 to skip the pre-title sequence (with Lauren Holly as guest star). The principle of the plane heading there remains the same, but there is no sequence with Tattoo ringing a bell (it was, however, spoofed in the pilot with a scene featuring Louis Lombardi, and again in this episode with Edward Hibbert).
Mission: Impossible is so iconic that remakes have not really changed the sequence:
The 1988 remake in Australia, which technically was a continuation, with Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) coming out of retirement after his protégé (played by Vince Martin) is killed:
And the 1996 film version, produced by Tom Cruise, with a big orchestra and, I assume, Danny Elfman conducting:
Slanting the Berthold City typeface was one down side to the Cruise film, but the orchestral arrangement gives the title a real urgency.
Not much of a lesson here—the above simply illustrate that remakes can either take the original and go on a nostalgia fest, adapt the original for modern audiences, or take a complete departure altogether. It seems to depend on how iconic the original was and how important the title was to the programme.
It will be interesting to see which tack The Prisoner takes.
Read and post comments |
Send to a friend
]]>