Thoughts on remakes

Exactly Sedai. I think, like anything, remakes can either be original takes on the initial idea or a "re imagining" if you will, or absolute crap whacked off for a quick buck.

My first response is revulsion at the idea of another unoriginal hack job by the latest "hot" director. Especially when the original film was so much a product of its time. Aja's "Hills" comes to mind. You can't replicate the original idea without adding something to it, and that makes it an entirely different film.

What Cronenberg did with "The Fly" was completely original. He took the "notion" of the original ....man somehow switches heads with a fly and took the concept a step further. He created possibly the most visceral meditation on disease and power that the screen has ever seen.

"The Thing" is probably my next favorite remake if not a tie with "The Fly." Carpenter again did something with the original concept and amplified the notion of paranoia and mistrust in the Reagan era. He took something and shaped it to make it relevant and fresh.

I don't like the idea of the slew of remakes, especially the recent J-Horror ones. Some things just don't translate well. I am definitely NOT looking forward to the American remake of Audition (Odishon) which I have heard is in the works. Why not just distribute the original and let people see the original vision of the writers, director and cast?

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"You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I don't think there's anything man wasn't meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn't do." -David Cronenberg

Hate remakes...or "re-imaging' of a movie.

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You didn't like Batman Begins?

True.I followed through that way all my life. There are plenty of sequels that are well worth seeing on screen.

I hate remakes! There really is no need for them. I am trying to think of good remakes and so far I can only think of cast away.

Everything else is crap. King Kong remake sucked. Psycho remake was just plain weird.

Where are the original ideas?

I liked king kong remake. the new tech to make the gorilla so realistic was just awesome

they make remakes because they know people will like them because they liked the original movie

besides remakes allow film makers to add a modern twist to it

I read an interview with Gus Van Sant that described Psycho not as a remake, but a forgery. A fancier term would be pastiche, and the purpose of making one is to understand the work of a master by recreating the process. It makes perfect sense. Van Sant had just made his gazillion from Good Will Hunting and wanted to indulge himself, while learning as much as he could about Hitchcock's many secret techniques. Because of that critics kept asking what the point of watching it was, but Gus simply didn't care. I thought it was funny.

I loved the new King Kong, but mostly because Naomi Watts was sooo likeable in it. She's an incredible actor with the right direction, and that drew me in more than anything else. I avoid remakes of movies that are dear to me, like The Truth About Charlie. I haven't even seen The Departed yet because I'm a fan of Infernal Affairs.

There is some plagarism going on, no doubt in my mind. It really burns me when a filmmaker denies the "inspiration" of a movie or feigns complete ignorance of their source material. But worst of all is the case of The Ring, where apparently the original screenwriter's name was mysteriously cut from the credits.

Incidentally, you guys do realize Star Wars Episode 4 is a remake, don't you?

Of what? Hidden Fortress? Ever so loose. Clearly, the character set was inspired by that film, but, other than that, the similarities weren't that apparent, to me anyway. Still, Lucas didn't set out to make a completely original film, far from it. He wanted to get his interpretation of material he loved on the screen. Kurosawa, Leone, Flash Gordon, the writings of Campbell... More of an homage, I would think, and in that case, one of the best homage pieces, ever. I love what he did with the first Star Wars. The later films are trash.

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Hmm, old thread, just actually did an exam on remakes. Vanilla Sky is tosh but some remakes have their merits, i'm not entirely against them if done for right reasons or suitably well.

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most of the remakes is a waste of time and money.

Some of the remakes films are just junk..they just wasted their money...

Most films in general are a waste of time and money. Obscene amounts of money.

There are no hard and fast rules: The Maltese Falcon was made twice before Huston and Bogart forged it into a classic. De Mille made Ben Hur as a silent with great success, then later remade it in Cinemascope and Technicolor with even greater success. I sure there were people in the audience watching Heston and Boyd fight it out in the big chariot race who had also seen Ramon Novarro in the black-and-white silent version, but it seems to me now that remakes get recycled much faster today than they used to. And with worse results--does anyone really believe that Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds shares any more than a partial title with Gary Cooper’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town?

I’m still not sure that it was necessary—or even wise—to remake 3:10 to Yuma, however.

I just gotta ask, Pyro Tramp--how does one "do an exam" on remakes? And why would you?

Have you seen it yet? It's easily available for rental. They did pump up the action and change a few important plot points, but the heart of the film is still the relationship between the two men, and it's well-acted with all the best scenes and dialogue taken from the original. You may not like it as much as the 1957 film, but I find it to be worthy and one of the better films of 2007.

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A good movie is a good movie. However I'm pretty young so I'm probly always gonna have the upshot/downshot of not having seen the original.

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original is still the best.

No, I haven't yet seen the remake. I keep trying to steel myself for the experience, but every time I think I'm about up to it, I read something like one of the characters wearing eye makeup, and I start screaming "Oh gawd! Oh gawd!" and have to breathe through a paper bag for several minutes.

Still, I plan to rent the remake and sit down some Saturday and run it and the original back-to-back while keeping a score sheet, how many killings in this one, how many explosions in that one, and how often do the two stories touch at any given point. Figure I'd best watch the rerun first in hopes of being somewhat fair in my appraisal

I think what puts me off about seeing the remake--besides all the explosions and leaping from rooftop-to-rooftop in the ads that make it look like a remake of Rambo or Spiderman--is that Crowe and the other star look so damn grim! Ford played the outlaw as a killer with a smile and charm. Crowe flashed a couple of nice smiles in Cinderella Man so I know he has the capacity. But that other guy just looks so grim and one-dimensional in the previews, so un-Van Heflin! And there's probably not a single ol' rodeo rider making flying mounts and dismounts in the remake, either.

But there's eye makeup--why did there have to be eye makeup????

I have to say that I have been disappointed by most remakes.

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