10年后，《還珠格格》重返熒屏。 Princess Huanzhu comes back on the small screen after a decade.

十年后，《還珠格格》重返熒屏！但別高興的太早，此“格格”已非彼“格格”了。這部二十世紀九十年代經典劇集的翻拍版本，憑借改編的故事情節(jié)，全新的演員陣容，惹毛了幾乎全國的觀眾。
Princess Huanzhu comes back on the small screen after a decade. But wait, it's not the same old princess. The rehashed 90s classic, with a revised storyline and a new cast, is almost pissing off the whole country.

新浪微博的一項調查顯示，94%的受訪者對新版《還珠格格》投反對票。
A survey on Sina Weibo shows that 94 percent of respondents voted against the new version.

四川大學24歲的研究生新生蔣越說道：“只有一個還珠格格，那就是趙薇。”
"There can be only one Princess Huanzhu, and that is Zhao Wei," claimed Jiang Yue, 24, a new graduate from Sichuan University.

新版《還珠格格》毫無例外地證明了一條定律：一般來說，翻拍經典電視劇是個徹頭徹尾的壞主意。
The new Princess Huanzhu is not the exception which proves the rule: as a general thing, remaking classic TV shows is a truly bad idea.

翻拍經典老片而成的電視劇常常會落入平庸與俗套。
TV shows based on old classics can often end up falling flat.

例如，去年翻拍的電視劇《紅樓夢》，就受到了全國上下的評論家以及心明眼亮的觀眾的猛烈抨擊。在美國，同樣的悲劇也發(fā)生在《霹靂游俠》和《飛躍情海》這兩部劇集上。這兩部曾經的暢銷片，其現(xiàn)代翻拍版本都因收視率極差而與第二季無緣。
The remake of A Dream of Red Mansions last year, for example, was savaged by critics and savvy viewers across the country. In the United States, there was Knight Rider and Melrose Place. Neither of the modern remakes of the previous hits got a second season because of poor ratings.

而造成這種局面的罪魁禍首并不是差勁的明星或拙劣的制作。紐約雪城大學的羅伯特 J. 湯姆生教授相信，大多數(shù)翻拍劇集之所以失敗是因為制片人忽視了那些最初讓這些劇集火起來的因素。
And it's not because of bad talent or poor execution. Professor Robert J. Thompson of Syracuse University, New York, believed most TV remakes fail because the producers missed what it was about these shows that made them a hit in the first place.

湯姆生教授在接受《紐約時報》的采訪時說道：“一部熱門電視劇的認知度和最初使其獲得成功的原班演員，制作風格以及拍攝態(tài)度緊密相連，任何與這些因素相背離的因素都會造成審美上的不協(xié)調感。”
"The identity of a hit TV series is so intimately tied to the original stars, style and attitude that made it a hit in the first place that any deviation from that creates a real sense of aesthetic dissonance," said Thompson to The New York Times.

美國電視節(jié)目博客《影視特訊》的首席寫手——杰西卡?瑞伊更為深入地探討了這個問題。她說問題很大程度上源于對過去經典情節(jié)的過分渲染。
Jessica Rae, lead writer of the US TV blog Small Screen Scoop, takes it further. She says much of the problem lies with romancing the past.

即使原劇并不怎么樣，讓新演員來演繹這些故事仍然像是一種近乎褻瀆的行為。瑞伊說道：“在我們的記憶中，那些老劇集顯得比它們實際上的要好，所以新劇集很難與其競爭。”
Even if an original show wasn't that good, it can seem almost sacrilege to have new people playing these parts. "We remember it as better than it was, so it's hard to compete," Rae says.

當娛樂業(yè)不停擾亂我們對經典劇集的記憶時，人們開始懷疑這個產業(yè)是否存在著巨大的創(chuàng)意危機。
When the entertainment industry constantly messes up our memories of classic shows, people question if there is a huge crisis of new ideas in the industry.

“翻拍舊劇集要么是因為缺乏新創(chuàng)意，要么創(chuàng)新過頭，淪為劣等，”一位名叫亞歷山大?耐科斯基的網民說道，“所有的翻拍片無一例外，都悲愴地驗證了創(chuàng)意已死這個事實。”
"Remaking old shows because you have no new original ideas or innovation is cheesy," said an Internet user named Alexandra Nakelski. "All of those remakes are a sad testimony to the death of creativity."

這樣一來，娛樂業(yè)唯一能反敗為勝的方式是：請給我們一些真正優(yōu)秀，新穎，原創(chuàng)的電視作品！
Well, there's only one way that the entertainment industry can strike back: give us some really good, new, original shows, please！
 
(China.org.cn, 21世紀英文報, August 4, 2011)