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mygif

You’d have to find a diector with an appropriate sense of the fantastic for a remake to work well.
Guillermo del Toro perhaps.
You also have to make a James Bond reference somewhere, given the novel was written by Ian Fleming and the original had Desmond Llewelyn in it.

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mygif

Terry Gilliam should remake this movie. If God will allow it.

I saw this in its original theatrical run, when I was eight. I really liked it then, but watching it as a theoretical grownup, I see that it really has problems like you say. But when you start talking about going to outer space and all that crap, you lose me.

I doubt kids would go for it, though- it’s just too quaint and old fashioned. Hence the need for outer space, apparently, and quantum-ness, and then you might as well put in Bond references because it won’t be the same.

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mygif

Dick Van Dyke is also, by accounts, a fairly good CGI animator.

Yeah, it surprised the hell out of me.

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mygif

It also had Gert “Goldfinger” Frobe playing Bombast!

you can almost see the nonexistent strings holding him up, particularly in a couple of moments where I honestly can’t figure out how he managed to stay upright given how off-balance he was.

For a at least some of those bits, I suspect either actual strings that were blue-screened out, or that they attached his feet to the floor. (As I recall, he did a similar bit as the bank owner in Mary Poppins, but without leaning quite as far.)

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mygif

Okay, so let’s say they remake it.

Dick van Dyke’s character would likely go to. . . Eddie Murphy. The Baron and Baronness would, of course, also be played by Eddie Murphy, except we don’t really mock Germans like that anymore.

Instead of a German Baron and Baronness, we would have to substitute with some Saudi prince and his dozen wives. All played by Eddie Murphy.

Oh, and Chitty would have to either be either a Prius, or a fleet of swarming Segways. With the fleet of swarming Segways, we could also remake the last half of Bedknobs and Broomsticks in to the movie!

I really hope they don’t try to remake this, unless it’s directed by, oh, let’s say Christopher Nolan. Starring Tom Hanks. I think that could work.

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mygif

Dick Van Dyke is easily one of the greatest comedic actors of all time. OK, of the film era. His physical comedy skills are exceeded only by the silent masters of that art (including, of course, Harpo in that list), and his sense of comic timing is impeccable. Sure, his cockney accent is bad, but at least it’s hilariously bad.

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mygif

Please lord, don’t let anyone remake this. The kids are grindingly shrill I admit, but you know a remake will be a complete cock-up. I’ve already had to see oompa loompas rapping; I’d like to be spared further horrors.

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mygif

Hence the need for outer space, apparently, and quantum-ness, and then you might as well put in Bond references because it won’t be the same.

Johnny, it’s about evoking a sense of wonder and discovery. Even in the late Sixties, you could do that by simply making things “foreign,” but that’s not going to work now because even if kids aren’t travelling themselves, they’re exposed to the concept of travelling and different cultures early. Kids today simply have a different qualifier for something being exotic and strange, and that’s what you have to appeal to. The original movie isn’t “quaint” because it’s old; it’s quaint because it assumes some concepts that are normal in 2008 to be fantastical, which they were in 1968.

And it’s worth pointing out that the original filmmakers of Chitty knew this, because the film is nothing like the book, wherein the car talks and helps the family fight gangsters.

Aardy: Bluescreen technology (which was then greenscreen, but I digress) wasn’t nearly so advanced at that time as to be able to block out individual elements on film, and the leans Van Dyke performs happen in the course of a dance routine where there’s no opportunity for him to fix his foot to anything. He’s doing them through sheer muscle power.

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mygif

Other Fun Fact: Road Dahl was called into help edit the script, possibly to make it more silly & manic.

Other OTHER Fun Fact: Dahl had been working on the idea which he’d scribbled down as “A Magical Chocolate Factory, Run By A Lunatic”. In the Childcatcher, he found the perfect lunatic.

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mygif

It turns out that what I have to say about remaking Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has already been said.

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mygif

Chitty of Lost Children?

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mygif

James Bond reference? Reference?

You mean like:

-a leading female character named “Truly Scrumptious”
-a car that can fly, float and has other, weird gadgets and gizmos
-a crazed bad guy with an obvious deformity (elongated nose)

What do you want, Dick Van Dyke with a walther?

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mygif

Of course there’s James Bond references. The original story was written by Ian Fleming!!

Read the book people. Book and movie are 2 entirely different plots.

In the book Cracticus is married to a woman named Mimsie. There are NO evil royals and the story has them fighting gangsters thru France. Cracticus buys Chitty after selling inventions and the whistle candy.

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mygif

It was in my intro to animation class, watching old episodes of the Dick van Dyke show that I learned just what an awesome actor DVD is, so maybe if I can stomach it, I’ll watch my mom’s copy of CCBB. I was never a huge fan of it as a kid, which was probably due to her enthusiasm for it.

As rife with possibilities a remake would be, you know they’d just make it star Brendan Fraser.

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Craig Oxbrow said on September 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 am

To keep the Ian Fleming connection intact, surely the Baron should be played by Daniel Craig.

… I’ll get my coat.

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mygif

Well I saw the original theatrical run and loved it. i’ve lived in the shadow of this movie all my life. kids bought into this stuff back then, and the interval (just after chitty goes over the cliff) is my greatest cinema memory.

But a new version based on the ORIGINAL book would be amazing. Hugh Laurie as Mr Pott. The car is green in the original book. The adventures are wonderful good old fashioned romps and deserve rto be filmed – better even that Dahl’s mad script!

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