Double Wide Trailers: 'Footloose'

Posted Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 4:27 PM Central

by John Couture

There is no single re-make that I despise less in this world than the upcoming remake of the classic Footloose. If they remade Pootie Tang, I would be more likely to go see it than this upcoming piece of trite.

And no Paramount, that's not an invitation to greenlight a Pootie Tang remake.

Footloose represented everything that was the mid 1980s and given that I was 10 at the time, on the cusp of entering teendom, this movie spoke to me directly. I wanted to learn how to dance. Kenny Loggins' soundtrack burned a hole in my walkman. I wanted to drive a VW bug.

So, you have to understand the unique level of vile that I had when I saw the trailer for Footloose. From the opening notes in which some fraud band rips off my childhood idol to the inexplicable inclusion of cut scenes from Stomp the Yard Part 37, my mouth was ajar and for once I'm at a veritable loss of words.

First off, Kevin Bacon kills in the role of Ren McCormick. It's his ICONIC role. What's next someone remaking Top Gun and casting someone other than Tom Cruise as Maverick?

I'm sorry Kenny Wormald, but you sir are no Kevin Bacon, not even close. Heck, Miles Teller doesn't even sniff Chris Penn's performance in the original, may he rest in peace.

The trailer tries to suck the life out of the original with little nods to the original move like the dance sequence through the warehouse, the dance sequence through the school and the big train kiss moment, but ultimately it's what they changed that irks me the most.

First, since it would be too unbelievable that in today's day and age a town would simply ban dancing because a preacher suggested it, the filmmakers have added a teen drinking and driving tragedy to underscore to give the town's lawmakers more justification in banning dancing. Because, you know it was the dancing that caused the accident and not say the underage drinking and then driving.

In light of this week's tragic set of events that led to the death of Jackass' Ryan Dunn, you would think that Paramount (the same company that produced all the Jackass movies and TV shows) would at least have the decency not to drop this trailer within days of his death.

But this is Hollywood. I wouldn't expect a big studio to delay the release of a trailer, let alone an entire film, when there's money to be made.

From this trailer, it seems that another iconic scene from the original has been altered. The chicken game involving tractors has seemingly been replaced by some sort of demolition derby activity involving school buses.

What was it just too unbelievable that small towns like Bomont would still have tractors? Or perhaps they simply wanted to add more pizazz to the production by having the school buses blow up.

Finally, it might be a small point here, but they have completely changed Ren's back story. Instead of being from Chicago, he now hails from Boston. And instead of relocating to the South with his mother, Ren's matriarch is seemingly killed off, thus necessitating his move to the backwards South.

And speaking of the "backwards South," when will filmmakers stop using it as the stand-in for slow, redneck inbreds? I happen to live in the South and have met some of the most amazing people full of world culture, but yet the stereotype lives on.

But that's a discussion for a whole other day.

For now, here's the poster for the new movie. Gone is the iconic look of the original, but props to the filmmakers for realizing the importance of keeping the yellow VW bug.

Here is the trailer for the original Footloose. Enjoy all that Kenny Loggins goodness.

Below you will find the tragedy that is the new Footloose trailer. For those of you in the younger generation who think I'm simply just some old fuddy duddy opposed to change, let's see how you feel in 20 years when they're remaking High School Musical.