The A Team. Pity the fools.
NB: The studio has removed all A Team trailers and have issued a statement that they will release a high def version in a few days time. I will leave the article up in the meantime and will replace the video when it comes out. Making it all shiny won’t alter my views on this.
So there it is. Well, Hollywood has to give people on the internet something to talk about doesn’t it? I guess that they’re hoping we’ll all squeal with excitement and anticipation so much that our common sense is completely bypassed and we all fall drooling into the street to que up for tickets.
The fundamental problem with this project is a very simple one. You can’t remake the A Team. It’s impossible. It was taken from another time, a time when television actually meant something, when the A Team signified Saturday evening viewing for the entire family.
So what will this contain? Glib, self referential winks to the TV show, or an entire reimagining of the project?
Whichever the formula, look deep into your soul and ask yourself, do you really want either of these things?
The trouble with collective nostalgia is that it has become (more so in the last decade than ever) a marketing commodity. I know that I make numerous references to things from the past, but I’m not trying to cash in on it. Take this factor and combine it with the simple fact that any time Hollywood tries to do something like this, to play upon the memories of a generation who are now in possession of expendable income, they always screw it up: GI Joe, Transformers, Star Wars and Indiana Jones all tried to stir up enough of an internet hullabaloo to ensure that they all succeeded at the box office. Some did, some didn’t.
The fact of the matter is, it all seems so fucking contrived. If you squint, you can just see the boardroom in which the idea for this took place. It basically consists of a whiteboard with a list of the most popular media items from the childhoods of the aged 25-40 demographic. As they tick them off, they shatter the memories of millions. These projects serve to achieve nothing but the nullification and dilution of something that is held fondly in the mind.
Mr. T is already doing his level best to spoil it for everyone by being a God bothering advert junkie. George Peppard is dead. Dirk Benedict did Celebrity Big Brother a while ago and made people cry and Dwight Schultz does video game voiceovers, at least he probably plays the odd one, which is more than I can believe Mr. T does.
The new A Team will probably have a few explosions, a couple of laughs and generally be a bit of fun. It’s the hollow, cheated feeling that will inevitably manifest itself deep in the guts of each of you afterwards that will be what lingers. The sense that you’ve lost a little piece of yourself somewhere along the way, and for one, I’m sick of that feeling.
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way to suck the life out of every film you’re in.
alphatroll on January 8th, 2010
I’ll grant them one thing: they somehow *did* manage to make every character instantly recognizable, though I suppose with *actors* who grew up on it too, that probably wasn’t too hard.
All told though, it’s something that seems to *belong* in memory. Go ahead & do things *inspired* by old favorites, but if you’re just in it for the money, better to sell special editions of the original with some interesting extras or something.