Another useless remake

The latest 80s property headed for remake ruin is a Steve Guttenberg original. I wonder if his recent stint on Dancing with the Stars had anything to do with this?

Variety says Dimension Films has snapped up the rights to remake the 1986 movie Short Circuit. The original film was about a military robot which becomes self-aware, develops a conscience and a personality, runs off and refuses to kill. Humans help it escape destruction, chief among them 80s icons Ally Sheedy and the Gutt. The robot, named Number 5 (and later renamed Johnny 5 in the sequel), looked almost identical to the one being used in Disney’s upcoming WALL-E movie. I’m sure they’d claim otherwise, but that can’t possibly be a coincidence. I have a sneaking suspicion that someone over at Pixar is a big Johnny 5 nut. Well same here fellas.

We first hear rumors of a Short Circuit remake way back in 2006. I was starting to feel pretty good about it not happening, since we haven’t heard much more about it since. Damn Guttenberg and his newfound relevance for putting this back on someone’s radar. Speaking of that someone, this seems like a spectacularly bad project for Dimension, known mostly for low-budget horror movies not splashy, big-budget blockbusters with robots… which is what the original movie was.

I’m not sure how the original movie holds up, it’s been years since I last saw it. But at the time, as an 8-year-old kid, it was literally the greatest movie I’d ever seen. Just great entertainment with a little bit of intelligence and heart. The sequel, Short Circuit 2 ditched some of the serious message of the original and got more family friendly, but even that one was a lot of fun. It’s hard to believe this thing is already 20-years-old. With the massive number of upcoming 80s movie remakes we’ve been reporting on lately, in a year or two we should be well on our way to repeating the whole decade. I wonder how Hollywood will manage to convince people to show up at the theater, when they can stay home with a DVD and watch an even better version of the same movie. I know that’s where I’ll be, when this latest perversion of pure 80s goodness happens.

No disassemble Bob Weinstein! No disassemble Number 5!!!