Apparantly there's going to be another Twilight Zone movie

Not sure how I feel about this. The Twilight Zone is my favorite show of all time, but I didn't really think the first movie was particularly great, so I'm pretty skeptical about this.

Source: http://www.imdb.com/news/ni16728704/

Matt Reeves fared well adapting Let The Right One In to American audiences so let's give him a chance with Serling.

It helps that they've got three iterations of stories to choose from - if it's anything like the last one they'll be remaking old skits.

Just putting it out there, the "you wanna see something really scary" bit scared the ever loving shit out of me when I was a kid. Even today, I kind of find it Paranoia Fuel.

edited 17th Oct '11 6:47:19 PM by KnownUnknown

You know what would suck? If this turns out to be along the lines of the Starsky and Hutch or Land of the Lost adaptations.

• Doc D. reads article

"Though the last Twilight Zone film was an anthology with different directors, this one is a big science fiction action movie with a single freestanding story that is linked to the original series mainly in that it shares that familiarly eerie feel."

...Wait, what?

edited 18th Oct '11 6:17:12 AM by DoctorDiabolical

Guess the name's just on there to help it sell.

So it's one story. So?

Well it's a variety of stories which defined Twilight Zone; sticking to a single plot will narrow down how the film can pay tribute to the show (will they use a frightening episode as a guideline, a mystery, a morality tale, another template?). In addition to that, I don't recall any episode that would qualify as straight-up "action," which makes me doubt the claim concerning a faithful tone.

edited 18th Oct '11 9:18:13 AM by DoctorDiabolical

^

Really? I can think of several that were relatively action oriented, even in the Sterling days (though in the Sterling days they were all tempered by some kind of contemplative aspect, or if not that heavy suspense).

And the 80's revival tended to be one story per episode - really, the Twilight Zone is all about adapting a stories to film and screen, the best of the strange, the contemplative, and the meaningful. As long as the film captures those three aspects, I don't care if it's one story or sixty.

edited 18th Oct '11 9:38:36 AM by KnownUnknown

I can't think of any action-oriented ones from the Serling series (which is the only run I've watched); examples?

Steel?

Steel had action in it, but it's hardly the kind of high-octane stuff one thinks of when they hear "action movie;" the focus of the beginning and end of the episode was somber drama.

It's worth noting that everything action oriented in the Sterling days was tempered with lots of irony, suspense, deconstruction, or symbolism.

Anyways, off the top of my head "The Invaders" comes to mind. I might be thinking of "The Seventh Is Made Up Of Phantoms" as well. "A Quality Of Mercy" had it in setting, though it was more character study and philosophical. Several others had action aspects but were more in a different genre. It's certainly not unheard of.

The Invaders was a very physical episode and The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms had the potential to be one, but in the former the "action" more resembled a horror scenario (hiding from the aggressors, not having the tools to really "fight" them on even ground), and in the latter the action in question was never shown. Not what would be considered "sci-fi/action" in modern times, I believe.

edited 18th Oct '11 10:46:24 AM by DoctorDiabolical

I'm hoping that if they do try to actionize it, they'll balance the action with philosophy, like how the Dark Knight is just as much an action film as it is a philosophical one, but I'd prefer if they left the formula alone. I think the main issue will be making a story that will fill up feature length running time. Even though I didn't think the 90's movie was great, the fact that it was four segments as opposed to one long story helped, since the segments were all made by different people and it had the advantage of the good segments outweighing the bad. If this new movie is one long story, that story will have to stand on its own.

They really should just take the one episode everyone knows of and simply make it longer and add more characterization and narration.

I know I'd love a movie off of "Time Enough At Last",giving Beamis a little more reason to deserve what he got,like play up the reclusiveness. Maybe the wife could cross the Moral Event Horizon,I dunno

But just any old single plot doesn't sound right.

edited 18th Oct '11 2:16:06 PM by terlwyth

This. I agree that any old sci-fi plot with a twist at the end simply won't work. Time enough at last is definately an episode I'd like to see expanded, it's one of my favorites. Although in my opinion, Bemis's wife already crossed the Moral Event Horizon when she crossed out the pages of his library book and ripped the pages out, if not it was at least a pretty harsh Kick the Dog moment.

edited 18th Oct '11 2:34:36 PM by cfive

I'd like to see "He's Alive" be adapted to full-length; I seem to remember Rod Serling wanting the same thing.

Wouldn't surprise me. Hollywood loves World War II movies.