First Michael Bay decided to destroy our childhoods by turning mutant turtles into aliens and now Waterman Entertainment plans to transform animated toasters into CGI iPhones … or something like that.
Film Stage informs us that the late-80’s cult kids’ movie The Brave Little Toaster has been picked on for a remake with live-action and CGI replacing the hand-drawn animation of the original.
Admittedly, The Brave Little Toaster might not be everyone’s warm childhood memory. It was a small film that garnered praise at Sundance but never received theatrical distribution. In the end, The Disney Channel picked it up and it was eventually released on home video, where many of its acolytes (your humble correspondent included) experienced it for the first time.
The story centers around obsolete appliances – a toaster, a blanket, a lamp, a radio and a vacuum cleaner – stranded in a sold summer home that are trying to make their way back to their young master.
With voices from Timothy Stack, Jon Lovitz and Phil Hartman, it was very much of its time. While it feels similar to live-action films like The Incredible Journey, the tale has some very dark undertones about abandonment. These are appliances that have been forgotten, relegated to the junk heap, who are desperate to continue to be of use.
As a fan of the original Brave Little Toaster, I cannot see anything good coming of this. The remake purports to introduce an iPhone into the original mix, which seems already to be bad news, both in terms of possible cynical marketing ploys, and in the message of the original.
What do you think though? Excited for a Brave Little Toaster remake?
