Disturbia VS Rear Window

Good debate guys

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Personally this ridiculous. Rear window and Disturbia are nothing alike. At all. Everyone is comparing it to Rear Window and bringing up other older films when Disturbia is a totally absolutely different type of picture. As I said earlier....you can't compare apples to oranges.

What are the differences again?

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Well, I finally downloaded QuickTime, and watched this trailer. I believe that if I hadn't seen this thread, and had simply watched the trailer, what would have made me think Rear Window, is the fact that they are both stuck in one location, 'for different reasons', get bored, watch their neighbors, and discover that one of them is a murderer. From what I can tell, the main idea is the same, but everything that surrounds it is different. Mind you, the main idea is a biggie. Nevertheless, to me, it is the stealing of an idea, not a remake. Might I add, it looks really bad.

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Everything!

I haven't seen Disturbia but I'm assuming that Rear Window is a lot better.

The main difference between my disdain and your disdain, Samsonite, is that mine has never been directed at you personally.

I was always talking about remakes in this thread.

"...against the reworking of any recognizeable elements of any classical story..." Careful, Samsonite, that sounds awfully close to those all-encompassing absolutes that you accuse me of! And I never said Rear Window was a perfect film or even unawkward.

Besides, no, I have no hard fast "rule" against the reworking of recognize elements of films. Perfect example was on TV last night, the original version of The Killers, made in the early 1940s with Burt Lancaster in his first starring film role. The film also spotlighted Ava Gardner and was instrumental in advancing her career. It was a critical and commercial success at the time and, IMHO, certainly deserves to be described as one of the great classic films of that genre. Now fast forward to the 1960s and another version of The Killers is produced, this one with Lee Marvin and Ronald Reagan in the last film he ever made. Both films are based on a very short story written years ago by Hemmingway--two killers arrive in a small town looking for a man who they plan to kill. The intended victim is warned by a friend that the killers are on their way to his home. But the victim makes no attempt to escape. End of story.

The original film continues with an insurance investigator trying to track down the victim's real identity and why he was killed. The "remake," if one can call it that, takes the opposite approach--the killers wonder why they were paid so much for such an easy hit and decide there's more money to be tracked down. Both were good films, although the 1960s version doesn't seem to have enjoyed the same success and fans as the original version. But at least the producer and director of the 1960s version took the time and effort to place their own imprint on the story by changing its perspective.

If you mean the exchange (I'm tempted to say verbal mud-wrestling ) between me and SamsoniteDelilah, it has dragged on too long, and to what effect? SamsoniteDelilah raised some valid points, but we seem to be talking past each other, which is tiring for both participants and observers.

I don't see how they can compare a old movie and a new re-make. They are totally different. Like all the movies made about WWII. they are all different.

I think I speak for everyone here when I ask.... Just what are you on about? Take the remake of Psycho, for instance. How is it "totally different" from the original, aside from the fact that it's ****, I mean? They tried to remake that thing pretty much shot for shot...

Above, someone clearly states their issue with The Departed is that it too closely resembles the original, save for amped up violence and gore. How is this totally different from Infernal Affairs?

As for WWII, what are these films different from?

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It occurred to me that maybe the fairest, least biased means of assessing remakes of classic movies would be to see what was said by experts (more or less) about one classic and its resulting copies. I picked King Kong on the basis that it's an early classic (although not a particular favorite of mine) that was remade in the 1970s and again just a couple of years ago. Comments about all three films were lifted from the Wikipedia online source. Here's what was written about the orginal 1933 film:

King Kong (1933, the original classic)
Significance
Although King Kong was not the first important Hollywood film to have a thematic music score (many silent films had multi-theme original scores written for them), it's generally considered the be the most ambitious early talkie film to showcase an all-original score, courtesy of a promising young composer, Max Steiner.
It was also the first hit film to offer a life-like animated central character in any form. Much of what is done today with CGI animation has its conceptual roots in the stop motion model animation that was pioneered in Kong. Willis O'Brien, credited as "Chief Technician" on the film, has been lauded by later generations of film special effects artists as an outstanding original genius of founder status.
At the end of the scene where Kong shakes the crew members off the log, he then goes after Driscoll, who is hiding in a small cave just under the ledge. The scene was shot using the miniature set, a mockup of Kong's hand and a rear-projected image of Driscoll in the cave. This is not the first known use of miniature rear projection, but certainly among the most famous of early attempts at it.
Many shots in King Kong featured optical effects by Linwood G. Dunn, who was RKO's optical technician for decades. Dunn did optical effects on Citizen Kane and the original Star Trek TV series, as well as hundreds of other films and shows. In the 1990s, in his 90s, Dunn co-invented an electronic 3-D system now used for micro-surgery in hospitals and in the military, as well as co-inventing a video projection system with better resolution than 35mm film that is used in modern cinemas.
During the film's original 1933 theatrical release, the climax was presented in Magnascope. This is where the screen opens up both vertically and horizontally. Cooper had wanted to wow the audience with the Empire State Building battle in a larger-than-life presentation. He had done this earlier for his film Chang (1927) during the climactic elephant stampede.
Critical reaction
The film received mostly positive but some negative reviews on its first release. Joe Bigelow of Variety claimed that the film was a good adventure if the viewer is willing to suspend disbelief and "after the audience becomes used to the machine-like movements and other mechanical flaws in the gigantic animals on view, and become accustomed to the phony atmosphere, they may commence to feel the power."[4] The New York Times found it a fascinating adventure film: "Imagine a fifty-foot beast with a girl in one paw climbing up the outside of the Empire State Building, and after putting the girl on a ledge, clutching at airplanes, the pilots of which are pouring bullets from machine guns into the monster's body". [5]
More recently, Roger Ebert wrote in his Great Films review that the effects are not up to modern standards, but "there is something ageless and primeval about King Kong that still somehow works." [6]
Theatrical Re-Releases
King Kong was a great box office success, as it became the highest grossing film of 1933 and the fifth highest grossing film of the 1930s. This was an impressive feat considering King Kong came out during one of the worst years of the Great Depression. Due to popular demand, King Kong was re-released numerous times through the years.
In 1938 King Kong was re-released for the first time, but suffered some censorship. The Hays Office, in accordance with stiffer decency rules, removed a few scenes from the film that were considered violent or obscene. . . .
In 1942 King Kong was re-released again to great box office success. However it was altered again by censors as various scenes were darkened to 'minimize gore".
In 1952 King Kong saw its greatest release to date. Not only did it gross more money then any of its other releases, but it brought in more money then most new "A-List" pictures did that year. Due to this success, Warner Brothers was inspired to make a giant monster film of its own called The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. This movie in turn ended up kicking off the "giant monster on the loose" film boom of the 1950s.
King Kong was sold to television in early 1956 and pulled in an estimated 80% of all households with televisions in the New York area that week. In summer of 1956, King Kong was re-released theatrically (mainly drive-ins) based on its great TV success.
In the late 1960s, all the censored scenes that were cut back in 1938 were found, and restored back into the film. Janus Films gave the restored King Kong a brief theatrical re-release in 1971. This was the first time since its original run in 1933 that King Kong was seen in its complete form.
Awards
The now classic film was not nominated for any Academy Awards, although it is reasonable to speculate that it could have been nominated for Special Effects for its many groundbreaking techniques, if the award had existed at the time. As it was, however, the Special Effects category would not be introduced until 1939, with The Rains Came receiving the honor.
The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1991.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(1933_film)

Obviously the original film had a long life, still being shown as late as 1971, and it certainly impacted the industry in many ways.

Here's some of what Wikipedia had to say about the 1976 remake of King Kong:

Although the film is often described as being a financial flop, King Kong was in fact commercially successful, earning Paramount Pictures back over triple its budget. The film ended up at #5 on Variety's chart of the top domestic (U.S.) moneymakers of 1977. (The film was released in December 1976 and therefore earned the majority of its money during the early part of 1977.) The film made $80 million worldwide on a $24 million budget.
While the film received mostly mixed responses from critics, especially from fans of the original King Kong, it did receive extremely positive reviews from several prominent mainstream critics. Pauline Kael in The New Yorker, Richard Schickel in Time, Charles Champlin in the Los Angeles Times, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, and 'Murf' in Variety, among others, responded favorably to the film's pathos and (often campy) sense of humor. Kael, in particular, truly loved the film, noting "I don't think I've ever before seen a movie that was a comic-strip great romance in the way this one is — it's a joke that can make you cry."[2] The performances by Bridges and Grodin were generally well regarded, and even the film's most ardent detractors noted that Richard H. Kline's Academy Award-nominated cinematography and John Barry's thunderous musical score were first class.
The movie's success and notoriety helped launch the careers of Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, although Lange reportedly received some negative publicity regarding her debut performance that, according to film reviewer Marshall Fine, "almost destroyed her career".[3] Although Lange won the Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture - Female for Kong, she did not appear in another film for three years and spent that time training intensively in acting.[4] . . .
The film received an Academy Award for Best Special Effects, an award it shared with Logan's Run (1976).
King Kong found new and sustained life on television. NBC bought the rights to air the movie and it was a rating success. NBC paid De Laurentiis $19.5 million for the rights to two showings over five years; the highest amount any network had ever paid for a film at that time. This led De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (with Canadian distribution by Paramount) to make a sequel called King Kong Lives (1986), starring Linda Hamilton. Unlike the 1976 remake, the sequel was a commercial failure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(1976_film)

So apparently its success was not as immediate as that of the original film, and it may or may not have hampered Lange's career while helping Bridges'. Apparently, too, many of the fans of the original 1933 film didn't like it as well.

Here's some of what Wikipedia had to say about the 2005 remake of King Kong:

The marketing campaign for King Kong started in full swing on June 28, 2005, when the teaser trailer made its debut, first online at the official Volkswagen website at 8:45 p.m. EST, then 8:55 p.m. EST across media outlets owned by NBC Universal (the parent of Universal Studios), including NBC, Bravo!, CNBC and MSNBC. That trailer appeared in theatres attached to War of the Worlds, which opened on June 29.[4] In a unique co-promotion, New York State held a special King Kong lottery game in which tickets were sold for a one time drawing to be held on December 5, 2005 offered a grand prize of $50 million and several second prizes of $1 million.[18]
Jackson also regularly published a series of 'Production Diaries', which chronicled the making of the film. The diaries started shortly after the DVD release of The Return of the King as a way to give Jackson's The Lord of the Rings fans a glimpse of his next project. These diaries are edited into broadband-friendly installments of three or four minutes each. They consist of features that would normally be seen in a making-of documentary: a tour of the set, a roving camera introducing key players behind the scene, a peek inside the sound booth during last-minute dubbing, or Andy Serkis doing his ape movements in a motion capture studio.[19] The production diaries were released on DVD on December 13, 2005, one day before the U.S. release of the film. This was one of the first occasions in which material that would normally be considered supplementary to the DVD release of a film, was not only released separately, but done so in a prestige format; the Production Diaries came packaged in a box with a set of prints and a replica 1930s-era clipboard. It is also the first time such material was published prior to the release of the film.
A novelization of the movie and a prequel entitled The Island of the Skull was also written. A multi-platform video game entitled Peter Jackson's King Kong was released, which featured an alternate ending. There was a hardback book entitled The World of Kong, featuring artwork from Weta Workshop to describe the fictional beastiary in the film. A number of spin-offs from the remake's franchise include books, novels, comics and video games.
Reception
With a take of $9.7 million box office on its opening day, and an opening weekend of $50.1 million, King Kong failed to live up to its pre-release hype, and did not meet expectations of Universal Studios executives. Some media outlets even considered the film to be a flop after its weak opening weekend, as at that point it wasn't on pace to make back its 207 million dollar budget.[20] Its opening weekend of $50.1 million, while good for most movies, fell short of the inflated expectations caused by the movie's enormous budget and marketing campaign.
However, King Kong was able to hold its audience in the subsequent holiday weeks and ended up becoming a domestic hit, grossing $218.1 million at the North American Box-Office (putting it in the top five grossing films of 2005 domestically[21]). King Kong fared much better in the International market, as it grossed $331.3 million outside North America, leading to a worldwide total of $549.4 million (putting it in the top five grossing films of 2005 Worldwide [22]).
Other factors also affect a film's profitability besides box office sales, such as the DVD sales. King Kong, as of April 3rd, sold more than 7.2 million DVDs,[23] over $100 million in the largest six-day performance in Universal Studios history.[24] And as of June 25, 2006 King Kong has generated almost $38 million from DVD rental gross.[25]
Thus, despite the film's inauspicious start at the box office, King Kong turned out to be very profitable. Ticket and DVD sales combined, the film earned well over $700 million,[26] becoming the fourth-highest grossing movie in Universal Pictures history. Its release on home video and DVD was also a great success.[27]
Critical reaction
King Kong received a favourable critical response, garnering an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[28] The most common criticisms of the film were due to excessive length, over-use of slow motion, and several moments where the audience was aware of CGI effects. Positive critical reviews regarded it as one of the few good epics and all-round best movies of 2005. Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, and listed it as the 8th best film of 2005.[29] Similarly, King Kong has been included in many critics' Top Ten of 2005 lists.[30] The film received four Academy Award nominations for Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Art Direction, winning all but the last.[31] Some criticized the film for retaining racist stereotypes present in the original film, though it was not suggested that Jackson had done this intentionally.[32]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(2005_film)

So apparently the 2005 film benefitted from a massive marketing and promotion campaign that was unavailable to the original and the first remake. That might prompt some speculation as to how much of the second remake's popularity was the result of its own merits and how much was stimulated by the massive hype. The fact that some outlets initially thought the film had flopped might mean that the promotional campaign was not as successful as hoped. However, the fact that the film maintained some degree of popularity over an extended period helped turn it into a financial success for the studio. One of the imponderables, of course, is how a factor was Jackson's influence coming off his triple successes of Lord of the Rings. At that point, he probably could have filmed the phone book and people would stand in line for tickets.

I don't think the first remake has eclipsed the classic nature of the original, but perhaps Jackson's remake will. Guess we'll have to wait another 30 years to get the proper perspective on that.

Watched Disturbia a few weeks ago. The ending I didn't like but for the most part it was ok. Rear Window kicks it's arse though by a 100 to 1.

I hav watched Disturbia 3 times and it kicks rear windows arse.

Its cooler because in disturbia the characters are teenagers which is much cooler than a couple of old people!

Would u rather see Grace kelly & james Stewart making out
or Shia LaBeouf & sARAH Roemer making out!

Thats Rite!

The only thing I found cool about it was where they used today's technology. But I mean c'mon.......that ending sucked big time.

Shia who and Sarah who? Sorry, I don't give a rat's ass about watching anyone make out. J Stewart had more acting talent in his big toe than either of those two jack-asses you listed. What about the subtle commentary on voyeurism? Commentary on television, our little rear window to the world? Did ya catch any of that at all? What about the masterful use of color? Sound? Lighting? I guess you may have been too busy watching two talentless underwear models make out to pick up on some (or any, apparently) actual themes in the films.

But hey, thanks for stopping by!

Rear Window

Disturbia

The first trailer I saw for Disturbia made me think of Rear Window and a more recent movie that sucked with Depp in it. I can't recall the title. I figured it would lean more on the crap side than the good side.

However, I went to see it and was pleasantly surprised. Sure there were some massive loop holes in the story but it was a good little suspense film. I like suspense versus slash.

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I think both movies are solid. Rear Window is obviously better, but I don't think Disturbia stealing concepts from Rear Window was necessarily a bad idea either.

Rear Window 9/10
Disturbia 8/10