It looks like Hollywood isn’t the only place where movies get remade. Germany’s Bavaria Studios is planning a remake of Wolfgang Peterson’s acclaimed 1981 anti-war movie DAS BOOT. The film has been released in several editions, most notably a three hour Director’s Cut and a five hour television mini-series version. The film was nominated for Academy Awards and regularly ranks as one of the best German movies of all time.
DAS BOOT starred Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer and Klaus Wennemann and was based on a novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim.
Set during World War II, the film tells the fictional story of U-96 and its crew. It depicts both the excitement of battle and the tedium of the fruitless hunt, and shows the men serving aboard U-boats as ordinary individuals with a desire to do their best for their comrades and their country. The screenplay used an amalgamation of exploits from the real U-96, a Type VIIC-class U-boat.
The fact that the remake would also be a German production sets it apart from the cycle of Hollywood studios remaking foreign films but also represents an unnecessary rehash of a film that is considered one of the best of all time. There have been similarly themed movies set on U-boats and submarines that have not come close to matching the power of DAS BOOT.
Honestly, these remakes have gotten to be so common that I just don’t register them as anything more than business as usual. While I don’t have any desire or want to see a new DAS BOOT, at least they aren’t making it with Channing Tatum and Taylor Kitsch. Being a German production, I at least hope they will treat the source material with reverence. For now, I will just go rewatch the original.
