5 Upcoming Remakes of 80s Movies (That Must be Stopped)

Nothing from the 80s belongs in today's world. The themes we cared about then are sad reminders of how naive we once were, and the fashion trends that interested us are even sadder reminders of how idiotic we were.

Which makes it all the more ridiculous to see which 80s movies Hollywood wants to awkwardly jam into today's world. Movies like...

Communists invade America by paratrooping into a small, Colorado town. But they didn't count on running into a scrappy group of teens with a truckload of guns and everything to prove.

Why It Made Sense Then:

If you don't remember the 80s, just imagine listening to Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" playing on a boom box that at any moment could explode, killing you and everyone you know.

It was the peak of the Cold War, and America was basically standing around in parachute pants waiting for Armageddon to start. Back then, we all pretty much expected that one day we'd glance out the window during study hall and see a sky full of Communist paratroopers.

Now, how the bad guys in Red Dawn flew several thousand miles in hundreds of aircraft undetected until they suddenly landed on a high school football field in Colorado isn't really explained, but you couldn't put anything past those crafty Ruskies. Not a teenager who saw that movie at the time doubted it.

We also didn't doubt that our high school football team was badass enough to turn those fuckers back! WOLVERINES!

Why It Doesn't Now:

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, screenwriter Carls Ellsworth says the new Red Dawn will be an updated version, set in today's world. So, we're assuming that eliminates a contingency of Soviet and Cuban forces as the enemy. The producers have said they will update the threat to be more in keeping with a "post 9/11" mindset, which is just a nice way of saying all Middle Easterners and brown people in general.

There's the problem. Right now we're not in the heart of a massive arms race with another superpower, who at any moment could brazenly try to take over America despite the best efforts of Colorado's proudest high school football program. We know how the modern terrorist attacks. They're not the "paratrooping" type and they're not going knock over the government and set up re-education camps. So how in the hell is our band of teenagers hiding in the mountains going to make any sense?

And, uh, not to get all political here, but notice how all through Red Dawn the Commies refer to the kids as "insurgents?" Where else do you hear that term in the news these days? That's right, their movie is going to ask you to root for scrappy insurgents fighting with homemade weapons against an invading force, in a world where, in reality, we're the military superpower hunting down those kinds of people.

Okay, But Why ELSE Shouldn't They Remake It?

The original Red Dawn populated its cast with all the big teen celebrities of its day, which means there's at least a half chance we'll get a Red Dawn featuring some High School Musical bastards and at least two Jonas brothers.

Sick of being picked on, two scrawny nerds with everything to prove create the perfect woman using the strange and mystical power of computers. When the computer is struck by lightning, the woman comes to life because screenwriter John Hughes has never seen a computer.

Why It Made Sense Then:

Lightning + Technology = Magic was just a standard formula for the 80s. It worked in Weird Science, and it worked in Short Circuit, (Hey, they're remaking that, too! Fuck!).

How amazing it must have been in the 80s to not exactly know the limitations of computers. The newness of computers and the fact that the internet was just a distant fraction of a thought meant that technology could be whatever we wanted it to be. Two nerds take a computer, throw in a dash of lightning and create life? Sure, why the fuck not? We leave our toaster on the roof during every electrical storm because we desperately hold out hope for that very thing to happen in real life.

Someday...

Why It Doesn't Now:

You're on the internet right now. Look around at all the options on your browser. Refresh. Stop. Home. Any "Create Life" buttons? No? Not one? Hm. Do you see anywhere at all that you can just feed cutout pictures from Playboy, automatically combine those pictures to form the perfect woman and then bestow sentience upon that woman? No? Get outta town!

You mean this isn't how technology works?

In 1985 you could treat the home computer as a god-like box of magic (movies today do the same with genetics and nanotechnology), but that pill is just a little bit harder to swallow now that most people own and work on several different computers. And none of them can even get Windows fucking Vista to work properly.

Okay, But Why ELSE Shouldn't We Remake It?

You may have heard that a shitty Sims movie is also in the works, but what you might not have heard is that it's going to be almost exactly like Weird Science. Somehow. So we basically have two remakes of movies that don't need to be remade in the first place with premises that will not work today. Why not be the bigger man, Actual Weird Science Remake, and politely bow out, and let The Sims Movie be the one to shit all over our childhood?

Sick of getting picked on, a scrawny kid with everything to prove stands up to bullies, wins the girl and saves the day using karate.

Why It Made Sense Then:

The 80s were a decade of fads, and this movie's titular ancient martial art was the fad of choice for teenagers who pictured themselves thrashing every bully in school at once with a blur of hands and feet.

Knowing its audience to a degree that borders on cynical, The Karate Kid functioned as propaganda for nerds who wanted to believe they could basically learn to use the Force if they just met the right Asian custodian.

Why It Doesn't Now:

Of course, what the news really meant was that, like the meat at McDonald's, the karate at the McDojos was a bullshit imitation slowly poisoning an entire generation. And not in the badass way that bad dojos poisoned people in The Karate Kid - making you roam the night with your motorcycle gang kicking nerds off cliffs. McDojos fed them a much lamer poison: the mistaken belief that yelling "yah" when you slapped at someone gave you the ability to defend yourself.

Of course all that really did was make you look ridiculous in the moments immediately before getting your ass kicked. American kids eventually figured out that their sensei was the same guy that taught their mom's aerobics class, and karate fell off the continental shelf of cool and assumed its current slot next to boy scouting on the depth charts of awesome.

At best, kids today know karate as the reason Asian people could fly a long time ago, at worst, the 80s version of disco. The only possible sliver of hope for a remake would be giving it to an awesome director who understood that the only enjoyment anyone gets out of the original is the ironic, nostalgic kind.

Okay, But Why ELSE Shouldn't We Remake It?

The producers decided to go in another direction, and give it to a rapper-turned-actor-turned-inexperienced-director. Also, instead of having a proper audition process for the lead role, they decided to allow this director to put in his kid as the star.

That's right, Will Smith plans on putting this remake through his production company, Overbook Entertainment, directing it, and making his son, 9-year-old Jaden Smith, the star. How about getting your wife Jada a role, too, so no other family in Hollywood makes money off of this? Hell, just announce the casting of D.J. Jazzy Myagi already so we can get this whole abomination over with.