Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17104
Location: North Carolina
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 Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2024 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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Them! (1954) — The Ultimate Remake
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~ A Question for the Members: Imagine a big budget remake of Them! with CGI ants and an incredibly imaginative new plot.
~ Here's what I came up with.: Imagine the exciting scenes this remake would have! Army ants are especially aggressive, and they're amazingly well organized — just like an army. So, a large part of this new story would be about the Army versus the Army Ants!
Picture a scene in which the Command Post is set up several miles from the "front lines" out in the desert, with a large tent for the high ranking officers to spread out their maps on sawhorse-and-plywood tables while they move small objects around which represent tanks, artillery, and troops.
The map illustrates that the huge ant colony is surrounded by the Army, and the generals discuss how to mount an all-out attack at dawn to wipe them out. The ants' stronghold is so widespread and so deep underground that an atom bomb might not destroy them all — and besides, the radiation cloud would endanger the population of Las Vegas, less than five miles away!
Suddenly the ground begins to tremble, and the rumbling noise alarms all the soldiers in the area. Seconds later a large section of the desert floor around the Command Center tent drops down into a hole, and we hear the screams of the men as they plummet into the abyss!
Out of the rising dust from the hole come dozens of the giant ants! Some of them are gripping soldiers in their mandibles — from privates to generals, and all the ranks in between!
The giant ants flip over jeeps, slice men in half, and even demonstrate their frightening ability to coordinate their efforts by teaming up two-and-three at a time to overturn tanks!
Their surprise attack is devastatingly effective, because the tunnel they've built has not only broken through the lines of their enemy — mankind — they've also destroyed the Army's on-site command structure and left the human forces in complete chaos!
Science Fact Check: Real army ants actually advance by establishing a colony and then sending out soldiers to forage for food in all directions. Once they've depleted the food in that area, they march in mass to a new area and then start all over again.
In our remake of Them! we could have the hungry ants gobble up the U.S. soldiers who thought they had the ants contained, and then swarm across the dessert towards Las Vegas, where they use the elegant hotels and casinos as their new colony, eating all the poor people who don't evacuate in time!
The sewer system in Las Vegas and the elaborate system of storm drains under the city would become the perfect home for these well-organized creatures. They could survive for months by dinning on the many homeless people who live in the storm drains (see the article at the link above), as well as the tons of food in the freezers of the many restaurants throughout the city.
Meanwhile, the U.S. authorities would quickly realize that once the ants were well established in Las Vegas, nuking the city would not necessarily be the best way to deal with the situation. Dropping an A-bomb on Sin City would kill any survivors who might be left, and it would destroy billions of dollars in both property AND currency located there!
Folks, I love this concept, and it has so much potential I really don't know where to take it next! But I'm sure you guys have some interesting ideas to offer. A remake of Them! using the suggestions I've made here would certainly be an exciting movie.
____ Army Ants Eat Everything | World's Deadliest
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Our Them! remake might include a story element about a second colony of giant ants who covets the Las Vegas colony's prime location and bountiful food supply.
Remember, I said the military decided they couldn't nuke Las Vegas because there were still survivors trapped inside, and because it would destroy the city and all the riches it held.
So, when the military leaders learn that a second group of ants are headed across the desert towards Las Vegas, they initially assume this new group will just join the ants already there and make the problem even worse.
But our hero scientists realize that the second group is coming to attack the Las Vegas colony, so they convince the military to let the attackers go through the blockade that surrounds the city.
The ensuing battle would reduce the number of ants the military would eventually need to battle inside Las Vegas.
And there's our climax! An invasion of the city by the military, with hundreds of troops, tanks, and other armored vehicles moving down the Las Vegas streets as they battle the ants.
Naturally the scientist make it clear to the military leaders that they must find and destroy the queen ant. She would be carefully guarded by the ants in some large casino showroom (just because that would look the coolest).
What a great movie this would make! 
______ Natural World - Empire of the Desert Ants
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| scotpens wrote: | | Well, of course, an insect the size of a bus couldn't physically exist. Because of the way arthropods are built, such a creature would be crushed by its own weight.. |
One of the challenges (and the joys) of creating science fiction stories is addressing the problems and making their solutions a plus for the concept.
In this case, if we're talking about "mutated" ants, we can include more changes in their physiology than just increased size. Evolution proposes that species develop new traits that allow them to survive.
Thus a species of giant insects would not just be bigger versions of the ones that actually exist. The changes that produced their increased size would also include anything they needed to survive — like an exoskeleton made of a lighter-but-stronger form of chitin, and a respiratory system that's more efficient.
Actually, we'd be remiss if we didn't include changes in a mutated form, both because that's the way mutation works, and because we'd be making the creatures more interesting if they differed from the real ones we're all familiar with.
We can make an interesting change in the giant ants while also solving the respiratory system problem by giving them ten legs instead of six, and an extra thorax that includes a more efficient system for processing oxygen.
In other words, instead of this —
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— they look something like this. 
| Krel wrote: | | If they did a modern remake, they would have a problem. The U.S. Military stopped using flamethrowers and bazookas decades ago. |
Hollywood has gotten really good at setting stories in past periods, like the NASA films set in the 1960s (The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Hidden Figures, etc.) They spend the money necessary to provide the costumes, the sets, the vintage cars — everything required to create the right atmosphere for serious stories set half-a-century ago.
For years I've wished that Hollywood would make science fiction movies set in the 1950s, made more-or-less in the style of the classics, but with no trace of the campy crap we got in movies like Mars Attacks (which I hate).
I think a serious remake of Them! set in the 1950s and done with absolutely no tongue-in-cheek would be magnificent. High quality CGI ants and a story that uses the concepts we've discussed on this thread would be an exciting movie!
And setting it in the 1950s means we can borrow any ideas from the original we want — like flame throwers and bazookas.
The more I think about that whole idea of the ants invading Las Vegas, the more I like it. What could be more indicative of the 1950s lifestyle than Las Vegas, and what could be more frightening than an invasion of giant mutated ants which take over that glittering oasis in the desert?
It would be a battle between mankind and the monsters created by atomic radiation — right there in the city which was dangerously close to all those atom bomb tests in the dessert!
It's a natural, guys! I can almost hear the trailer narration!
The arrogance and decadence of mankind, pitted against the savagery and horror of nature gone berserk!
Doesn't that sound exactly like the dramatic narrations in those great trailers for the 50s classics!
_______________ Them! (1954) Official Trailer
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958) |
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