Dirty Dancing (2017 ABC) - General Discussion

[Patricia07]

Sorry if this has been mentioned, but the original Dirty Dancing 30th anniversary edition HD is on sale for a limited time for $4.99 to BUY on I-Tunes.  

Edited May 30, 2017 by Patricia07
clarification

[babyhouseman]

4 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:

Also, why did they make Vivian divorced? I thought her sham marriage was an interesting part of the original character. 

 

Yes, I thought this was the point of the bungalow bunnies. Rich, bored housewives with busy husbands who hook up with the poor, handsome dance instructor. I guess she couldn't be married to do that unnecessary "Fever" scene. Lord knows who they would have cast as the husband. Sean Hayes from Will and Grace? 

2 hours ago, Patricia07 said:

Sorry if this has been mentioned, but the original Dirty Dancing 30th anniversary edition HD is on sale for a limited time for $4.99 to BUY on I-Tunes.  

I got the whole package which is more expensive. It has the script and extra stuff like a watermelon bag and Kellerman momentos. 

[Irlandesa]

18 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

ETA: Whoops! Apparently, Faris actually has...the Kurt Russell role. The genders are being reversed for the prior characterizations. Still think this is completely unnecessary. As all remakes are.

I like a lot of remakes.  Some aren't as good as their originals.  Some are better to the point that you don't even realize they're remakes.  But there's a difference between doing a remake because it's a tale as old as time yet something new could be added and a pure cash grab.  My biggest problem with the Overboard remake isn't so much the gender swap angle but rather the fact that the original was really kinda problematic. 

My problem with this movie?  Pure cash grab.

I actually watched the ABC version and original back-to-back.  I kind of hate myself for watching the ABC version but now I at least feel I'm better equipped to critique it.  A couple of things really bothered me.

As others mentioned, I don't understand the point of making Vivian Pressman divorced.  Not only divorced but kind of sad and pathetic--begging Johnny to stay with her because she's so lonely. Vivian in the original didn't seem pathetic to me.  She was an unapologetic philanderer. Horny.  Not lonely. I even like to think her husband knew given the cash he gave Johnny to give her "private lessons" while he was up all night playing poker.

I also didn't like that one of the major changes they made was giving Johnny the "bungalow bunnies" speech.  It's one thing for Max Kellerman to give it in the original.  We've seen he has an old fashioned and classist POV so it's not a leap that he'd speak derogatorily about the women.  But it's kind of icky to hear Johnny speak about her in such a way when he was just in her bed the night before. 

I also thought the dad was meaner.  In the original, the parents had no story of their own yet the actors still managed to convey that they were crazy about one another.  None of this "you haven't touched me in a year" stuff.  Even with the additional screen time and liking the actors, I was left feeling meh on them. 

I also didn't like all the additional commentary around Penny's abortion with Dr. Houseman yelling at Baby that she could get in trouble for helping because it was illegal and later with his condescending speech about that Penny's medical scare should make her reconsider her life choices. Ugh.  It ruined my other favorite relationship in the original and that was Dr. Houseman and Penny.

Quote

They also didn't make Neil odious enough. 

Ha.  There was a point during Baby's conversation with Neil after he covered for her about the canoeing lie and told her she could be both a dancer and scholar that I thought she should be going out with him rather than Johnny. It was maybe the most successful "I believe in them" moment I had about any couple in the remake which should not be the case.

I still can't get over how boring I found the dancing for the large part.  Even the trained dancer looked awkward.  Swayze just slinked into the moves while I felt I could see this actor deliberately thinking about the choreography. And while I praise ABC for not hiring a size 0 actress, her wardrobe, body type and lack of dance experience/talent combined to make watching her dance awkward.  But heck, that can also be put on the lead actor too for not being a better partner.  What should have been her DWTS grand finale, it was barely a shimmy.

[voiceover]

If anyone's checking this thread, the original is on tonight (& right now) on CMT.

[voiceover]

On 5/30/2017 at 7:14 PM, Irlandesa said:

It ruined my other favorite relationship in the original and that was Dr. Houseman and Penny.

Ooh, great point.  And there was no hint of sleaze -- very father & daughter-ish (or if you must, uncle & niece).

Just watched Baby telling off her dad.  Major emotional point in the original, and a reason this would fit nicely in the "father & daughter" branch of the "Coming of Age" film tree.

Edited June 11, 2017 by voiceover
Because this posted in the middle of a word!

[txhorns79]

I caught this on Amazon, and I kept coming back to one thought: "Who is this meant for?"  Were there people who felt the problem with the original was too little focus on Baby's parents' marriage?  Were there people who were upset that in the original the characters didn't burst into song?  And I didn't understand why this was framed as a flashback, or why they chose to add an epilogue to make sure we understood that Baby and Johnny did not work out as a couple.     

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I love the original so I was pretty sure that any remake of this movie would make me twitchy, but I tried to have an open mind, even when that photo of Abigail doing the lift in the water was posted. I was like hey, the picture was obviously taken at a very awkward and unflattering angle and maybe it was taken while they were just practicing (before filming) so she wasn't pointing her toes or trying to make it look good. But then I finally watched clips of the various dance scenes and the finale on youtube and good lord. I am really glad I didn't waste three hours of my life on this.

I'm totally fine with Abigail not being a size zero. It's nice to see actresses who aren't total sticks. My issue is that they dressed her in the most unflattering way possible and she couldn't dance. Why would you cast someone who can't dance for this role? That's just pure idiocy.

On 5/25/2017 at 5:32 AM, absnow54 said:

I wonder if this movie could have been improved if they'd done a modern day adaptation instead of trying to do a shot for shot remake. As others have pointed out, Dirty Dancing can be found on television almost any day of the week, and the plot is timeless enough to fit into any era. I'm not saying it would have saved this mess, but I feel like they crammed themselves into this creative corner trying to re-capture magic in a bottle.

 

On 5/25/2017 at 9:41 AM, Sarah 103 said:

I don't see how. The movie is about a specific time and place (and there's nothing wrong with that). Dirty Dancing is like American Graffiti in that the story is very much tied to a specific geographic location, a subculture, and a point in a person's life.

One of the things that Eleanor Bergstein said about the original movie is that she deliberately chose the 60s era and the abortion storyline to draw attention to the fact that abortions were still illegal and very dangerous then. When she wrote the script in the 80s, many people just took it for granted that you could get a safe legal abortion and she wanted to remind people that it wasn't so long ago that abortions were very risky (hence the very pointed line about the "doctor" having a dirty knife and a folding table). The studio later asked her to cut the abortion storyline from the movie because they were worried it would be too controversial and she told them that if they took that out, the whole plot falls apart because there's no reason for Baby to get involved and dance with Johnny. Modernizing the story into any year past Roe v Wade would remove that storyline so they would have to find another reason for Baby to dance with Johnny that also somehow made her father feel like she had betrayed him (although at this point, I guess they could just set the story in one of the many states with TRAP laws that make is extremely difficult for women to get abortions*).

On 5/30/2017 at 1:25 PM, ljenkins782 said:

Much as I'm not a huge fan of hers, Julianne Hough would have made a perfect Penny, and if this had been an actual movie with any type of potential, she might have done it (she did the Footloose remake, which I imagine is awful too). But her career is probably too solid right now to get involved in this mess.

She just did that Grease live thing on tv last year so I don't think that a tv remake of an 80s movie is really beneath her career at this point.

ETA: *if you haven't watched Trapped, a 2016 documentary about TRAP laws, it's on Netflix.

Edited August 5, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Zanne]

On 5/30/2017 at 0:22 AM, WendyCR72 said:

I must go off on a tangent from this crapfest for a second to lament another remake on the way: The film Overboard (originally starring Kurt Russell and real-life love Goldie Hawn) is apparently being remade with Anna Faris taking over Goldie Hawn's role for release next year.

 

I literally just saw a trailer for a remake of Flatliners. That movie was bad enough the first time. Do we really need to suffer through it again?

[Dr.OO7]

On 8/5/2017 at 5:35 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

One of the things that Eleanor Bergstein said about the original movie is that she deliberately chose the 60s era and the abortion storyline to draw attention to the fact that abortions were still illegal and very dangerous then. When she wrote the script in the 80s, many people just took it for granted that you could get a safe legal abortion and she wanted to remind people that it wasn't so long ago that abortions were very risky (hence the very pointed line about the "doctor" having a dirty knife and a folding table). The studio later asked her to cut the abortion storyline from the movie because they were worried it would be too controversial and she told them that if they took that out, the whole plot falls apart because there's no reason for Baby to get involved and dance with Johnny. Modernizing the story into any year past Roe v Wade would remove that storyline so they would have to find another reason for Baby to dance with Johnny that also somehow made her father feel like she had betrayed him (although at this point, I guess they could just set the story in one of the many states with TRAP laws that make is extremely difficult for women to get abortions*).

On 5/30/2017 at 4:25 PM, ljenkins782 said:

Not only that, on a lesser note, Kellerman's was one of those Borscht Belt resorts that Jewish people had to go back in those days. Not only is that not a problem today, those resorts have long been abandoned.

[catlover79]

Thankfully I never watched, but I have friends who are to this day furious that this remake ever existed!!!

[WendyCR72]

On 6/11/2019 at 3:51 AM, catlover79 said:

Thankfully I never watched, but I have friends who are to this day furious that this remake ever existed!!!

Trust me when I say I wish I missed it and could retcon it out of existence in my head. It was THAT bad. The commentary/reactions from Twitter and here as it aired were the only saving grace!