Movie sequels/prequels/remakes

Tools    





Over the past few decades we have been bombarded with sequels/prequels and remakes in many genres. My question is when you rate a film so highly, do you completely disregard and refuse to watch further instalments? Or are you always interested to see a different interpretation?



Generally avoid remakes if the original was perfect. Doctor Zhivago, The Getaway, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Thomas Crown Affair, to name just a few, did not need a remake.
__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.



Generally avoid remakes if the original was perfect. Doctor Zhivago, The Getaway, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Thomas Crown Affair, to name just a few, did not need a remake.
Far From the Madding Crowd maybe didn't need a remake, but I really, really love the 2015 version.

To answer the original question, when I really like a film I do sometimes hesitate to go into sequels/prequels. I have a hard time separating films within the same universe. To me they kind of blob into one big story.

Ironically, something like Sleepaway Camp 2 is almost easier for me because it is SO different from the original that my mind doesn't link them very strongly.

I do read a lot of movie reviews and will check out sequels and remakes if they have generally good buzz. Some films are more akin to "reimaginings" than straight up remakes: Dredd is one of my favorite action films of recent years; I thought The Invisible Man was super solid.

Now, remakes of films I actually really liked? Hmmm. Those are far less common for me to check out. The 70s Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Hairspray; Insomnia; Fright Night; Gaslight.

There are some novels with multiple quality adaptations, things like Little Women or Pride and Prejudice. I am always interested in a film adaptation of a book I like.



Generally avoid remakes if the original was perfect. Doctor Zhivago, The Getaway, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Thomas Crown Affair, to name just a few, did not need a remake.

Totally agree about The Getaway...flawless film that had no business being remade



Victim of The Night
I try to be open. It's not always easy, but I try.
Sometimes, though, it's about what the distinction is as to what is a remake. A lot of times, movies are just new adaptations of original material that an earlier film was based on. I don't really consider those "remakes". For example, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein oTMP in 1818. Most people think of James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein to be the "original" Frankenstein movie (which we all know it was not) and all others, such as Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein or Coppola's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to be remakes. But they are not, they are just other adaptations of Shelley's novel. All versions of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre or Emma or whatever are not remakes of the most well-known adaptations of those novels. Obviously.
I think for something to be a "remake" of a film, that original film has to be the source material. And those I think are a little more dangerous. But not always. Sometimes a movie, even if it was appreciated enough to be worth remaking, perhaps didn't fire on all cylinders the first time, could have been better, and I don't see why someone shouldn't try. The Fright Night remake was a perfectly tolerable movie on its own... you just wouldn't want to compare it to the '85 version. And sometimes a movie can actually be made well multiple times. There are three major versions of Mutiny On The Bounty and I think all three of them are damned good.
Sequels, on the other hand, what can you say? It's hardly a new phenomenon, the aforementioned Frankenstein had SEVEN sequels in its Universal run, and often these sequels can be great, like Bride Of Frankenstein surpassing, in the minds of almost everyone, the '31 version.
So, yeah, I guess I'm pretty open on the subject.



CringeFest's Avatar
Duplicate Account (locked)
Hollywood is trash because 80% of what they've done of the course of my 31 year life is recycle content, streaming services are the way to go for your modern movie watcher...The original star wars trilogy was a work of art but all it's prequels are just flashy expensive nonsense for the masses. Don't pay money for it!



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Over the past few decades we have been bombarded with sequels/prequels and remakes in many genres. My question is when you rate a film so highly, do you completely disregard and refuse to watch further installments? Or are you always interested to see a different interpretation?

I try to view a remake as a new movie, without comparing it to the original, but that's not always possible. If it's a movie that I love the original version, then it's hard not to compare it and see changes as making it worse.

In most cases, whether or not I prefer the original or remake version just depends on which version I saw first. There are several movies that I prefer the remake version over the original version just because I saw the remake first, and I liked it so much that I went looking for the original version, only to find that I liked the remake more, even though the original is generally regarded as the better version. (Some examples of this are the movies Sabrina, Always (over A Guy Named Joe), and The Thomas Crown Affair.

As for sequels and prequels, whether or not I watch them basically depends on if I liked the characters enough to care about what happens to them either before or after the original movie.
__________________
.
If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.



There are few if any remakes I like.

Sequels can be good but are most often bad.



Peter Jackson's King Kong was an enjoyable remake.


I haven't watched Sinatra's Ocean's Eleven, but the new one with Pitt and Clooney is one of my favourites.


Naomi Watt's starrer The Ring was quite good. Similarly Departed another remake of a foreign film was brilliant.


As for prequels, I regard Rogue One as one the best Star Wars movie.

Yeah, majority of remakes or prequels have largely been poor. But with regards to the question asked, I am always open to the idea of watching sequels or even remakes if they are well made films.



As far as remakes go, I think there are enough worthy ones to warrant a look. I think it all goes down to how/why it is conceived and who are the people involved. Examples like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly, The Blob, Dawn of the Dead... even Frankenstein was a reboot. If they're bringing something new to the table, be it in narrative, story, or technical aspects, then why not?

I think there's a whole different feeling when you have these instant reboots that occur barely a couple of years after another film. There's a fatigue involved here with the characters that might work against the final product, regardless of the talent involved. Examples like Spider-Man and Batman come to mind.

As for sequels, it depends. I go back to what I said in the first paragraph... how/why it is conceived and who are the people involved. More often than not, you can tell when it's a cheap cash-in and when it's a cohesive extension of the themes of the franchise. Again, I think there are enough worthy sequels to warrant a look, IF the outlook is good in terms of how/why it is made and people involved.
__________________
Check out my podcast: The Movie Loot!



CringeFest's Avatar
Duplicate Account (locked)
As far as remakes go, I think there are enough worthy ones to warrant a look. I think it all goes down to how/why it is conceived and who are the people involved. Examples like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly, The Blob, Dawn of the Dead... even Frankenstein was a reboot. If they're bringing something new to the table, be it in narrative, story, or technical aspects, then why not?

I think there's a whole different feeling when you have these instant reboots that occur barely a couple of years after another film. There's a fatigue involved here with the characters that might work against the final product, regardless of the talent involved. Examples like Spider-Man and Batman come to mind.

As for sequels, it depends. I go back to what I said in the first paragraph... how/why it is conceived and who are the people involved. More often than not, you can tell when it's a cheap cash-in and when it's a cohesive extension of the themes of the franchise. Again, I think there are enough worthy sequels to warrant a look, IF the outlook is good in terms of how/why it is made and people involved.
I actually recently saw the 1986 version of "The Fly", and I thought it had some very creepy aesthetics which I enjoyed, i haven't seen the original. i think big money film-making overall could just use more original content and experimentation into more dangerous territory.



I actually recently saw the 1986 version of "The Fly", and I thought it had some very creepy aesthetics which I enjoyed, i haven't seen the original. i think big money film-making overall could just use more original content and experimentation into more dangerous territory.
I like the original quite a bit, but the remake is significantly stronger, despite some 80's cheese in the middle act, as Brundle examines his "powers". Both are definitely worth a watch.

FWIW, here's something I wrote on both films a while ago...

Original vs. Remake: The Fly (1958) vs. The Fly (1986)



Some academics claim that there are only about a half dozen plots in all literature, which would include movie scripts. It seems inevitable that they will repeat themselves, either in the "theme and variations" sense (like sequels, prequels, spin-offs) or as remakes or do-overs.

The other form of repeats seems to be that a movie based on a book generally reduces the plot elements and characters in order to stay within a believable run-time, so that means that do-overs might pick a different part of a book as a script, etc. It also allows studios to economize since they've already created costumes, sets, digital universes, etc and won't have to re-create designs for whatever Star Wars permutation we've hit now.

It almost seems as though, after a bit more than a century of movies, we are running out of plot material, so we're re-doing story lines with better FX. Where DO we go from here? Personally, I've had about as many Star Wars variations and spin-offs as I can take. They're just eye-rollers now.

Movies seems to be entering a phase like where they become similar to a big-budget twin to those decades-old soap operas, some of which seem to predate the use of fire.