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May 24, 2008

In 1959, a film was released that would live in the minds and hearts of science fiction and horror fans for years to come. That film was Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s magnum opus, "Plan 9 From Outer Space", a story about aliens re-animating the dead in order to kill Earth's population. Though widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, genre audiences could not resist the exuberance and love for the art of filmmaking that showed in Wood's work, and the movie has become a cherished cult classic that still survives on home video and in midnight screenings across the world.

Cult film Madman John Johnson

Now, in time to coincide with the 50th anniversary of "Plan 9 From Outer Space", director John Johnson – along with his production company, Darkstone Entertainment – is poised to remake the classic film. Simply titled "Plan 9", the remake will be a serious-minded retelling of the original story, paying homage to the spirit of Wood's film without resorting to camp or parody. The film will focus on the horror and science fiction aspects of the original, but will also be largely character-driven. Johnson's goal for "Plan 9" is to make a film that honors not only the original source material, but also Ed Wood's intentions when he made "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Wood's plan was to make a very scary sci-fi/horror film, and Johnson wishes to do exactly that – create a film that Wood would have enjoyed, or perhaps even made himself, if not bound by the technological limitations placed on filmmakers 50 years ago.


Plan 9 from Outer Space cast alum Conrad Brooks

"Plan 9" is being made with the blessing and participation of Conrad Brooks, the sole surviving member of the original film's cast and crew. To go as a sister project to the remake, director Johnson and actor Brooks plan to do a commentary for the original film with a Q + A retrospective for its 2 disc DVD release with no set street date at the moment, however the new film is scheduled to premiere on September 9, 2009 (09.09.09).

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-30-2008, 03:26 AM:
 
If they do a remake of Ed Wood's campy classic, then it's time to remake the other stinker in the vein of the classic Kid Show Series: "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians."
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-30-2008, 10:52 AM:
 
It's already been made. It opened last Thursday.
 

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-30-2008, 01:24 PM:
 
I'll keep a lookout or a remake of 'Cookoo Patrol', possibly the worst film that I have ever seen.

[ 05-31-2008, 04:16 AM: Message edited by: Stephen Furley ]
 

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 05-30-2008, 04:37 PM:
 
A remake of Plan 9 is fucking sacrilegious!

May they rot in hell!
 

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Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 05-30-2008, 10:01 PM:
 
I wish they had explained plans 1 to 8... plan 9 was so utterly stupid the first 8 had to be real bowzers to be worse.
In case you missed it: Plan Nine (adopted after the failure of plans 1 through 8) involved reanimating corpses to use as soldiers to conquer the living earthlings. The alien goal is to prevent us from using the "solarian" energy we are about to discover and our newly developed space ships against the peaceful aliens of the universe.
This has two serious problems. One, reanimated cadavers as soldiers? As the policeman in Night of the Living Dead puts it regarding zombies "they're dead, they're all messed up".
Two, each zombie requires an alien to continuously control it as it maims, destroys, kills, and commits mayhem. So the brilliant Plan Nine is to gather and transport an alien invasion force strong enough to conquer Earth and then, instead of having the invaders pull out ray guns and vaporize us (a la Mars Attacks!) they issue each with a cumbersome remote control box with which to control a corpse they have to find. Then stumbling zombies line up against live Earth armies while the aliens hope we don't notice that each drooling zombie attacker we pump ineffective bullets into happens to have someone much less bulletproof nearby twisting knobs on some weird gizmo. This is entirely mental. The other problems with the film (famously bad acting, lack of continuity, pathetic sets and props, day-for-night taken literally, the star managing to die after shooting one scene, etc.) are inconsequential to the basic illogic of this idiotic plot.
I don't get the reason for a remake. If the basic idea had any merit but had been crippled by incompetent direction... OK, go for it. But there's just no plot to remake.
Remake "The Day the Earth Stood Still". At least the (all-powerful robot cops who will destroy us if we take our childish aggression into space and threaten the superior yet pathetically vulnerable aliens there) plot makes some sense. And Gort could look really cool with modern CGI.
 

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Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 05-31-2008, 12:00 AM:
 
The Day the Earth Stood Still - Remake starring Keanu Reeves.
 

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Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-31-2008, 08:15 AM:
 
Dave: Plans 1-8 didn't work. After Plan 9, the Martians gave up! Louis
 

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Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 05-31-2008, 08:23 AM:
 
The idea of remaking Plan 9 is totally missing the point of the qualities that make Plan 9 so entertaining in the first place.

It's a magical amalgam that is greater than the sum of its parts.
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 05-31-2008, 11:44 AM:
 
There have been releases in the last two weeks that are a LOT worse than Plan 9.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-01-2008, 02:45 PM:
 
Very well said, Hillary! You hit the nail on the head.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-02-2008, 12:41 PM:
 

quote: Louis Bornwasser

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Dave: Plans 1-8 didn't work. After Plan 9, the Martians gave up! Louis

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Actually Larry King recently showed a clip of the actual "Plan 9" on his show... a supopsed video taken of an actual Alien looking in through a guys kitchen window... If you go to CNN.com it should still be there... I have to admit that its certainly very creepy! But is it really real?

Mark
 

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Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 06-04-2008, 10:57 AM:
 
What would be the goals for remaking a movie like this? What would one try to emulate? In any case, the qualities of the original that they'd try to reproduce would be fake. They'd probably try to emulate the quality of the sets in the original. Would they do it in B&W?

BTW, the "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" reference was quite startling to me, since just two hours on Monday before I saw that, I'd Googled "Jalor Productions" because I thought about a movie I'd seen in school in 3rd Grade (on film, December 1976) and I never had remembered the name of it though the years but remembered it ending with "A Jalor Production". They only seemed to have one movie, so that was it. Then later that day, I read film-tech and saw the reference. Amazing. 31.5 years after seeing it, I figure out what it was, then see a reference to it the same day. What are the odds?
 

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Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 06-05-2008, 07:04 AM:
 
Remaking PLAN NINE is a dumb idea - all that's entertaining about it has been said and done by Tim Burton's ED WOOD.

If they have to remake bad movies, why not take QUEEN FROM OUTER SPACE (1958)? On second thought, who could replace Zsa Zsa Gabor now that Anna Nicole Smith is gone...

I'd like to see PLANET OF VAMPIRES (1965) remade...oops...I forgot it was done by Ridley Scott in 1979!
 

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Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 06-05-2008, 08:49 AM:
 
Evans, Santa Claus CTM has fallen into the public domain and is now freely available at archive.org in stunning 16mm pink-o-vision
 

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Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 06-06-2008, 03:32 PM:
 
Yes, it has, and yesterday when I got to the coffee shop, someone gave me a $1 DVD from Family Dollar that had that movie and another one on it too.

By the way, is there a good DVD of Plan 9 that does not have a stupid logo on the screen during the movie? I bought a copy a few years ago and it was ruined by such a logo.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-06-2008, 04:10 PM:
 
Try the excellent restored version from Legend Films. They also colorized it, and did an outstanding job. This is the only colorization job I've ever seen that actually looks good, probably because they did it at high-def resolution (and even struck a color 35mm print of it). The B/W restored original is also on the disc, so not to worry.

The extras are sort of stupid, though, and nothing to write home about. There's not any real info to be found in them, although there are some Ed Wood home movie clips. Another disappointment was the commentary track. It's done strictly for laughs, and provides no insight. I think the humor should come from the movie, and not from a wiseguy doing the commentary.
 

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Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 06-06-2008, 10:32 PM:
 
I bought the Night Of The Living Dead and Carnival Of Souls DVD's from these guys, and the colorization is just top notch. It adds a whole new level of believability to NOTLD. I only support colorization when something was filmed in B&W because of budget or technical limitations. Like Tim said, these come with fresh B&W transfers.
 

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