Comic-Con is underway at the moment in San Diego and for those, like me, eager for news of The Prisoner remake, the good news is that it is now coming thick and fast. Apparently a new nine-minute trailer premiered at Comic-Con yesterday and happily, it's already available on the AMC Prisoner Blog:
First impressions: this looks fantastic. It combines a new look and a new feel with elements of the original series -- The Village, surveillance, paranoia, mind-tricks, Number Six vs. Number Two, escape attempts, perpetual summer, taxi-rides, the local shop, a very large map and . . . . Rover! In fact there is a hilarious moment in the discussion at Comic-Con, also available on the AMC Prisoner blog, when (AMC Vice President of Production) Vlad Wolynetz explains how he made the suggestion, at a production meeting on Rover, that they could perhaps dare to use a big white ball.
A couple of other quick comments. It is clear now that one of the major departures from The Prisoner (original) is that Number Six (now just "Six") is an American from New York, and that New York replaces London. I think that that is fine in a remake, and to be expected given the casting. It looks like AMC are really pushing for an international release. They speak about a "world premiere" in November so it looks like it should be on AMC in the States and ITV in the UK at the same sort of time. A mixture of British and American casting takes us back to the hey-day of programmes like The Persuaders.
One other earlier comment I had made (The Village in the Prisoner remake) also seems to be confirmed, that the look of the new village evokes The Truman Show as much as it does The Prisoner. This is one of those odd and enjoyable intertextual things given that The Truman Show was clearly influenced by The Prisoner original.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
The Prisoner: 9 minute remake trailer just out
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3 comments:
"Hi:
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This looks like like it's been over prepared and lost it's unique "cult" sentiment. Then again it's been Americanized making this resemble the 'appearance over substance' method, which the original had Layers and layers of. The original number 6 was more authentic, flamboyant and demonstrated passion in all his emotions. The new number 6 is just some young tall, dark handsome typical hollywood pretty-boy who is pretty mind-numbing and would never be able to come half as close to Patrick McGoohan's portrayal as number 6, which will degrade this entire show in my opinion.. Number 2 seems spot on, and a good choice, which judging by the trailer appears to carry it out extremely well, but overall this seems like some modern day Lost/24/CSI drama show which doesn't float my boat... Not a big fan of the original (as in die hard), but definitely admire the uniqueness, and unpredictability of the original to the point where I watched all 17 episodes within 3 months. Cult Classics should never be touched
I think it misses the main point: we ALREADY live in The Village. 24 hour CCTV surveillance, credit cards, mobile phones, the lack of any political differentiation in the Western democratic structures, plus the death of political ideologies (even China is now the new capitalistic superpower), our numbers (chip-and-pin, insurance, internet passwords etc) more important than our names, etc. The only real question is: how do we escape (is freedom now possible or practicable in the modern global village)?
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