Republicans and Democrats may be at war. Boomers may scoff at millennials, and millennials may disdain them back. "Seinfeld" and "Friends" fans may fight it out online about the crucial question of which is the better sitcom.
But ... lay a hand on "The Princess Bride"?
You heard that, right?
Yes, you heard that right!
That's the sound of mass, multi-generational consensus going, "NOOOOOOOO!," exploding across social media like a neutron bomb over the offhand implication by a Hollywood studio head in an article in Variety that somebody somewhere is thinking of remaking Rob Reiner's classic 1987 fairy tale movie.
"I want their names!" one Tweeter exclaimed, demanding that whoever would even imagine making a better movie out of the late William Goldman's greatest screenplay should be dragged into the court of public ridicule. Original cast member Cary Elwes (hot farm boy turned pirate) joined the loud chorus. "There's a shortage of perfect movies in the world," Elwes tweeted, quoting (more or less) his character. "It would be a pity to damage this one."
Terrible idea, of course. But let's pause.
One wonders where all this accumulated outrage was when, say, the Disney people were inclined to bring back "Mary Poppins" for a sequel last year. Or, for that matter, when somebody thought it was a good idea to make live-action film versions of Disney musicals such as "Beauty and the Beast" (2017), "Aladdin" (last May) and "The Lion King" (July) when we were getting along just fine with both the classic animated originals and their Broadway stage versions.
Is this noisy, near-unanimous uproar over the prospect of a revamped "Princess Bride" a much-needed, long-overdue shot across Hollywood's bow? Enough with the retreads already?
Unfortunately, good luck with that: those Disney remakes, for example, have made enough money to convince the rest of the movie industry that familiarity can be profitable. But "Princess Bride?" You know what else familiarity is? Familiar -- which turns into boring, then gets unprofitable. ("Solo: A Star Wars Story" anybody?) Hollywood studio chiefs might ponder that.
Maybe instead of reaching back and plucking cherished properties, they might want to come up with some new stories and ideas on their own. I know how hard that is today, given that novelists and screenwriters like the late William Goldman -- whose "Princess Bride" script was, by general consensus, his masterwork -- are harder to find.
"Princess Bride" was based on one of Goldman's novels; he also wrote the screenplay. He also wrote the screenplays for (his own) "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," as well as Woodward and Bernstein's "All the President's Men," among many others, and was accomplished as a playwright as well.
One heard from older scriptwriters and directors as far back as 1987, when "Princess Bride" came out, that younger screenwriters were leaning less on books for inspiration and instead draw on their DVDs of movies and television shows for ideas. Can anybody imagine something like "Princess Bride" coming from such sensibilities?
OK, it's "inconceivable!" as Wallace Shawn's shiny-headed, overbearing princess-snatcher Vizzini keeps shouting, as if he meant to launch a thousand gifs and memes. The puzzled response to him from Mandy Patinkin's vengeance-obsessed Spanish henchman, Inigo Montoya, is by now also deeply embedded in the meme-erverse: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
"Princess Bride" is, if not perfect, darned near inimitable. It rewards re-viewing as few others of its era, with Goldman dialogue that you thought you'd forgotten from the last several dozen viewings. Did I, or you, remember that Robin Wright (hot princess) with a straight face actually tossed off the initials "R.O.U.S." as shorthand when describing "Rodents Of Unusual Size" to her pirate rescuer (a.k.a. Wesley farm boy)
And can anyone forget Billy Crystal as kvetching wizard Miracle Max and Carol Kane as Witch Valerie cheerfully waving as Wesley, Inigo and Fezzik (the late, great André the Giant) leave their wizard lair: "Have fun storming the castle!" We could go on an on.
So we're all agreed, right? "Princess Bride" should be left as is, in its own time and place to hand down like an heirloom of its time.
A sequel? Don't even -- unless you want, or need, a louder explosion.
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