DVDizzy Forum

I really don't mind re-makes, to be honest. I just kind of feel embarassed when I don't realize they are re-makes. Like, how I thought The Manchurian Candidate was an entirely new film only to discover that it had been made before (same with 3:10 to Yuma).

But I only want the re-makes to add or change enough to constitute the movie's being re-made. Sometimes, just having different actors makes the film feel individual. If it doesn't do anything different, then why not just watch the first one?

PeterPanfan wrote: So like... the new Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is being described as a "reimagining" because he's just adding a new light and direction the book by Lewis Carroll. Most of Burton's films are "reimaginings", actually. Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Beetlejuice, and Planet of the Apes.

Beetlejuice wasn't a remake, and most of the other films (apart from Alice and Planet) are adaptations of already existing novels and comics. Different things.
It's a bit of both with me. Some films really didn't have to be remade (Halloween, The Day the Earth Stood Still) but then there are classic films which were remakes, like Ben Hur. And those were made to generate money just as well. So I don't think all remakes can be dismissed, even if there are only a few good ones.

I'm all for remaking movies that didn't get it right the first time, even if the first time is a guilty pleasure for me. The biggest example of this is Mame, a film I enjoy immensely but would seriously benefit from a remake starring someone who can actually sing.

There's certain properties I don't want touched, or I don't want touched in a certain way. For instance, I would absolutely root for the failure of a big screen remake of Gone With The Wind. Now, a 10-or-12-hour made-for-TV miniseries with an amazing cast and amazing creative teams at the helm that maybe stayed more faithful to the book, including the 3 or 4 kids Scarlett had with her other husbands that got left out of the 1939 film, could be quite brilliant. (Although I have to say, the 1994 miniseries based on the sequel is one of my favorite trash TV classics of all time. ) And I'd be appalled at a remake of the 1939 MGM film of The Wizard Of Oz, but I actually wish SOMEONE would do a big-screen remake of the book that is closer to the original book, which includes Glinda and the Good Witch Of The North being separate characters and such.

Really, I don't care for most remakes because it never seems like any of the actors or creative team involved are anywhere nearly as talented and/or charismatic (re: the actors) as those in the originals, but there are exceptions. The 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart is far superior in almost every way to the decent original 1931 version and the 1936 screwball comedy remake Satan Met A Lady, which although not too bad would have been unwatchable were it not for the fabulous Bette Davis.

my chicken is infected wrote:(Although I have to say, the 1994 miniseries based on the sequel is one of my favorite trash TV classics of all time. )

I love that version too!

I could never finish Alexandra Ripley's book, but the miniseries is one of my favourites!

albert

Please continue discussion of the nature of remakes here.

The best stories are those that can be retold time and again. And they have been retold time and again since the art of storytelling began. Just because something is a remake does not mean it's a tarnish to the "original" story. It does not replace the "original" in any way, shape, or form. The whole art of storytelling is to take established tales and give them new voices. Hollywood is continuing an age-old tradition, it's only in the last thirty years or so that some people have become haughty and critical about the practice.

Albert

I'm ambivalent, more or less.

I see remakes lately becoming very popular in the horror genre, and while some add interesting things to the mythos that the original film didn't touch upon, others are just shot-by-shot remakes with nothing that adds, only different actors and a crapload of special effects. So yeah, it depends.

I didn't care for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, for example. But I did like some aspects of Jackson's King King, like making the gorilla less monster-riffic and more vulnerable and animalistic.

As for different adaptations of one single story? I'm all for them. I'm all for many versions of Phantom of the Opera, for example. And different interpretations of classical fairy tales, yes.

In fact, I'd like for more obscure stories to get more adaptations out. Like this one book which I looove only has one movie version, and the story's so good that I'm all for more movies and different interpretations of the story.

The Last Unicorn is the perfect example of a good book that nobody talks about. It had a great animated version in the 80s (which has sadly gone obscure over the years), but I think it would benefit from having a live-action version. Seeing how Fantasy has had a Resurrection in pop culture/mainstream media these last years from the Harry Potters and Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings I'm sure this story'd be a hit among audiences.

Good remakes are possible, and have been made. But I have to side with Billy Wilder when he said, and I'm paraphrasing, "why bother remaking a good movie instead of fixing an imperfect one"? There are plenty of great ideas that have been brought onto film before, and imperfectly at that, which deserve another shot instead of the popular, beloved films that are usually remade.

Avaitor, I agree. Remakes are only done to the popular movies, the timeless ones, the ones everyone recalls by mainstream media/pop culture. How long before we get a Star Wars remake?

Anyway, I'm all for remakes of the original films that didn't do so hot at first in theatres, and became unknowns. A new remake could bring more deserved attention to the forgotten original.

One of the main problems I have with remakes is Hollywood's insistence that sex and foul language makes a picture better (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a good example.).

One of the best remakes of the past few years was "3:10 to Yuma" with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. They took a 1950's film that starred Glenn Ford and Van Heflin and brought it up to date and there was no foul language or sexual innuendo and it was very well done and I am happy to say that I have both versions in my collection.

One of the worst remakes, of course, was "The Day The Earth Stood Still" starring Keanu Reeves, which was probably a bad casting from the first day. The producers of this film lost their way from the very first day and could never make a movie as good as the 1951 original. When you buy the Blu-ray of "DTESS" you are subjected to an extended preview of the remake before the classy black & white version of the classic movie begins.

In the coming months we have remakes of "About Last Night", "Endless Love", "Dirty Dancing", "Short Circuit", and "Robocop". These are movies that didn't have to be remade, except maybe "Robocop" because of today's CG technology will probably help this film, as long as they haven't changed the story. Peter Weller was Murphy in the original, and I am not looking forward to seeing what they have done with that character.

"Ben Hur", in my opinion, was not a remake. It was an 'upgrade' of the silent classic to a full-color and special effects, to bring us a great film, that should stand on its own for years to come. The same can be said for "The Ten Commandments". Cecil B. DeMille upgraded his original film to bring the special effects i.e., the parting of the Red Sea, to the day's standards. "House of Wax" was another update of a classic film of the 30's that tried to capitalize on the 3-D craze of the 50's.

Remakes are slightly oversaturated, but here's my view.

Remakes are older than Film itself. You can argue the aural and literal retellings of folk tales, legends, and fairy tales are themselves a form of remake. They're usually made to cater to those who haven't seen the original. Introducing an old story to new-sometimes younger-audiences. Sometimes, it's just for the sake of timely relevance like all the updates to comic book heroes' origins.

Remakes are often the product of inspired storytellers as much as being unoriginal. These filmmakers, writers, and game developers take what they loved-and often what everyone loved-about the original and add their own spin to it. In some rare cases, they actually improve on what made the original so good.

Case in point is Peter Jackson's version of King Kong. It can be argued that it was overlong, but having seen the original a couple times myself, I felt certain parts such as the monsters and more importantly the character of Ann to be better written in the remake. In the original, Ann is a walking, swooning scream machine with no development and is constantly oblivious to Kong's affections and "humanity" that she herself brings out in him. In the Remake, Ann doesn't just feel like an actress frok the early thirties playing an actress. She is a very real woman with real problems who only hams it up when performing for Denham.


That is a remake done right and it also served to advertise the original movie as well.


DVDJunkie: I'm curious as to inquire instances where the Walter Mitty remake had "sex and foul language".

thedisneyspirit wrote:Avaitor, I agree. Remakes are only done to the popular movies, the timeless ones, the ones everyone recalls by mainstream media/pop culture. How long before we get a Star Wars remake?

Anyway, I'm all for remakes of the original films that didn't do so hot at first in theatres, and became unknowns. A new remake could bring more deserved attention to the forgotten original.

I suppose I'm young, but a lot of remakes are made for movies that aren't already embedded in the public consciousness.

An odd case of this is the American remake of "Death At a Funeral". Three years after the British one.

And there's the Sabrina one. Popular film, but far from Carrie and King Kong status.

ajmrowland wrote:

DVDJunkie: I'm curious as to inquire instances where the Walter Mitty remake had "sex and foul language".

The innuendo scene is when the man utters a foreign word and Mitty thinks he was just to "f" off.

There are several words used throughout the movie that don't need to be there. Jesus' name is used in vane twice, the word "shit" is used more than once, the word "ass" is used, the word "dick" is used once and very profanely, and the word "hell" is used three times.

I am not a prude about language and sexual content, but they could have made this a more loyal to the original James Thurber story which doesn't have any foul language of sexual innuendo. There is a time and a place for language and it is not in a remake of a "G" rated movie that the only reason they put this into the remake was to make sure that people would spend money on this tepid remake.

When was the last time you went to see a "G-rated" movie that wasn't a Walt Disney film?

My stand on remakes is they had better be true to the source of the original movie or as in the case of "Ben Hur" update from silent to sound and everything else is closely similar. There are two remakes that I can think of that are absolutely well-done from start to finish, those are "3:10 to Yuma" with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe is the roles that Glenn Ford and Van Heflin had in the original movie, and "True Grit", a movie that starred Jeff Bridges filling the shoes of John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn. The Coen Brothers went back to the source, a well written novel, and brought it to the screen a lot more faithfully than the original.

There are two horrible remakes that come to mind. The first one is "The Day The Earth Stood Still" starring Keanu Reeves, which totally used the title only and never turned the page of the book, and "Red Dawn", which should never have been touched because of the casting and direction.

With that being said, we have a ton of remakes and sequels coming in 2014, among those are "A Haunted House 2", "About Last Night", "Endless Love", "Short Circuit", "Dirty Dancing", and "Robocop" to just name a few. None of these will see my money, I hope none of your goes to support these needless remakes.

dvdjunkie wrote:I hope none of your (money) goes to support these needless remakes.

You're ordering us what to do with our money, nice. Not fully knowing our income and presumably some of us do love remakes.

dvdjunkie wrote:My stand on remakes is they had better be true to the source of the original movie or as in the case of "Ben Hur" update from silent to sound and everything else is closely similar. There are two remakes that I can think of that are absolutely well-done from start to finish, those are "3:10 to Yuma" with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe is the roles that Glenn Ford and Van Heflin had in the original movie, and "True Grit", a movie that starred Jeff Bridges filling the shoes of John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn. The Coen Brothers went back to the source, a well written novel, and brought it to the screen a lot more faithfully than the original.

The great Douglas Sirk remade three of John Stahl's films - Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession and When Tomorrow Comes - to great success, particularly with the former two. Brian de Palma's Scarface is generally well regarded as well although I personally prefer the original.

Actually, just a few years ago was the last time I saw a G movie not Disney. Can't quite remember what.

I would agree about a couple bits of the language in Walter Mitty. Not nearly so much though.

But I stan by my point about how ratings and the definition of them have changed. The original Star Wars wouldn't be rated PG today, even if it were the exact same. Hunchback of Notre Dame-the Disney version-is surefire for PG. G rated movies, especially from your era, got away with a lot they wouldn't be able to have today, and likewise did not include things deemed unacceptable for the time

Here's a post from another forum that I take part in and we were talking about the nominations this year for the Academy Awards. We were discussing remakes, language in films, and lack of creativity in Hollywood.

Here's what one of the regulars wrote:

I can't comment on the nominations since I haven't seen any of the films, but I completely agree about the overuse of profanity and sex. The filmmakers of the classic Hollywood era were able to tell wonderful stories and stir the audience's emotions without stooping to any of that. A little bit of profanity here and there doesn't bother me because that's what real life is like. But when the F word is every other sentence, this shows a lack of creativity on the writer's part. I also think sex is sexier when it's implied and not shown. But that takes subtlety, which modern filmmakers are afraid to use because they are trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

This sums it up pretty good in my opinion. Since most of you here on UD don't have a problem using foul language on these threads, would you go see a movie today that had little or no foul language or sexual innuendo? Probably not, because you think it is cool, when it is just showing a loack of respect, education and creativity with your use of the English language.

dvdjunkie wrote:I can't comment on the nominations since I haven't seen any of the films, but I completely agree about the overuse of profanity and sex. The filmmakers of the classic Hollywood era were able to tell wonderful stories and stir the audience's emotions without stooping to any of that. A little bit of profanity here and there doesn't bother me because that's what real life is like. But when the F word is every other sentence, this shows a lack of creativity on the writer's part. I also think sex is sexier when it's implied and not shown. But that takes subtlety, which modern filmmakers are afraid to use because they are trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Saying that a filmmaker is "stooping" when using sex and profanity implies that there's something inherently bad in them irrespective on how they're used. I really don't think a filmmaker of Martin Scorsese's stature was trying to "appeal to the lowest common denominator" with The Wolf of Wall Street - he was just trying to tell a story, in the very same way that those classic Hollywood filmmakers told stories. The difference being that the abandonment of the Hays Code plus a change in cultural values has expanded the range of stories that filmmakers can choose to tell and how they choose to tell them.

I don't see a problem with using profanity or sex in films. Even back in the golden age of Hollywood, people swore and made sexual references, even if they weren't openly reflected on film. The fact that we can use things like this in movies now only adds a little more realism to film today, which is always welcome.

But don't get me wrong, I love classic Hollywood. A lot of the best movies I've ever seen came from the 30's to the 60's. But hey. some of the best movies I've ever seen are more modern as well, and do have swears, sexual situations, violence, etc, but also have a great love for strong film techniques, sharp dialogue, unique plot structure, or what have you. You can have it either way.

Oh, and I can think of at least one movie from the past couple of years that's light on sex and profanity- Moonrise Kingdom.

dvdjunkie wrote:Since most of you here on UD don't have a problem using foul language on these threads, would you go see a movie today that had little or no foul language or sexual innuendo? Probably not, because you think it is cool, when it is just showing a loack of respect, education and creativity with your use of the English language.

Would people on a Disney forum go see a movie with no profanity and sex?

....

Beats me.

Here's the thing, Junkie. There are four groups of people that movies are geared to.

- Men Under 25
- Men Over 25
- Women Under 25
- Women Over 25

Men Under 25 is the dominating group here. Not all movies are going to be geared towards all four groups, and the most desired group is Men Under 25. Why? They go alone, with or without their girlfriend (or boyfriend) and are more likely to bring people with them, than to be dragged to one.

You don't like that tame amount of 'cursing' in the movie you used as an example? This is why. Spec Screenwriters trying to make money and sell their screenplay are going to gear it towards what works. Young guys who love swearing and violence are the, current, leading indicator of what can sell.

- All of this info is taken from a book I've been reading called "Save the Cat! The last book on screenwriting you'll ever need" and was written by a guy who has a 20 year track record as a successful spec screenwriter.

This is also what drives horror films into becoming laden with more and more sex, gore, violence. The horror community though, does have some division as there -are- guys who want the 'less is more' approach, but just as many who love what the remakes provide.

Remakes, Re-Imaginings, and Reboots also sell well because it's a pre-built franchise. There's already a core, target, audience for Robocop, Judge Dredd, Friday the 13th, Halloween, and so on. Those people are going to, more than likely, check it out and see if it's as good, better, or worse than the original. This isn't because Hollywood has "run out of ideas" there are tons of ideas out there BUT the people who are writing them are NOT doing a good enough job when they make the pitch. That's the issue (which is discussed in the previously mentioned book) with why original ideas aren't as rampant, it's because the writer needs to go back and make the screenplay sound and work better.

Also, Ajmrowland, your comment I suppose I'm young, but a lot of remakes are made for movies that aren't already embedded in the public consciousness.

Just to touch on that quickly, a lot of remakes and reboots are of films that, as I said above, have a core audience and are somewhat in the public consciousness. Especially people who love, or enjoyed, movies from the 80's and 90's that are getting remakes, such as the ones I mentioned already. Remakes etc. of older, classic, hollywood films might not have that same public consciousness, or at least not quite as widespread.

It is pretty sad that the lines are around the corner to see movies like "Wolf of Wall Street" which has recorded a record of over 550 'f'-bombs in its three hour running time. And it shows that people have lack of respect for how they talk and what they watch when going to movies.

I am not offended by innuendo, or foul language, as long as it is part of the story. People just don't go around in everyday lives uttering four-letter and seven-letter expletives at random. Those are the people who show their lack of education, for not being able to come up with a complete sentence of dialogue without using a curse word.

What I object to is the blatant use of foul language that has nothing to do with making the story better, or helps it continue its course. The fact that Hollywood can't remake a formerly "G" rated movie today and just keep the basic premise of the original movie and not add the graphic sex and/or foul language, just shows that they have no respect for the classic films of the past.

Retelling a story, as with Robin Hood, there have been at least 20 movies that are based on the legend of the hero of Sherwood Forest, is fine with me. There have been some very good remakes of this particular movie, and there have been some very terrible ones. Disney decided to make them all animals of the forest and everyone liked that version of the legend very much. I have no problem with that.

Remakes like "Carrie", "Red Dawn" and the current about to be released version of "Robocop" (which I have seen an Advanced Screening of) are just lurking in the wings to grab your hard-earned dollar. I know that when I pay $10 admission for a movie I want to be able to enjoy myself and not worry about "when will this end", or "when are they going to get to the story"?

I am compiling a list of the remakes that have truly been horrible in my opinion, and I assure you that it won't include movies like "Ben Hur", "The Ten Commandments", "House of Wax", or many other movies that were basically upgrades from a silent feature film.