Screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi tell us on the DVD of the remake that they are both fans of the original and couldn't help but wonder what it would look like with modern movie technology.
When Transporter 1 & 2 director Louis Leterrier heard there was a remake in the works he pushed for the job.
Revenge drives the plot engine
We're back in ancient Greece for the remake.
Zeus (Liam Neeson) and his black sheep brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) are still major players in the deity universe although they are beginning to lose the respect of their mortal subjects.
When Hades sinks a fishing boat with half-man, half-god Perseus (Sam Worthington) and his adopted family onboard, the movie's hybrid hero swears revenge and we're off on a mythological quest.
Along the way Perseus tangles with giant scorpions, a humungous sea beast called the Kraken and the fabled Medusa, a half woman, half snake who has been having a really bad hair day for several centuries now.
Stop Motion Animation for Newbies
There is a certain campy thrill to watching stage and screen heavyweights like Sir Laurence Olivier and Dame Maggie Smith grappling with hammy dialogue in the 1981 film.
However, it is Ray Harryhausen's special effects that have made the movie a cult classic.
Filmmakers such as Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Nick Park (Chicken Run) have credited the legendary f/x wizard as influences on their cinematic art.
Harryhausen didn't invent stop motion animation. (The process dates back to 1925's silent film classic The Lost World and was employed to memorable effect in 1933's King Kong.)
However, the technique came into its own with the dancing skeletons and mythical monsters created by Harryhausen for fantasy flicks like Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963).
1981's Clash of the Titans is arguably his masterwork.
For readers unfamiliar with the technique, stop motion animation gives the illusion of movement by tweaking body parts a fraction of an inch and then filming the result, moving the parts another fraction of an inch and filming the result and so on. Sort of like a glorified "flip movie".
Remake is best appreciated on Blu-Ray DVD
A feature called Maximum Movie Mode (exclusive to Blu-Ray) reveals there was a lot more effort put into the remake than may be apparent upon first viewing.
Thanks to the picture-within-picture option, fans interested in the high tech end of film-making can watch the drama unfold onscreen while viewing the computer animation, storyboards and construction that went on behind the scenes, accompanied by explanatory comments by director, cast and crew.
For example, those are actual buildings and streets in scenes set in the Greek city of Argos.
"Many people build very small sets, add a green screen and fill in the visual detail later on," explains Leterrier. "That's not my style."
"It's a gift," says Alexa Davalos, who plays a Greek princess in the movie," being given an environment that is palpable and tangible ... you can touch it, and it's really there."
Worthington agrees. "Your job's half done for you as an actor. You're just lost in this world."
When it comes to acting there is enough ham to stock a deli
To be fair, Worthington is basically cast because he is athletic and looks good in ancient armor.
There doesn't seem to be any excuse for Neeson and Fiennes.
And all of that realistic environment doesn't seem to help Gemma Arterton. Cast as a mysterious woman who acts as a sort of guardian angel for Perseus, she has a death scene worthy of a Golden Raspberry Award.
High Tech vs. Lo-Fi
With all due respect to the big bucks and cutting edge technology invested in the remake, Leterrier's Titans is curiously bland.
If you can ignore the overly earnest performances and a lack of heart and soul in the making of the movie there are some special effects that a 12 year old video game fanatic would probably call "cool!".
Director Desmond Davis' original has a certain creaky cheeseball charm.
Thanks in large part to Harryhausen's old-fashioned movie magic the 1981 film has an endearingly human quality that modern computer-generated effects just cannot duplicate.
Executed with painstaking craftsmanship Harryhausen's movie monsters are surprisingly lifelike.
Viewed as a child they were scary.
Seen through the eyes of an allegedly mature film fan it is possible to see the painstaking dedication, patience and imagination that went into the creation of these critters.
Richard Goertz - Richard Goertz has a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in English and History acquired light years ago (when his hair was longer) and have ...
