"Damn The Gods!"

There seems to have been a lot of uproar about Warner Bros.' decision to remake creaky old Clash of the Titans, even though everyone knows it's only considered a classic because of Ray Harryhausen's spectacular low-tech special effects. I'm a Harryhausen fan myself, and honestly I don't think even he would mind seeing "realistic" CGI effects used to spruce up the myth-inspired dragshow that is Clash.

The overuse of digital effects is typically one of my biggest complaints about new movies, but when it comes to incredibly expensive, incredibly trivial pieces of pop-cultural ephemera like this one, I can't help but become 9 again. Giant scorpions! Evil gorgons! I want to see them. For a little point/counterpoint action, here are the trailers for both the original and the remake:

As opposed to some of the inexcusable and out-of-left-field remake attempts (stuff like The Pink Panther or the announced remake of Hitchcock's The Birds) the new Clash is arguably a true update -- we have experienced a real special-effects revolution in the twenty-*ahem* years since it was made, and the trailers certainly showcase the difference. As to whether it will effectively upstage its predecessor, only time will tell. When it comes out, people will tug back and forth over it, everyone claiming that one version clearly triumphs over the other. Why bother? Even the original was completely frivolous. I (perhaps foolishly) maintain that there's room in our memories for both combatants.

The Seven of Swords is all about this desperate need for validation, for unambiguous victories to be declared, however tenuous the real circumstances. In the Waite version of the card you see one person fending off numerous (perhaps only perceived) threats from above; the card is designed to make you immediately identify with the defender and not the attackers, but no one gets to be the former without first being the latter. Graduating from the Six to the Seven of Wands seems to bring this out in people -- give us a taste of success or encouragement, and we squander it by losing focus on our original mission. We become unsteady, defensive, insecure, prideful, easily distracted -- but hopefully for just a short time, because there is actually still plenty of work to be done before a solid victory is declared.

The film industry seems to exhibit all our ambition-related personality quirks and deficits, exploding them into huge expensive debacles and full-on wars. Clash of the Titans is not only up against every other movie coming out in March, it's also got to stand up to its over-hyped predecessor. When it's all over, who will even care? We all will have already moved on to the next over-hyped challenge.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Seven of Wands