Remakes .......... Naaaaaaaaah

As media persons and dailies waited with their bated breath for Ram Gopal Verma to reveal Gabbar's new look for his version of Sholay, or for the 20th Oct release to see what Farhan Akhtar's done with Don or what J.P.Dutta ha s done with Umrao Jaan, I was once again left exasperated at the futility of the whole situation. Ever since Devdas was redone and redux'ed by Sanjay Leela Bansali to rake in the big bucks lot of the filmmakers have been looking at remakes as an easier option to rake in the big bucks. Film making has for long been an art form meant to be an extension of your creative juices flowing on a 70mm screen. And that is exactly why remakes don't exactly do the trick for me. Remakes are almost like music remixes, in which a certain nobody piggybacks on a geniuses' back onto the road to fame and glory even though they don't or might not have a single creative bone in their body. I mean sure enough you will get people curious and talking when you announce a remake of a past flick but that is not curiosity being generated because of your talent. The real reason is because people identify and connect with the past flick and you shouldn't be getting any free buzz just because of that or any credit for that. And sure enough people will watch your movie because they know your story, scenes, dialogues and scenes from your movie making it a big success, but is that why you picked up a camera in the first place? Whatever happened to that little voice in you which asked you to make movies just because you loved to make em so that you could translate your little ideas and make them unfold of the big screen to make people root for your characters, laugh and cry with them, and take back with them a little piece of movie magic firmly stamped across their minds with them?