the fly

With Benicio Del Toro ready to debut as Lawrence Talbot in Joe Johnston's The Wolfman tomorrow, it's time to pay tribute to transformations. When Lon Chaney Jr. played The Wolf Man in 1941, the physical transformation was effected through make-up and dissolves. But the idea wasn't just that Lawrence Talbot was changed physically, but that his interior life changed as well. All the make-up and special effects in the world can't hide a character who doesn't grow (or devolve) from the experience.

Science fiction opens up the possibilities considerably, expanding the idea of cross-species commingling. Here are my top ten sci-fi transformations, listed (almost) in alphabetical order.

1. Sam Worthington in Avatar
Jake Sully is a broken man in more ways than one, rendered paraplegic during his military service and broken of spirit as a result. He doesn't take much convincing to accept a mission that may earn him an operation to regain the use of his limbs. Little does he know that it's his increasingly intimate dealings with the Na'vi that will transform him body and soul. He may appear to be nine feet tall and blue, he may wag a new tail, but deep inside, it is his very essence that is changing.

2. William Hurt in Altered States
Eddie Jessup is a brilliant scientist, far more interested in expanding his mind and consciousness than worrying about his physical being. Yet the hours he spends floating in a sensory-deprivation tank -- not to mention the drugs -- begin to have an effect upon his body as well, drilling down far deeper than even the brilliant Jessup could ever have anticipated. The result is one of the more bizarre apparitions to appear on screen.

Han Solo as a experimental research scientist? In Extraordinary Measures, which opens wide tomorrow, Harrison Ford plays Dr. Robert Stonehill, a medical researcher seeking a cure for a life-threatening muscular disease. Though the film is inspired by the true story of John Crowley (played by Brendan Fraser) and his family, Stonehill is a composite of several doctors. As portrayed by Ford, the good doctor is strong-willed, hard-working, and ultimately heroic. Han Solo's cheeky bravado occasionally shines through in Ford's defiant countenance, though the sullen, oft-irritated facade of Rick Deckard (Blade Runner) is more often on view in Dr. Stonehill's bearing.

Not all experiments have happy endings, of course, and not all research scientists are heroic, especially in science fiction movies. When researchers on the cutting edge of science make mistakes, the results can be catastrophic. Here are the top ten sci-fi experiments gone wrong -- the movie edition.

1. The Fly (1986)
Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) has made incredible strides toward a working teleportation system, which could be the invention of the century. But it's not until after he meets Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) that he dares to experiment with a living creature: first a baboon, then himself. If only he had noticed the tiny winged insect in one of the experimental pods ... David Cronenberg's version of the Vincent Price-starring shocker is a character-driven thriller that feels like it's teleported into your nervous system. "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

The immiment release of the intense modern-day family drama Brothers may not make you think instantly of science fiction, but Jim Sheridan's film, starring Jake Gyllenhall, Tobey Maguire, and Natalie Portman, is a remake of Susanne Bier's original from just five years ago, and that got me to thinking about sci-fi remakes, which have mostly had the good sense to wait a longer period of time before cashing in on the original visions.

With all due respect to my friend and colleague Eugene Novikov, who compiled a list of his favorite sci-fi remakes for Cinematical last year, around the time that the cringe-inducing remake The Day the Earth Stood Still came out, my Top Ten is much better (or, at least, different, though we overlap on a couple of picks). To make things more interesting, I've included a few unofficial remakes to round out the list.

1. The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter's remake, still based on a novella by John W. Campbell Jr., cuts to the bone. The 1951 original, credited to Christian Nyby but popularly understood to be under the control of producer Howard Hawks, is visually striking and narratively propulsive, but Carpenter's version, with a precisely-written script by Bill Lancaster and featuring a superb musical score by Ennio Morricone, creates a moody, nerve-jangling atmosphere from the outset, and slowly sets out to dismantle the very idea of uber-macho men crumbling -- and occasionally persevering -- under the crushing weight of fear. Kurt Russell, Keith David, Richard Dysart, Wilford Brumley, and Donald Moffat stand out among the uniformly strong cast. With each viewing, Carpenter's remake reveals more layers, while the original remains firmly lodged in its time and place.

Why is Hollywood so obsessed with remakes? Now you've got David Cronenberg looking to remake his own remake of The Fly. I get that the special effects technology has advanced and that you can make it look so much cooler, but the 1986 Jeff Goldblum film has become a modern classic. It doesn't need to be remade.

Every time we get reports of another remake, that's one less original film being made. And original doesn't even mean Cronenberg needs to make up a whole new story. Think of all the awesome science fiction, horror and fantasy stories that have been written that nobody's made a movie out of them. Why do you think we had to wait so long for a complete live-action The Lord of the Rings?

It's hard enough to make either a good sci-fi flick or a horror movie, one that avoids the tired stereotypes yet embraces the aesthetic, with a smart script that provides something fresh and new and solid direction that establishes a proper atmosphere and allows for surprising developments. And performances that don't camp it up but are sincere and convincing. Combining the two genres is much trickier than blending peanut butter and chocolate. That was my thinking when compiling this list. Your comments are more than welcome. What are your personal favorites? Here are mine:

1. Alien
I don't know if Ridley Scott actually realized he was making a sci-fi horror movie, so much as he thought he was making a stylish thriller. Call it willful ignorance, but that may have contributed to the refreshing absence of overcooked ideas, which typically pop up like dandelions for directors new to either genre. Like the original, original Star Wars (before George shined it up), Alien resides in a future which feels lived in and used up, from the battered old Nostromo to the planet that harbors the seeds of the crew's destruction. By keeping the alien (mostly) out of the shot, and showing instead what the creature has done, the level of terror keeps rising. A distinct sense of dread permeates the picture, and it still makes me shiver.