Dr. Oshé vs. Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars

It's funny just how many movies get remade, even movies that not a lot of people know or care about. The movie I'd like to talk about today is a movie that no one has seen, and is a remake of much better movie that no one has seen either. The original movie is called Harriet the Spy (1996), based on the novel by Louise Fitzhugh. In 2010, someone thought it was a great idea to remake it to appease to the drooling idiot kids who watch Disney Channel.

This was Nickelodeon's first movie.

This was another "film" farted out by Disney Channel.

So, to begin this review of Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, I'd like to talk about the original Harriet the Spy. I watched this movie several times as a kid. It actually inspired me to start writing, and my mother has told me that it also taught me how to be mean to people.

What can I say? I've got to learn from somewhere.

Anyway, the gist of the story is that Harriet is an 11-year-old girl who is determined to become a writer when she grows up. Her parents are always busy with work, and they often go out to fancy parties. Harriet has a nanny named Golly, with whom she is very close. She spends her spare time after school spying on several different people and writing about them in her notebook, which she labels "PRIVATE." She and her two friends, Janie and Sport, plot against their classmate, the notorious Marion Hawthorne, the prim and proper kiss-ass who rules the class with an iron fist. Whatever she says goes.

Harriet's world is changed when Golly decides to leave the family, telling her that she is now old enough to take care of herself.

Then one day, the whole class is playing bumper tag in the park, and Marion stumbles on Harriet's notebook, which she reads to the rest of the class. They read all of the mean things Harriet wrote about each of them, including the not-so-nice things she wrote about her best friends, Janie and Sport. Harriet has alienated everyone.

Without her voice of guidance (Golly) and her friends, Harriet begins plotting sweet vengeance against her classmates, who have formed a club to torment her. She gets revenge on each of them, and soon she learns the consequences of her actions. Harriet grows up a bit, and when she is appointed writer of the class newsletter, she works in an apology to everyone in the class, even to Marion Hawthorne. Her friends are by her side once again.

This movie is actually pretty good, considering its positive message and the fact that Harriet is a very relatable character. Allow me to list out the characteristics that make up the true Harriet the Spy:

-she is playful and curious
-she is determined, and works hard to achieve her ambitions
-she isn't afraid to take risks
-she isn't concerned with appearances, only her work truly matters
-she is an individual, who isn't concerned about appealing to the masses

These are all of the things I look for in Harriet the Spy. Will the Harriet in Blog Wars hold up to these expectations?

I doubt it. You can't get much better than this.

Okay, here it goes. Wikipedia said Blog Wars is the sequel to the first movie. How bad could it be?

Take a good look. Has your question been answered yet?

Okay, right away the film is disappointing me. In the first few minutes, teenage Harriet is introducing us to all these people in her life, and she's using sophisticated (i.e. long) words in her sentences, just like that annoying kid in school who thinks he's smart. She complains to the family chef (a character that wasn't in the first movie) that she doesn't want to eat the meal he made; she wants a tomato sandwhich.

Hold it! In the original movie, Harriet also ate tomato sandwiches, but she made them herself. Sorry, new Harriet, that's a point off your grade.

Also, she makes this face a lot. That's three points off!

New Harriet continues her introductions, and already she's sassy and bratty, the combination you don't want in a character who's supposed to be relatable and likeable. And guess what. GOLLY IS STILL HER NANNY. She left in the first movie. Sure, she came back for a scene to give Harriet some advice on how to deal with her classmates, but then she left permanently. Why, in the damn sequel, is she back?!

Then New Harriet introduces her friends, Janie and Sport, and I get even more angry.

Apparently Janie is a hippie environmentalist.

...

NO.

Janie is NOT an environmentalist. She's a mad scientist. The original Janie planned on creating untraceable poisons for Marion Hawthorne, and she built stink bombs! Why why whyyyy would she...

Ugh. It doesn't matter anyway, because this characteristic that Harriet establishes doesn't pay off for the whole rest of the movie. I'm not kidding, she says right in the beginning that Janie is a radical environmentalist, and Janie does nothing environmentally radical.

Then Harriet introduces Sport, who is a boy who can't play sports. Hilarious.

First of all, the original Sport was a boy with a struggling author dad. He did all of the cooking and cleaning in his house while his father struggled with writer's block. He was an independent kid who was also friendly and goofy, and a good friend to Harriet.

New Sport is just some schmuck that can't play basketball. At least, that's what Harriet says in the beginning. You never see Sport play basketball again until the very end, where he scores a basket on his first try.

...

WHY?

You don't introduce characters with certain traits that are not important to the story, or that are not even exhibited by that character at any point during the movie! In the beginning of Star Wars, it's not established that Luke makes good pancakes. That's because it doesn't serve a purpose to the story!

Anyway, I haven't even gotten into the plot. And that's where it gets really insulting.

So, Harriet wants to be the writer of the class blog. Hmm, in the original she wanted to be the writer of the class newsletter. And she's competing against Marion Hawthorne in both movies. Is--is this going to be the same movie?

But suddenly Blog Wars takes a turn away from the original to establish that there's a popular movie star by the name of Skander (that's not a joke) who all of the girls in Harriet's school are obsessed with. Harriet soon realizes that if she were to write about Skander--who she hates with a passion--on the blog, more people would read it, and she'll become the class blogger.

New Harriet is pandering to the masses. That's another five points off!

Harriet soon finds out that her father is producing the new movie that Skander is starring in. She jumps on the opportunity to begin spying on Skander so she can write about him more accurately. Harriet's objective is to "expose" Skander as a huge douchebag so that her dumb classmates will stop idolizing him.

Well, he does have a doucheface.

Meanwhile, at home, where her parents are ALMOST ALWAYS AROUND, Golly occasionally quotes famous people to Harriet, but never says anything useful. May I remind you that in the original movie, Harriet needed Golly around because she was a child. Old Golly was the voice of reason and guidance in Harriet's young life. New Harriet is definitely old enough to stay home alone, so why is Golly still here??

So, Skander comes over to their house and is introduced to Harriet's father. Then Harriet's father introduces her to Skander, and I was struck with the overwhelming fear that Harriet will fall in love with Skander by the movie's end. This kind of thing always happens in Disney Channel movies.

Like in this monstrosity I sat through when I was babysitting once.

Then, Harriet finds Golly sneaking around behind her back, and is planning on leaving to take care of the kids of a guy she's dating. It's really not like the original Golly to be so secretive, so of course they're going to make the new Golly the opposite kind of character she's supposed to be.

Harriet then finds out what hotel Skander is staying at and plans to sneak in, with the help of Janie and Sport.

Notice that they're all wearing bright colors. Way to be discrete, guys.

After a stupid scene of all of them trying to be spies...

Hilarious hijinks ensue!!

Harriet makes it into Skander's hotel room and hides behind the couch. At one point she actually bursts out giggling, which Skander hears!

...

Assuming Harriet has been spying since she was 11 in the first movie, she should be a lot better at it by now. Not to mention HARRIET DOES NOT GIGGLE DURING SPY SESSIONS. Jeez, New Harriet, are you going to completely fail my test??!!

Spoiler alert: Yes.

Harriet continues writing on the blog, which gets the attention of Marion Hawthorne's friends, who all love Skander, despite the things Harriet writes about him. They ask her to come over for a slumber party and she says yes.

...

HARRIET DOES NOT HANG OUT WITH THE POPULAR GIRLS. THE REAL HARRIET WOULD HAVE SAID NO, I DON'T WANT TO GO TO YOUR LAME-ASS PARTY!

So, anyway, all this time, Harriet is pretending to know Skander personally, since her dad is producing his movie. She can't actually hang around Skander, so she spies on him. And she's doing this so she can write on the blog about him and so the popular girls will not think she's a fraud.

HARRIET THE DAMN SPY DOESN'T CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK.

Harriet begins spending a lot of time with the popular girls, claiming that this way she can take them out from the inside. Did--did th-this movie just become Mean Girls?

Yes, yes it did.

Okay, then Harriet overhears Golly telling the guy she's dating in secret that she's going to tell Harriet's family that she's leaving. Then, Harriet says, AND I QUOTE, "What's Golly up to?"

What... what's Golly up to?

DUH, SHE'S LEAVING YOU, STUPID!!

Soon Janie and Sport start getting annoyed at Harriet for spending so much time hanging out with the popular girls.

Then Janie has the gall to directly quote the original movie by saying, "The only thing more pathetic than being Marion Hawthorne is wanting to be Marion Hawthorne."

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

In the original movie, Harriet is the one who says this; she is talking about Rachel, a girl who hangs around Marion Hawthorne, acting has a devoted follower to her. In this movie, Janie is saying this because Harriet is hanging out with Marion Hawthorne's friends??

Harriet does on occasion try to hang out with Janie and Sport again, but they act all mad and walk away from her. I'd understand if Janie did this, because in this movie she's a typical teenage girl in a Disney Channel movie, but why is Sport holding a grudge? He's not even involved in anything that happens in the movie. In fact, Janie isn't either.

Whatever. Harriet continues to spy on Skander. The thing is, Harriet--who is supposed to be really good at spying--insists on wearing a BRIGHT, FIRETRUCK RED coat when she's spying. Even when she's spying on Skander, who is jogging near the woods, she's wearing red.

No one will ever find me here!

How about you wear green or brown or anything that MIGHT NOT ATTRACT ATTENTION TOWARDS YOU?!

In the original movie, she gets caught once. You'd think she's learned by now how not to get caught. Pretty soon, Skander starts to become paranoid that someone is following him. HMM, I WONDER WHY.

I think someone's following me, actually.

He noticed Harriet at the mall, and starts following her. Nice job, Harriet. Your title is HARRIET THE SPY, why don't you start acting like it?

It was here that I paused the movie for a bit to let off some steam in my notebook. I wrote, "Who asked for this movie? Why was it made? WHYYYYY"

A food fight breaks out on the set of Skander's movie. For no reason.
Then Golly catches Harriet following her. Probably because she was wearing red.

Harriet confronts Golly about her plans to leave, and I can't help but not feel sorry for her at all. You are 16 years old, Harriet, you don't need a nanny. It's not like she's done anything useful for you in this entire movie.

Blah, blah, blah, blah...
Everyone's mad at Harriet (for some reason I don't care about) and she's all alone. She then proceeds to not exact revenge against her stupid classmates for being insufferable jerks. There is a overly-emotional montage of Golly leaving Harriet, which is not emotionally moving in the slightest. Later, Harriet's mother says "I will never forgive Golly for abandoning us." She says this because the doorbell is ringing and no one is answering it. ANSWER IT YOURSELF, YOU OLD WHORE.

Harriet takes a video of Skander saying that he hates all his fans and the way they worship him. The video ends up online, and goes viral. The news is in an uproar, calling it a "scandal." No, an affair is a scandal. This is just stupid.

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

Harriet fixes everything and apologizes to her friends in the only way the writers for Disney Channel know how, by the "I'm sorry I was a bad friend" cliché!
Then in a scene that mimics (read: COPIES) the original movie, Harriet is voted as the new class blogger. Golly comes back to stay forever. Harriet did not learn a thing, and did not have to grow up at all. The movie ends with horrible pop music--well--just pop music.

New Harriet, your final score is an F-. See me after class.

All in all, this supposed sequel to Harriet the Spy attempted originality and failed miserably. The scenes that weren't crappy carbon copies of scenes from the original movie were just a mixture of every Disney Channel movie ever made. The original Harriet the Spy is about a girl who learns about the consequences of her actions and grows up in the end. Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is about a spoiled brat who doesn't learn anything and doesn't need to grow up in the end. The only good news is that Harriet does not fall in love with the douchey movie star.

Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is an insult to the original film, and an insult to movies in general. Why this movie exists, I will never know. All I know for sure is that Disney Channel is where creativity and quality go to die horrible deaths. I also know exactly how New Harriet will be punished. Since she is not coordinated enough to fight me, I've resolved to simply make every waking moment for her terrifying.

Reboot Report: Robocop VS Robocop!

2014 versus 1987

I'm deviating from my usual blog post to bring you an analysis that I've been thinking about for a while now. It's a matter that's very important to me, and I feel I need to share it with the world.

They remade Robocop. If you are one of those people who say, "What's this Robocop you speak of?" then I suggest that you go give yourself a time-out. Go on! What is Robocop?! It's only one of the greatest movies of the 80's and one of my favorite movies of all time! It's a masterpiece of ultraviolence and irreverent satire of consumerism in the 80's.

But anyway, yes, they remade the best movie of the 80's. They remade Robocop! First of all, you should never remake a movie that was already good. Second of all, if you find yourself remaking a ultra-violent 80's movie into a modern action sci-fi movie with less violence, you need to go back to your smelly apartment and rethink your entire existence. Is Hollywood so freaking lazy that they're going to pluck a movie that defines the era it was made in and remake it for dumb movie audiences of today??

Okay, I started ranting a bit there. From now on, I'm going to try to keep my analysis level-headed and professional. Let's begin our comparison of these two films with the setting.

Detroit

Original Robocop:

Detroit was a depraved cesspool of filth, crime, and corruption. It was a horrible place to live. The police were overwhelmed with the rise in crime, and needed some kind of help. A company called Omnicorp manufactured a bunch of robotic police drones called the ED-209s, which were meant to help clean up the streets. However, the drones were found to be unreliable and dangerous, since they were very prone to malfunctions. During a demonstration to a board of administrators, an ED-209 prototype guns down an innocent man, even after he drops his weapon.

Scientists wanted to create the first-ever robotic police officer with the ability to fairly assess situations, efficiently capture criminals, and protect innocent people from harm. After the tragic murder of dedicated cop Alex Murphy, scientists begin their project, rebuilding him into the perfect weapon, with all the raw instincts of a good cop mixed with the efficiency of a machine, just what Detroit needed.

New Robocop:

Future Detroit looks fine. It's a large, clean, future metropolis with fully-functioning robot police drones that don't malfunction. Their ED-209s never shoot the crap out of a single innocent person. The only chaos in the movie we see takes place in the Middle East, where the drones started gunning down people because they were trying to blow up all the drones. Of course the drones are going to kill these people; they were successfully perceived as threats! The explosions could have killed other innocent people, and the drones were trying to prevent that from happening!

So, scientists still want to make a robot cop that can feel emotion. For Detroit. Again, Detroit doesn't need it. We don't see any crime here, and the city looks clean and prosperous. But scientists still think it's necessary to create Robocop so he can clean up crime and feel emotion. Funny thing, they end up taking away his emotions later anyway, so what the hell.

Alex Murphy

Original Robocop:

In the original movie, Alex Murphy, the man who will soon become Robocop, comes off as a friendly, easy-going guy. He's a good cop, and an all-around good guy. His death is rendered horrifying not just because it was gruesome and violent, but because we liked him. When he is rebuilt as Robocop, Murphy becomes stoic and robotic, with no memory of his human life. over the course of the movie, we watch him as he slowly remembers who he is and realizes what has been done to him. He could show real, genuine emotion even with the Robocop face shield down. On top of all that, he's a complete badass.

New Robocop:

Okay, right away I see problems. Just based on the picture, I would guess that Alex Murphy is a jerk. And he is! When the movie starts, the first thing Murphy does is complain at the police chief, actually folding his arms like a pouting toddler. Right away, there's no reason for us to care about this dude. Also, either due to the acting or the directing, the guy playing Murphy shifts inconsistently from robotic to emotional, all before he even becomes Robocop. Much later, when he's Robocop, he's constantly putting up his face sheild so we can see his entire face when he emotes. While original Robocop only needed his lower jaw to show us how he was feeling, the filmmakers for this movie thought audiences were too stupid for that kind of subtlety, so they went the easy route.

Not only that, but we're bombarded by scenes of Murphy with his family in order to establish that he's worth caring about. And speaking of his family...

Murphy's Family

Original Robocop:

Murphy's family is mostly absent. Murphy is introduced as a single guy, with nothing much going on in his life other than he's a dedicated cop. It's only after he becomes Robocop that he suddenly begins regaining human memories that we haven't seen yet. He did have a family once; a spunky, loving wife and a happy young son. While we only see glimpses of them, it's still clear that this guy has lost a lot in becoming the ultimate savior of Detroit. Also, as he soon realizes what was done to him, we are further moved to sympathy for him, since he doesn't have that loving family to support him. Murphy's just been turned into a weapon against his will, and his family is no longer around to give him comfort.

New Robocop:

Murphy's family is still around. I had a really big problem with this, since it takes away a bit more of the tragedy of a man being brought back to life as a modern-day Frankenstein's monster, being used by the city of Detroit as a weapon against his will. He has the support of his wife, and he can still be with her and their son, so where's the tragedy in that? On top of that, the woman playing Murphy's wife is incapable of acting and the kid playing their son is completely emotionless.

There's another problem I have with the kid. When Robocop comes home for the first time after being built, the kid just stares at him for a bit, then just starts talking about baseball. He has no questions about how the scientists rebuilt his previously-dead father. Also, how is he not excited that his dad is now an awesome part-robot cop?! His dad's a real-life superhero, and he has no reaction to this?! What is wrong with this kid???

Not to mention, when Robocop uses his sensors to detect his kid's emotions, it says things like "frightened" or "scared" or "shocked." But at all of these points, the kid is just staring blankly into the distance. He never cries, throws tantrums, or even looks worried. Maybe Robocop's son is also a robot.

Robocop/Murphy's Best Friend

Original Robocop:

This is Officer Anne Lewis. She was assigned to be Alex Murphy's partner in the beginning of the movie. While their partnership was brief, we saw glimpses of real chemistry and friendship developing between them. Lewis was friendly and loyal, and a good partner to Murphy. When Murphy got brutally murdered by the main bad guy of the movie, she flew right to his side, mourning him even though she only knew him for a short time. After Murphy was rebuilt as Robocop, Lewis was the one that helped him regain his humanity through genuine friendship and support. What Murphy lacked in a family was made up in his new friend.

I think it's also appropriate to mention that Officer Anne Lewis is damn good with a missile launcher.

New Robocop:

In the Robocop remake, they seemed to think that it was a good idea to get rid of Officer Anne Lewis almost completely. Now Murphy's partner is Officer Jack Lewis, a black guy with no distinguishing characteristcs, and no role in the movie. We are never really given a chance to get to know him, he gets shot in the first few minutes of the movie, he gets better a few scenes later, and then he does nothing at all. If he was removed from the movie, the outcomes of the plot would have been exactly the same. I guess Robocop doesn't need him since he has a loving family to go home to.

Ughhh... I'm getting angry..........

No, I'm fine. I can keep it together.

These were only a few major points, but they were some of the most important ones that I considered when comparing the two movies. These weird changes in the characters really stuck out to me in the new Robocop and I really don't think that they improved the movie's plot at all.

The original Robocop was a fantstic blend of action, violence, tragedy, and comedy that kept me engaged and interested throughout it's run. It's a movie about a robot-cop shooting bad guys, sure, but it also contained some real emotional weight, since I liked the characters, and cared about what happened to them. It's also about a man who had his humanity taken away from him, and his struggle to get it back. It ends on a bittersweet note, with Robocop remembering his human name. He knows his life will never be the same, but at least he has come to terms with what he is, and he knows that he can right the wrong in this world.

The reboot is about a man who was killed in a carbomb, was rebuilt as Robocop, and he shoots things. He has a family that doesn't do anything, a best friend that's hardly in the movie who also doesn't do anything, and blah blah blah. I couldn't care about him too much because he wasn't that likable to begin with. The movie has a rainbows and butterflies ending, where he gets new armor and goes back home to his family again. Oh, did I mention? He doesn't really loose his human memories. He didn't have to struggle as much emotionally to get them back.

Now I'd like to talk about what made each movie memorable.

The original Robocop was full of memorable moments. And they are as follows:

-the main bad guy murdering Alex Murphy brutally, leading up to the creation of Robocop
-Robocop slipping in and out of consciousness as he is rebuilt by the scientists
-Robocop waking up to the scientists celebrating him and their achievement
-Robocop saving a woman from being raped
-Robocop punching a hole in a wall to grab a man who was holding innocent people hostage
-Robocop regaining his human memories
-Officer Anne Lewis reconnecting with Robocop's human side and helping him kill the bad guys
-"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
-Officer Anne Lewis blowing up the bad guys with a rocket launcher
-Robocop kicking all of the ass
-Robocop smiling and saying his own name at the end

The new Robocop had very few memorable moments, but there were still memorable moments:

-some good action scenes
-Samuel L. Jackson acting as a satirical Bill O'Rielly type character. I liked that the movie made a statement about the media's tendency to twist the facts in order to fulfill an agenda, or make the people feel a certain way

Also, there is a scene in the new Robocop that elicited a genuine emotional response from me. After Murphy wakes up and realizes what the scientists did to him, he asks the lead scientist, Gary Oldman, to show him how much of his human body is still left. Gary Oldman then removies all the pieces of his Robocop armor, revealing that all that's left is one hand, a heart, lungs, a head, and a brain. Murphy gasps, and with tears in his eyes says, "My God, there's nothing left!" This was a shining moment when I felt sorry for this guy, and I was pretty freaked out that he was essentially just a few organs inside a robot suit.

I guess overall, the new Robocop could have been a pretty good movie if it got rid of Murphy's dumb family, his useless friend, and didn't pretend that it was Robocop. As a stand-alone sci-fi movie about a man being used like a drone against his will, it could have worked out fine. I just wished it didn't pretend to be Robocop! It just didn't have the same 80's charm that the original had. Also, the violence was dumbed down, and that also made me mad. I enjoyed the ultra-violence in the original.

This is how I feel about each movie:

Hollywood, please try to come up with some original ideas. Please don't reboot movies that don't need it, either.

Update: New Posts Coming Next Week

I haven't posted in a while, but never fear! I'm planning two new posts very soon. The first will be a comparison between a classic movie and it's reboot. The first of its kind, it shall be dubbed a "Reboot Report." Soon after, I plan on watching another mystery movie from Netflix: an unnecessary sequel to the 1996 film Harriet the Spy. It's a Disney Channel original, so obviously it will be atrocious. See you guys real soon!