I confess, I am a fan of the (original) Prisoner. I am not the fanatical sort of fan, just one who has seen them all at least twice. I recognize they are dated. I admit the ending of the series is mostly stupid, and what is not stupid is mostly nuts, and what is not stupid or nuts is fun.
I don't say there should not be a remake. I just say I would really hate a bad remake.
The Original
The Prisoner TV Show Opening Theme 1967 – 1968
The Remake
New Trailer For The Prisoner (2009)
Is this going to be a bad remake? American prisoner – not ideal. Ian McKellen as Number Two – very good. Rover is missing? – not sure how I feel about that.
It looked like there was a rover there near the end of the trailer.
Yep, Rover is there.
But, sorry, JIm “Jesus” Caviezel doesn’t have a fraction of the cool of Patrick McGoohan, the only man who could ever overact but do it subtly.
And Number 6 would never kiss a woman. Ever.
Yes, that does look like a Rover.
A great write-up on THE PRISONER:
http://rotten.com/library/culture/the_prisoner/
Please pay no attention to the fact that it is hosted on rotten.com. It remains a very interesting read.
I too loved The Prisoner, but it seemed more ‘sci fi’ back in the day. With the popularity of ’24’ I think I’d find the remake either too cartoonish or WAY to scary. I don’t remember that the original had ANY overt humour, but at least it was whimsical in it’s Edwardian(?), ‘folly’ kind of way. I’ll pass on the remake.
Before watching the trailer, I was prepared to hate the remake. Having just watched it, it doesn’t see all that terrible. I question transporting the location from a Doc Doom-Latverian setting to the African coastal desert(?), but I’m willing to give it a try.
I’ll give it a fair trail. I liked the original, and I loved the reactions of the keepers as they were elimated in each show.
For Want Of A Comma,
Number 6: Where am I?
Number 2: In the Village.
Number 6: What do you want?
Number 2: Information.
Number 6: Whose side are you on?
Number 2: That would be telling. We want information information in formation.
Number 6: You won’t get it.
Number 2: By hook or by crook, we will.
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number Two.
Number 6: Who is Number One?
Number 2: You are, Number Six.
Number 6: I am not a number! I am a free man!
Number 2: [laughs]
heres one thing i never understood about the Prisoner the first time I saw it…
if they wanted to get the information out of him as to why he resigned, why not just hook up his cockandballs to a car battery like we do in the good ol’ US of A?
It looks like they missed the point. If nothing else, the Village looks like a pre-fab suburb or a temporary concentration camp. It should look like something out of Disney movie, perhaps Pollyanna. A lot of the appeal of the original was the benign, familiar surface and the secret menace of the place. Another charm was the low budget. For the last five episodes they didn’t even have money to film on location in Wales anymore, hence some of the most creative and bizarre episodes.
The should’ve set it in an abandoned Mojave Desert exurb:
That’d be a scene.
Another recycled idea, but hey, the original was great. Hopefully they honor it.
How many of us used the KAR 120C license plate number as our password at one time or another?
Well, at least they have still got the big white bubble.
But it was that little Lotus I liked…I always craved one of those…Still do….
(PS. They used to sell those cars in the UK as kits to save on sales tax. The kit came with a manual on how to “restore” a crashed car, so the tax authorities would take a benign view.)