Dear reader, I never thought I’d be this person. The person appalled at the remake of a film I love. Ghostbusters? Hey! Those ladies are great! Psycho? I don’t really get the point since it’s like shot-for-shot the same thing, but hey! Go on, friend! But when I saw that Zac Efron is signed on for a remake of Three Men and a Baby, a brilliant example of the late 80s/early 90s “dead/missing mom” genre, I let out a deep, guttural moan that both surprised me and revived my rage.

Now, in the spirit of honesty, I concede that Three Men and a Baby pales in comparison to Three Men and a Little Lady, a far – FAR! – superior film. You can fight me on this, and also on the fact that . . . get ready . . .

Three Men and a Little Lady is not a sequel to Three Men and a Baby.

Three Men and a Baby is a prequel to Three Men and a Little Lady.

I will take no questions on this. I will ignore all arguments to the contrary. You’re wrong. If you’re curious as to why, I suggest you watch both in a row; Baby serves only to set up Lady. The point, nay the very essence, of a prequel!

Comparing the two, Baby‘s plot is looser, it’s more aimless. It’s a pondering of sorts, perhaps a meditation? And there are laughs centered around a classic very-VERY 80s drug sting (more on that later), but they’re less pointed than Lady‘s. Lady is a hard-hitting rom-com, which tightens it up in terms of sense of purpose and jokes. It has that handy plot line we all learned about in sixth grade, with a proper rise of building action, peak, and then conclusion. Three Men and a Baby, though, it’s legit just that: Three dudes hanging out with a baby and being like, “Waaaahhh??”

I won’t spend a ton of time on this extremely specific line of thought nobody asked for nor desires, but suffice it to say, some of the reason I think I panicked at a Baby remake was the possibility of a remake of Lady, and everything just spiraled. And I can’t have anyone but a Tom Selleck (Peter) end up with a Nancy Travis (Sylvia, the Baby‘s mom) in her incredible early-90s-British-royalty-adjacent wedding dress.

The thing is, is the idea of three bachelors having to take care of a baby really still a good enough joke to carry an entire movie? I also keep thinking of the cast, Katie’s Original Three Crushes (“Maybe,” thought 7-year-old me, “We could all live together!” no doubt a hint of the summer of 2015 in which I heavily research polygamy and become a fan of Big Love). They’re like the three fates, those dudes. Each with his strengths, together making The Ultimate Man, perhaps life itself?

Swoon. I still can’t pick between them! How dare they try to make us?

Also, look how old they are. Tom Selleck was 42; Ted Danson was 40; Steve Guttenberg (who I eventually fell deepest for upon seeing the Police Academy movies – long live the Gutes!), though was only 29. I legit wonder if Zac Efron is him, and if so, get to workin’ on that weird mural they put outside their billion-dollar multistory penthouse in Manhattan!

Oh, and also, if that’s his role (could I possibly find out? Sure. Am I going to? No. I just had to read about the Three Fates for fifteen minutes for a single caption, I’m done for the day), he also needs to get comfy with hanging up his sex symbol status because Michael definitely definitely brought a woman into his room in order to do a puppet show for her, that’s a real thing that happened in this movie.

There’s something about the element of the deep-seated bachelor like Tom Selleck (Peter) having his ass handed to him that I enjoy, so I hope they get an actor like that too. Toxic masculinity ruins the party again, but in the case of this specific movie, they don’t seem to wield said masculinity like an axe; more like a scalpel (he does live in NYC after all). Peter likes fancy whiskey and stubble and knows nothing of babies, and we believe it. I find it difficult to believe that Zac Efron wouldn’t be a dream with babies despite his own stubble, I mean, look at him, look at that face.

One of the best elements of Three Men and a Baby, which I think emphasizes that grizzled manliness of Peter’s (Selleck), is this uber-modern relationship his character is in. Both parties remark to different people how they’re basically just each other’s regular lay, and when she’s the first person they call when a baby’s left on their doorstep, she 1.) shows up with her date – another dude – on their way to the date, total baller move, and 2.) legit cackles and asks why in the hell he thinks she’d know any more about babies than she does – and then she peaces out. Byyyeeee!!!!! It’s magnificent. She’s only seen later at another event, and when Peter and Michael (Guttenberg) are called away for a baby ‘mergency, looks at her friend with mild amusement, mixed with a touch of learning something new about someone she’s known awhile – and a very definitive conclusion that this has nothing to do with her, so best go back to the play. Just . . . [chef’s kiss].

Her withering looks are something to behold. It’s not all judgmental or pitying, there’s a sort of dry, mild amusement/surprise at this guy being all into a baby – well, at everything really. But it’s certainly not yearning; his paternalism does the, uh, opposite of making her fall madly in love with him.

I also think it’s important to shout out Rebecca’s hot wardrobe – we’re doing a full ode to this magnificent creature, summed up by a cape paired with a crop top. I couldn’t make a gif of her sashaying through Peter’s apartment (again: with another man who she’s on her way to a date with), but damn, if someone does, please send it to me.

Rebecca isn’t the only female hero in this epic tale. Ted Danson’s (Jack’s) mom (he’s the biological father) also gives a hard pass to the idea of taking care of this vessel of inconvenience.

Watching woman after woman gleefully reject taking care of a child is downright exhilarating for people like me who feel like they still have to constantly explain that to people that not all women want kids, and actually, no, they shouldn’t just have one anyway and hope they like it. Will the remake keep that? I mean, in terms of keeping true to the title alone, they have to, in a sense, but will they eliminate the actual scenes of women that know these men legit running away from a baby? Oh, pleeeaassseeee no! There’s a reason we had a whole feminist backlash period after the 80s; the movies went too far! They showed women rejecting babies! Babies that were right in front of them!

Certainly, one of the main gender things when it comes to men raising babies is the whole, “Oh wow, I have zero freedom now to do anything, like, ever,” a revelation that continues to astound men of today, I think. In Three Men and a Baby, that “freedom” is based mainly in how much boning those three are doing before this rando kid shows up. Literally, the opening credits are just scores of women coming in and out of their apartment. While Ted Danson’s character is depicted as “the worst,” that seems to mainly serve as another interesting thing – he’s the “worst” because he actually fathered the kid, causing all of the three’s problems despite screwing around as much as the other two. You know, much like how a pregnant single woman is a big ol’ sloot no matter how much sex everyone else she knows is having without ending up preggo.

What will become of that? Will that still be a chunk of context, that constant stream of women? God knows we won’t see their incredible outfits.

What about The Best Friend of Every 80s Movie . . . cocaine? You couldn’t have a movie in 1987 without making cocaine a main part of the plot device. Is there cocaine sewn into a baby’s diaper in this Zac Efron joint? If not, I reject it utterly. What about an enormous video camera that was so rare an instrument that they actually have to show Steve Guttenberg/Michael using it at the top so the audience believes later that he has one?

I don’t know how I can have a Three Men and Their Self-Actualization movie without that penthouse, the insane parties at said penthouse, the saturation of pure 1980s weirdness that made its way into my brain and quite possibly solidified my sexuality as both a straight woman and one who believed New York City was where all your dreams can come true – especially the one where you outsmart a bunch of drug dealers with a random baby dropped on your doorstep.

Truly though, there’s a very special New York City of the 1980s (well, NYC is special in any decade prior to 2010, to be fair) that is showcased so well in this movie that I don’t know can be recaptured. I feel like modern movies that take place in NYC are so removed from it – you’ve still got your Barnes and Nobles and Sephoras and Crate and Barrels in the background like any major American city. Whereas in one of the final sequences these guys were living on what I think is the Upper East Side alongside Central Park (??? lol ok!), and frequent all of Manhattan’s delights, baby in tow. They weren’t just dads, they were NYC dads – maybe that made the whole plot more plausible to the rest of America? Regardless, there isn’t really an effort to showcase the best place in the universe in modern movies, or if there is, it’s to point how everyone there is struggling and unhappy. There are no more Tom Selleck friend-sugar-daddies to take you into their mansion despite the fact that you clearly cannot pay them any rent.

We end with asking ourselves some important questions, getting at the very soul of Three Men and a Baby:

1. Who will the other two “men,” as per the title, be played by?
2. Will the, ahem, excessive contextual “doing it,” and cocaine be replaced by CrossFit and kombucha (taking the metaphor of the missing “mother” even further)?
3. Please don’t have them share an apartment in Williamsburg. I know that isn’t a question. Just don’t fucking do it. Also don’t move it to San Francisco or Seattle and make Tom Selleck’s architect a tech guy, don’t you dare.
4. Will – and please don’t let me down on this – will Steve Guttenberg have a cameo?

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