Prospera, wrapping the vengeance-seeking character in Helen Mirren’s skin and surrounding her with talents like Chris Cooper, Djimon Hounsou, Alfred Molina and Russell Brand, as well as arty cinematography and effects.

The result is accessible Shakespearean pop that would make a suitable double feature with Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Taymor’s similarly ambitious Broadway reboot of Spidey’s origin.

In The Tempest, Taymor’s job is made easier by Shakespeare’s infinitely malleable mythology, which has been repeatedly sliced, diced, remixed and revised in alternately cool and crazy ways. It’s a timeless practice encouraged by DJ William Shakespeare himself, who rarely met a story or source that he didn’t find sample-worthy. To celebrate that pop-cultural mashing, here are 10 more sci-fi, fantasy and other surreally cool revisions of Shakespeare’s plays and person.

The Play: The Tempest
The Thing: Forbidden Planet (1956)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Forbidden Planet is probably the most famous of Shakespearean reboots. A Freudian sci-fi fable that introduced Robby the Robot, the movie featured a groundbreaking electronic music score, starred the recently deceased Leslie Nielsen and charted the horny nexus of interstellar colonization and sexual maturity.

The Play: Hamlet
The Thing: Strange Brew (1983)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Second City Television beer-guzzlers Bob and Doug McKenzie (played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas) follow the ghost of murdered brewmaster John Elsinore into a gag-stuffed comedy hopped up on mind-control drugs, Star Wars hockey, New Wave music and truth-telling videogames.

The Play: Richard III
The Thing: Richard III (1995)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Shakespeare and alternative history go together like Philip K. Dick and drugs. The finest film example of that merge is director Richard Loncraine’s exploration of a cerebral fascist dystopia, starring Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and a hellish inferno soundtracked to Al Jolson’s “I’m Sitting on Top of the World.”

The Play: Romeo and Juliet
The Thing: Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Shlock-speare goes wild in veteran exploitation studio Troma Entertainment’s retelling of the Bard’s star-cross’d lovers. Throw in Motörhead’s awesome Lemmy Kilmister as a narrator, add hefty helpings of sex, horror, deformed children and phallic monstrosities, and you’re there, squire.

The Player: William Shakespeare
The Thing: The Twilight Zone episode “The Bard” (1963)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Rod Serling’s famous irritation with advertising reaches an apotheosis in The Twilight Zone’s finest, and final, one-hour episode. When a crappy writer magically raises Shakespeare from the dead to help him achieve screenplay stardom, the Bard goes ballistic at the endlessly lame revisions. Best. Shakespeare. Reanimation. Ever. (Unless you’re a Doctor Who fan, in which case …)

The Player: William Shakespeare
The Thing: Doctor Who episode “The Shakespeare Code” (2007)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: An excellently rebooted Doctor (David Tennant) arrives in Elizabethan England to find the Bard unknowingly inserting lines supplied by witches into his lost play Love Labour’s Won, which could destroy the world. It’s a fun mix of Shakespearean in-jokes, Harry Potter nods, The Da Vinci Code, Back to the Future and other sci-fi sampling. But if it’s horror you are looking for …

The Player: William Shakespeare
The Thing: Theatre of Blood (1973)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Horror icon Vincent Price plays Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart, who vengefully murders his worst critics using the Bard’s plays as a death manual. With the help of his daughter Edwina, played by spy-fi siren Diana Rigg (The Avengers‘ Emma Peel), Lionheart sets about dispatching his haters in the worst (and most hilarious) of ways, before burning out in a blaze of glory.

The Play: The Tempest
The Thing: Prospero’s Books (1991)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Peter Greenaway’s painterly psychedelic homage to Shakespeare’s most famous metafiction starred Sir John Gielgud at the top of his game. Eschewing conventional narrative structure, Prospero’s Books is a cinematic acid trip overloaded on animation, opera, dance and enough nudity to make the Bard’s ghost blush.

The Play: Macbeth
The Thing: Macbeth (1948)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Like Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books, Orson Welles’ surreal adaptation of Shakespeare’s nastiest tragedy is a disorienting experiment that the director designed as a mash of Wuthering Heights and Bride of Frankenstein. Now a critical darling, Welles’ Macbeth was plagued, like its title character, by nightmares — this time involving leftover Western sets, funding and distribution drama, and suspicious costumes. (Those in search of less challenging versions should check out Macbeth’s 1990 mobster reboot, Men of Respect.)

The Play: King Lear
The Thing: Ran (1985)
Sound, Fury and the Signifying of Nothing: Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa remade Macbeth in the excellent 1957 ghost story Throne of Blood, but this epic samurai reboot of King Lear cemented the director’s influential legacy. Drenched in vivid color, massive battles, Noh theater and nihilism, Ran increased the resolution on widescreen Shakespeare adaptations to the blinding point. (Sci-fi fans might prefer Jean Luc-Godard’s post-Chernobyl King Lear, but they’re just high on radioactivity.)

Did we miss a killer Bard reboot? Let us know in the comments section below.

See Also:

• Kill Shakespeare Comic Puts the Bard in a Blender
• Q&A: Sir Ian McKellen Takes On The Prisoner’s Number 1 Tormenter
• Must-See Cult TV, From Danger Man to Firefly

Authors: Scott Thill

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