Are remakes ever as good?

B

beka51073

New member
I've watched the remake of The Time Machine and TRIED to watch the remake of Planet Of The Apes.

Neither film was anything like the same story as the original.

Does anyone think the remakes are as good, or even (excuse the blasphemy) better than the oroginals?

Is there a film that is better as a remake, than the original?
 
Remakes are never as good as the originals but they can be good for people who have never seen the originals.

For example I never saw The Ring and Dark Water in their native forms but I did see the remakes and quite enjoyed them.

I saw The Grudge in both it's original and remake form and to be honest there wasn't much difference in the story.
 
The Denzel Washington version of Man On Fire is a hell of a lot better than the original that was made around 1987.

Apart from that, I cannot think of any remakes that were better than the original.
 
I disagree. IMO remakes can be as good, even better, than an original. It just doesn't happen very often. These are the ones that spring to mind.

Better
The Fly
The Thing
Man On Fire
Ocean's 11
Titanic
Cape Fear
Solaris (to be fair, I haven't seen the original (no-one has :D), but seeing as it's three plus hours of naval gazing, I'd be surprised if it's better than the Soderbergh version).
The Blob (the 80's one is the best version. So far.)

As good (not necessarily in the same way as the original, but good in it's own right)
Planet Of The Apes
The Thomas Crown Affair
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Ring
Open Your Eyes

Let's not forget a couple of upcoming remakes that have the potential to top the original, namely Casino Royale and King Kong.
 
Seriously, check out the original, far superior. And the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a big pointless pile of rubbish imo.
 
I'll give you that The Thing re-make was better... but that might be just because John Carpenter made it. Let's face it, Assault on Precinct 13 stunk like a festering, puss filled, venereal sore! :eek:

Evil Dead 2, I think, is another remake (NOT a sequel) that was better than the original.


As a rule... US remakes of foreign language films usually suffer from one or more of the following...

Fewer/less funny jokes - because even if they try to remain true to the script, some jokes just don't translate well. (eg The Bird Cage vs La Cage au Follies)

Political Correctness can blight a concept - US studios can often get 'corporate' interferance, and what looked good in a film written for a potential audience of 100 million Japanese is often "dumbed down" in a film remade for a potential audience of 1 billion English speakers in an effort to reach a wider audience.

Star Vehicle Suicide - If you're picking a script to show off an actor, rather than picking an actor to show off a script, you're doomed to failure. Don't go putting the cart before the horse. (eg Cruel Intentions vs Dangerous Liasons)

Shocks and Diminishing Returns - If it scared people the first time, it won't scare half as many people the second time. (eg The Ring)
 
I can see the point of remaking a film that should have been good, but wasn't - but what is the point of remaking a film that was already good? What is the chance of improving on it? They remade Psycho a year or two back, using the same shooting script as Alfred Hitchcock used in the original. The result was an absolute dog's breakfast of a film. Classics are classics. They are the definitive versions. Imagine a new Casablanca. Who are you going to get to replace Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman?
 
Better
The Fly ( I AGREE)
The Thing (I AGREE)
Titanic (I AGREE)
The Blob (the 80's one is the best version. So far.) (I AGREE)

Ones that I liked were

The Amytiville Horror (BETTER)
Night Of The Living Dead
 
"A Night to Remember" presumably.
The problem with remakes is thay they are almost always based on movies that were classics to begin with, in order to attract people's interest in the first place. Unfortunately this means that the bar is set extremely high for the remake, virtually dooming it to failure.
 
Back
Top