Notes for
This film, made several years after the original taises questions about what constitutes a remake.
First of all, one can distinguish re-workings from remakes. In a reworking, a film maker goes bacl to an original source and makes a film from that materials.
In the most technical definition of a remake, the second film must cite the original film .In this sense the Polanski's Macbeth is not a remake of the Welles’ Macbeth.
Some films also cite films as a kind of homage in which a film maker salutes another by imitating or copying some recognizable scene from the other film maker’s work. Generally speaking, the two films involved bare little if any relationship to each other other than the homage scene.
In addition to reworkings, remakes and homages there are also parodies and spoofs where some films pole fun at a previously made film or an entire body of work by a director. High Anxiety is a parody of Hitchcock films.
This version of One Million B.C., added the word “Years” and became One Million Years B.C.. Since there is no source other than the original film, this is a remake. The story, names and many of the shots are closely relayed to the original film.
In addition to the aspects of the film that make it a remake, there are also homages in the film to the original. The use of real animals rather than animated one harks back to the original. One of the more obvious deletions from the film is that after the volcano/earthquake sequence, the remake comes to a screeching halt rather than continuing on to the confrontation between the giant dinosaur which is holding Loana’s tribes people trapped in the cave.
Interestingly enough another homage seems to be to . In that film a pterodactyl carries off Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). A similar scene (sans giant ape) appear in this film.
This being only the second of the films, and a remake at that it is hard to tell just how much of the similarities between the films are probles of remake or of genre. That is, are the similarities cause by being something that defines the genre or is it something which is an attribute of this specific film.
It is clear that the initial scenes of the original version of One Million B.C. set in the mountains of Europe are missing from the remake, there is, in the newer version a narrative which supplies audience with the information about the fact that the film is set in prehistoric times.
Structurally, the films both begin with narratives which set the time. Opening scenes show an alien landscape mist covered. Two groups of people, one introduced through the male protagonist and one through the female protagonist are also found. The people from whom the man comes are more barbaric as exemplified by their wearing fur skins (making them seem more animal like), they fight a good deal with one another and do not share food. Force and strength establish leadership and dominance. Even here, though, the women of this group seem more concerned about other members. Tumal’s mother tries to block his expulsion and tends to her husband when he is injured.
Loana’s group on the other hand has either cloth clothing or at least tanned skins which look less bestial. They share food and are cooperative. They also sing, make cave paintings (which link them to the paintings which the archaeologist shows the travelers at the beginning of the film) They also laugh and hence are shown to have humor.
It is clear that Loana’s people share characteristics that the film makers themselves see as more advanced.
In a sense this is akin to the early evolutionist anthropologists’ theories that people evolved from savages (hunters) to barbarians (agriculturalists) to civilized (urban centers with alphabetic writing). Civilization, where the anthropologists themselves lived was clearly seen as they highest form of human development.
Similarly, the archaeologist whose opening statement in the original film talk about intelligence as being innate and education as learned is maintaining a standard nature/nurture distinction. This opposition common in the West is found in its most generalized form in the mind/body problem It would certainly appear that the film makers are making some statement about their attitudes toward things like music, laughter, cooperation and so on.
At this point there are several structural aspects of the prehistoric people films have emerged:
First the films narrative structure starts with some opening narrative and involves 2 groups, one introduced through the male protagonist, which is savage and another group introduced through the female protagonist, which is more civilized. The narrative involves as journey made by the man from his group to the other where he starts to learn about being civilized. He and the woman ultimately journey back to his people where the woman “civilizes the group. A major catastrophe arrives and many people die. There is an optional final scene in which members of the woman’s tribe is trapped and is ultimately rescued by the men’s group. Such as scene was apparently planned for the remake but was never filmed.
In terms of the narrative, the writers are required to create a prehistoric language and culture.
Visually the films are known for their special effects: dinosaurs and natural disasters such as volcanoes earthquakes and the like.
In terms of the construction of language and culture, there is a stronger tendency for the cultures created to reflect more about the writers’ ideas of prehistoric times than academically valid one.
Language is far more complex than a few words grunted at one another. There are sounds, which combine into words and into phrases and sentences. This film like the first uses a few words which seem not to enter into any real grammatical constructions most of the time, Language is heavily supplemented with gesture.
Culturally the prehistoric people vary as to their evolutionary status. None the less they reflect Western ideas about political power being rooted in force and male domination. Archaeological evidence seems to imply that hunter and gathering economies have more gender equality than agricultural ones and that in most societies (certain
as far back as Neanderthals) people took care of one another. A Neanderthal skeleton who had lost an arm (or part thereof), The skeleton shows that the arm had healed and this implies that he had been cared for by other Neanderthals.
While religion goes back at least to the Neanderthals it appears to me virtually absent in the films. There is only one shot in each of the films which implies religion and it occurs with the more primitive group.
The fact that the people in these prehistoric people films have the potential for wearing very little, there is a a definite move in that direction by the makers of the remake making use of Raquel Welch’s obvious attributes.