David Goyer, screenwriter of the Blade films, is scripting a remake of the David Cronenberg thriller Scanners. Any reasonable person would say we don't need a remake, but Goyer has, as all Hollywood hacks must, a Unique Take. Speaking of the original film, he said this:
"Largely in sociopolitical terms, it's very dated. Cronenberg's movies are very political and very specific, and the original had a lot to do with corporate America and the Reagan years, and that's not what's happening now."
Ah. So how will your script differ? "Read about all the stuff that's going on in Iraq or the stuff going on in the Justice department, or Guantanamo Bay, or the rights that are being trampled upon. That's what I'm going to deal with in the remake..."
Where to begin? I'm seriously questioning if Goyer has ever even seen the original, or indeed, any of Cronenberg's work. To say his films are "very political" is astonishing. Cronenberg deals with the rot of individuals (their bodies and their souls), but his work always feels hermetically sealed--he almost never has any observations about society as a whole.
And Scanners was released in early 1981, having been shot early in 1980--Reagan hadn't been elected yet. Plus, it was Canadian, so Reaganism wouldn't have been an issue in any event. The only vaguely political notion in it is a depiction of shadowy government agencies attempting to use telepathically-endowed individuals for military use--a standard science fiction trope, but one that would seem to tie in with our current president's vague, unacknowledged use of backroom techniques against our anyone he claims to be an enemy.
So, Mr. Goyer, justify your work all you want, but you'll never fool anyone but yourself. Scanners is unquestionably lesser Cronenberg, but it still conveys a palpable sense of dread and despair no Hollywood product would ever dare to conjure.
