Improve a favorite movie.

[randwill]

I really enjoy watching "The Cheaters" (1945) around Christmas time. It's warm and funny and very much of the classic 'Christmas spirit can redeem' mold. (And if my hair looked like Joseph Schildkraut's, everybody could kiss my ass.) It has terrific performances by top character actors, including Billie Burke, great looking sets and it's snowing throughout and I love snow in movies. Plus, compared to other Christmas perennials, it's fairly obscure, and I like appreciating things that aren't widely appreciated.

As much as I like it, I long for it to be better than it is and imagine ways it could have been improved. For instance, the two private detectives come very close to disrupting the ruse the Pidgeon family is perpetrating. They sense that they have been duped and head off to get a search warrant. But that's the last we see of them. How much better it would have been if they had shown up at the house, search warrant in hand, after the Pidgeon's had confessed to their deception and were invited to the Christmas celebration.

Also the conversion of the family, particularly the 'brat' Therese seems a little too drastic. Some additional motivation would have helped.

And if the scene at the bar between Mr. Marchand and Florie Watson had been a little longer, perhaps including some discussion of the plan to turn the old house into a acting school, as Florie previously proposed, I don't think the ending would feel as rushed as it does now.

Ahh well, my improved version can never exist. Do you have a favorite movie that you feel could be made perfect, if only...?

[Skald the Rhymer]

Let's see...

I'll add a brief moment in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in which Pippin wonders why they don't ride the Eagles to Mordor, only to have Gandalf or Aragorn reply that they've tried that before, only to see the Eagles shot down. You can do that in just about a minute.

[PeskiPiksi]

First thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title was Four Weddings and a Funeral. Replacing Andie McDowell with just about any other actress would greatly improve this film. She's just horrible and I usually skip through her scenes. It's a testament to how wonderful the rest of the movie is that it's still so good despite the fact that she's in it.

[MacTech]

Any *REAL* vampire movie (none of this wussy teenybopper twitard twilight type of emopire movie); have the vampires win

Any movie; add Zombies (preferably O'Bannon "braaaaaiiiinnnnsss" zombies), bonus points if the movie is a pretentious drama or other boring type

[Darth Panda]

V for Vendetta.

Remove Ms. Portman's clothes.

[silenus]

Remove Ms. Portman's clothes.

That's the fix for any movie. :D

[Der Trihs]

The Matrix: Go with the original idea that the Machines are using human brains as coprocessors, not as human bodies as batteries.

Independence Day (which I like in a mindless entertainment sort of way despite the flaws); 2 changes come to mind. Have the President order a second mass nuclear strike when the first fails, and have it fail as well; just giving up after one try was stupid since for all they knew the shields just barely held on. And as far as the infamous computer virus; have some comments about how they'd been able to power up and study the fighter's computer for years, enough to write a working virus* and how a telepathic species simply has no comprehension of security.


* One suggested line I heard on another forum "Of course it'll work on the alien's computers; where did you think we got the operating system for the Mac from in the first place?"

[Quartz]

Return of the King: credits roll after Aragorn & co kneel to the hobbits. The credits are broken up with the remainder of the scenes.

[dmatsch]

Return of the King: credits roll after Aragorn & co kneel to the hobbits. The credits are broken up with the remainder of the scenes.

Beautiful. You're hired to do the Special Editions. Just keep Aragorn shooting first.

[Push You Down]

First thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title was Four Weddings and a Funeral. Replacing Andie McDowell with just about any other actress would greatly improve this film. She's just horrible and I usually skip through her scenes. It's a testament to how wonderful the rest of the movie is that it's still so good despite the fact that she's in it.

I agree. I think the only movie she give an even passable performance is in "Groundhog's Day."

I really actually like Star Wars: Attack of the Clones... I think it's the best of the prequels.
I'd add a bit more in-movie evidence (rather than subtext or outside of movie fiction) establishing the Jedi as a monastic warrior class that Anakin has trouble with because he came to it later in life. They show that Jedi start training as toddlers (Yoda and the younglings). Anakin came late... and had a lot more life experience than other Jedi padawans even only being 9 when he gets taken in. He knew and loved his mother, something that the movie should have hit harder. The other Jedi just didn't understand what Anakin was feeling because their parents were distant faded memories. Obi-Wan should had the track that when you join the order you give up your former life for a life of duty and dedication to the Republic. It makes the Jedi tragic and even more flawed (toddlers "join" a monastic order because of midichlorians in their body-that's messed up!). There's an early scene where Anakin says Obi-wan is the closest thing to a father he has- Obi-wan should have shot that down immediately--"We're Jedi, we don't have fathers."
It was the inability of the Jedi as group to balance duty and emotion that led to Anakin's fall. Instead of Anakin being angry and slaughtering the Tusken raider village. It should have been calm and ordered metting out of "justice." They attacked farmers which led to a woman's death- therefore they had to be punished.
Meanwhile you have him escorting Padme and feeling conflicted about his emotions for her compounded with the Jedi saying "forget your mom" they also tell him "forget about that girl you like." He's a teenager...has that ever worked?
(I'd also remove the secret wedding from Ep 2 and save it for ep 3)
It then provides a better opportunity for Sidious in Ep.3. Anakin is trying to be a good Jedi and deny his emotions. Sidious as Palpatine comes along and tells him "hey it's cool to have emotions."

[Disposable Hero]

I wouldn't say its a favourite movie but this is how I feel they should have filmed the climactic fight-scene between Obiwan and Anakin in Revenge of the Sith.

Instead of the way it was shown with them both as pretty much evenly powered and skilled I would have depicted Anakin as ungodly powerful and capable with Obiwan and the audience quickly realising he's outmatched and only barely hanging on. But just because someone is better than you doesn't mean you can't win...

Obiwan uses his experience to fight a retreating battle until he has lured Anakin into the lavafields, but in one last frenzy of an attack Anakin knocks Obiwan onto his back, sending his light-sabre spinning into the lava, with rage in his eyes he towers over Obiwan and prepares to deliver the killing-blow, Obiwan raises his arm in defence, "Anakin, don't!"

Anakin pauses, his attack falters, he seems to become his old self for a moment but in that instant when his defences are down Obiwan strikes out and force-pushes him backwards, he tumbles down the slope and his lower half falls into the lava, he screams for help.

Obiwan leaps forward and pulls him to safety then stands back horrified at what he's done to his friend and pupil, he reaches for Anakin again, "Oh Anakin...Anakin...I'm sorry", Anakin looks up with contorted face and spits out, "I *hate* you!"

Obiwan stands up, a shadow crosses his face as he remembers exactly what Anakin has done to reach this point, he turns his back and walks away, face like stone, a plaintive call comes after him,"Obiwan, Obiwan, don't leave me!", without turning around he mutters just loud enough for Anakin to hear, "Crawl away and die...Vader..."

I think that would make a better and more dramatic ending but it means for the next twenty or so years Obiwan has more than enough time to think upon and regret his actions when he left his friend and Luke's father behind to die in that terrible place.

[Dr. Rieux]

Remove Una O'Connor from The invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein.
Really, the woman's screaming gets annoying quickly.

[Magiver]

It's a Wonderful Life...... Mr. Potter is dragged out of his office in front of God and everybody for grand-theft.

[Mangetout]

Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Change the chocolate river so it looks like chocolate, not dishwater.

[Mrs. Cake]

She wasn't in the movie much, but Priscilla Lane in Arsenic and Old Lace was the single turd in an otherwise fabulous punchbowl. One of my dream cast movies, and a holiday favorite.

Excise the character of senile mom in Apollo 13.

Love Alec Guinness to death, but please replace him with a Japanese actor in A Majority of One. I'm a huge Rosalind Russell fan and this would be a wonderful film if only...

[MsWhatsit]

Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Change the chocolate river so it looks like chocolate, not dishwater.

Thank you! I know it's nitpicky, but this bugs me every time I see this movie, and I see it a lot.

[pinkfreud]

I love Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. But it would be even better if it had included Humperdinck's "Zoo of Death" (from the book). And Cary Elwes is kinda "meh" as Westley. I'd like to see someone with more zing, someone who might be more believable as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Maybe Wes Bentley or Matt Bomer (both of 'em were prepubescent children when the movie was made, but we're talking fantasy stuff here).

[RandMcnally]

Independence Day (which I like in a mindless entertainment sort of way despite the flaws); 2 changes come to mind. Have the President order a second mass nuclear strike when the first fails, and have it fail as well; just giving up after one try was stupid since for all they knew the shields just barely held on. And as far as the infamous computer virus; have some comments about how they'd been able to power up and study the fighter's computer for years, enough to write a working virus* and how a telepathic species simply has no comprehension of security.

Snip: According to Cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/article_18720_7-famous-movie-flaws-that-were-explained-in-deleted-scenes.html), in one of the deleted scenes they show Jeff Goldblum's character "tinkering with his PowerBook inside the recovered craft from the Roswell crash site, mumbling something about how the spaceship was running off the same programming language he was able to decipher before (when he first uncovered their invasion plans and all that)."

That's the fix for any movie. :D

I was just talking with my wife last night how every movie would be improved with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis making out with each other, whether or not they were even in the movie.

[Askance]

First thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title was Four Weddings and a Funeral. Replacing Andie McDowell with just about any other actress would greatly improve this film. She's just horrible and I usually skip through her scenes. It's a testament to how wonderful the rest of the movie is that it's still so good despite the fact that she's in it.
Just what i came in to post; Julia Roberts is my nomination for the replacement. Same treatment for Green Card, BTW.

[dotchan]

I teal deer'd about the Star Wars franchise the last time we had this exercise. I took on not just the prequels (http://dotchan.livejournal.com/177221.html), but also the original trilogy (http://dotchan.livejournal.com/177740.html).

[CanvasShoes]

Where the Heart Is. Take OUT the scene where Ashley Judd's character's kids get attacked.

[BrainGlutton]

It's a Wonderful Life...... Mr. Potter is dragged out of his office in front of God and everybody for grand-theft.

No, better still: George and Uncle Billy figure out what happened and confront him privately, with a lawyer in tow, who explains that while Potter quietly sticking to the money Uncle Billy simply handed him does not constitute the crime of larceny, it does constitute the tort of civil theft, and the Building & Loan now has a claim against him for treble damages, i.e., three times the amount illicitly converted. A check for that amount right now would be satisfactory, otherwise the claim will have to be pursued in litigation, which might call public attention to certain things Potter would rather received none.

This is entirely separate from George's claim against Potter for defamation; the implications of litigation are the same.

[BrainGlutton]

The Sound of Music: Maria drops acid, rides cock, and kicks ass.

The Color Purple: Celie drops acid, rides cock, and kicks ass.

Little Women . . .

[BrainGlutton]

The Greatest Story Ever Told . . .

[drastic_quench]

Re-title The Shawshank Redemption

I really think that clunker of a name hurt it's box-office, and it would have been nice to see it have more initial success. Also recast the role of Tommy, which was played by Gil Bellows. It would be a challenge not to be seen as a weak link against that cast, and especially coming into the flick so late and signaling a tone shift, but surely someone could have pulled it off.

[FriarTed]

Where the Heart Is. Take OUT the scene where Ashley Judd's character's kids get attacked.

Believe me, it was tamed down from the book. :eek:

[Gyrate]

Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Change the chocolate river so it looks like chocolate, not dishwater.Get rid of the whole fizzy drinks scene - it corrupts Charlie to the point of being just as bad as the other kids, except that he manages to escape physical harm through sheer luck. His redemption at the end is too trivial to mend this, but returning the gobstopper could still have been used as a final verification that Charlie was worthy to inherit without the previous incident.

They fixed this in the remake and then ruined everything else.

[Sam A. Robrin]

That's the fix for any movie. :D

That, or dinosaurs, gorillas, or zombies....

[Binarydrone]

Re-title The Shawshank Redemption

I really think that clunker of a name hurt it's box-office, and it would have been nice to see it have more initial success. Also recast the role of Tommy, which was played by Gil Bellows. It would be a challenge not to be seen as a weak link against that cast, and especially coming into the flick so late and signaling a tone shift, but surely someone could have pulled it off.

I would also have ended that movie with Red on the bus and cut out that beach scene at the end.

[BrainGlutton]

Thelma & Louise escape to Mexico, organize the Lesbian Revolutionary Vengeance Army, and come back to smash the patriarchy.

[BrotherCadfael]

I'll add a brief moment in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in which Pippin wonders why they don't ride the Eagles to Mordor, only to have Gandalf or Aragorn reply that they've tried that before, only to see the Eagles shot down. You can do that in just about a minute.Uhhh.....

No.

*But*, I would shorten the cave-troll battle, which is mostly padding, and add back the battle with the wolves on the hilltop, where Gandalf shows his pyrotechnic stuff.

[Liddle Lamsy Divey]

Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Change the chocolate river so it looks like chocolate, not dishwater.

That was the only improvement the Tim Burton version made.

Anyway...

For Pirates of the Caribbean (the first), I would make Elizabeth more likeable, first off by casting someone better than Keira Knightley.

[Tom Scud]

The Princess Bride - let Buttercup do one thing in the entire movie that's effective, probably during the Fire Swamp sequence. (The book let her do one effective thing, but inserting that in the movie would be kind of an anticlimax)

For that matter, improve the ROUS special effects.

[Bridget Burke]

Just what i came in to post; Julia Roberts is my nomination for the replacement. Same treatment for Green Card, BTW.

As long as we can find a replacement for Ms Roberts in Michael Collins. That is, an actress who can actually do an Irish accent. Perhaps even an Irish actress!

[CanvasShoes]

Believe me, it was tamed down from the book. :eek:
Yikes! Thanks for the warning, I'll be prepared when I get around to reading it. :)

[Mangetout]

They fixed this in the remake and then ruined everything else.

That was the only improvement the Tim Burton version made.

It's weird - when Tim Burton's version was in production (and for a while after its release), everyone was saying that it was (or was going to be) so much more faithful to the book than the 1971 musical, but it just isn't. A few bits are good, or at least better than the 1971 movie, but so much (and so much of it, important) is just so badly wrong.

[Sampiro]

The Color Purple: Celie drops acid, rides cock, and kicks ass.


That would be hard to work in with the 'discovering she's a lesbian' plotline.:D

I wish they'd gone a few years ahead and shown Celie and Mister becoming friends (which they did in the book). Apparently such a scene was actually filmed- there are stills of old Whoopi Goldberg and old Danny Glover on the porch together- but it was never included even as an extra.

Inglorious Basterds- I would like to have had just a bit more story filled in. Did Landa honor his promise to LePedite not to seek vengeance for harboring the Dreyfus family? Did he intentionally let Shoshanna go and if so, why? How did Shoshanna/Emmanuelle get the movie theater? (She claimed her aunt left it to her but obviously there's a story there- did she take the identity of a real person and pass herself off only after the owner died, or was the owner a resistance person who really did leave it to her, or what?) Did Landa get the goodies he'd bargained for? (When I watched it in the theater the first time I assumed Pitt or Keitel was going to just shoot him- they didn't really need him after Kino was a success- and I'd hate to think that even if it did involve a swastika scar he'd wind up on Nantucket in comfortable retirement, unless perhaps he stayed there long enough for some Mossad agents who knew the truth to kidnap him a few years later.)

Remove Ms. Portman's clothes.

The removal of clothes would have helped the last Harry Potter movie as well. Also any James Franco movie. No nudity involving James Franco is the least bit gratuitous.

[Lady of the Lake]

Kick Ass: Rename it Hit Girl, film it from the point of view of Hit Girl.

Demote Kick Ass to random sidekick comedy humor guy. This gives us the benefit of no teenage love sideplot because I would much rather have an extra half hour of Hit Girl kicking ass than teenagers angsting and making googly eyes.

Also, add zombies.

...and a naked Natalie Portman, as those are both good general movie ideas.

[Skald the Rhymer]

That was the only improvement the Tim Burton version made.

Tim Burton did not direct a remake of Mel Stuart's movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factor. He did an adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, only with the proper name and songs that were amusing rather than god-awful annoying.

[Skald the Rhymer]

V for Vendetta.

Remove Ms. Portman's clothes.

Though in general I'm good with Portman skin, I have to oppose it here. I don't wan the attempted rape to be consummated, and I don't want to see any more of the torture and humiliation than I have to.

[Darth Panda]

OK, so we can safely conclude that a zombie movie where:


Natalie Portman is naked the whole time
Han shoots first
Andie McDowell, Una O'Connor, and Priscilla Lane are banned from the set
A couple of random girls drop acid, get feraky, and kick ass; and
There are no teenage googley eyes


will be the highest grossing movie of all time? Also, no mention of Shanks in the title or some such. I assume Whedon will be directing this thing...

[enalzi]

OK, so we can safely conclude that a zombie movie where:


Natalie Portman is naked the whole time
Han shoots first
Andie McDowell, Una O'Connor, and Priscilla Lane are banned from the set
A couple of random girls drop acid, get feraky, and kick ass; and
There are no teenage googley eyes


will be the highest grossing movie of all time? Also, no mention of Shanks in the title or some such. I assume Whedon will be directing this thing...

With a real chocolate river.

[Sam A. Robrin]

With a real chocolate river.

And dinosaurs.

[Skald the Rhymer]

And dinosaurs.

No. One might injure Portman.

You're talking about real dinosaurs, right?

[BrainGlutton]

Forrest Gump: Should be changed to teach the valuable moral lesson that when a man is not-too-bright, but he's honest and hardworking and goodhearted and always does the right thing and goes to church regular . . . then he ends up dirt-poor, and has to live under the overturned wreck of a beached shrimping boat until he dies of the disease his slut GF slipped him.

[Darth Panda]

No. One might injure Portman.

You're talking about real dinosaurs, right?

We could get Dinosaur Jr to do the soundtrack...

[billfish678]

The Hunt for Red October.

Perfectly happy ending for the main characters the viewers care about. Except the second in command that just gets a deadly cap in his ass for no good reason as far as I can tell (besides the "hey life sucks sometimes so we gotta do it" film school of thought).

Let the poor man we like live dammit!

[Driver8]

It isn't a movie, but I'll suggest the 2003/4 Battlestar Gallactica franchise lose the mystical rubbish (and the terrible ending, while we are at it). It is still on my favorite list because the good bits were really good: I especially loved the political machinery trying to cope with the new reality, as well as much of the battle scenes. Those by itself make it a worthy addition to popular culture: I don't recall watching anything that came anywhere close to portraying this. But the mystical parts were lame.

Also, I remember the show was pretty bad about telegraphing bad things about to happen to people by making them over the top boisterously cheerful just before the horrible event: subtlety guys!

[Evil Captor]

"Birthday Girl" is a movie that starts out by creating a very interesting and intriguing situation. A Russian mail order bride (Nicole Kidman) is ordered by a bank clerk in a small British town, he claims because the pool of women in his area is just too small. He also seems kind of socially maladjusted (imagine that) and when he and Kidman meet they don't really connect that well, as she does not speak English that well and he is kind of intimidated by her. Still they work to make things work out, with the plot thickening considerably when she discovers his porn stash, which consists entirely of sexual bondage magazines, embarrassing him thoroughly by dumping them on the kitchen table while he's eating breakfast.

I thought things were proceeding along very nicely here, as both characters were starting to develop well, but then the filmmakers dumped a bunch of Russian gangsters into the story who want to use the protagonist to rob the bank he works for. It turns into your standard crap-ass adventure story as the bank clerk does the whole worm-turns thing. So as you might guess, my fix would be to dump the Russian gangsters and have some fun with the two characters working out the domestic mess they have found themselves in, which strikes me as a lot more interesting than your standard bank robbing story. Coulda been a fine film.

[BrainGlutton]

From Dusk to Dawn: Starts out as a perfectly Tarantino film about a pair of bank robbers taking respectable hostages to get away. Run with that and leave the fucking dumbass vampires out of it.

[Liddle Lamsy Divey]

Tim Burton did not direct a remake of Mel Stuart's movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factor. He did an adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, only with the proper name and songs that were amusing rather than god-awful annoying.

I know it's an adaptation rather than a remake. I've never read Dahl's book so I wouldn't know which is more faithful; I'm guessing it's not the earlier movie which was made to sell candy IIRC.

[drastic_quench]

From Dusk to Dawn: Starts out as a perfectly Tarantino film about a pair of bank robbers taking respectable hostages to get away. Run with that and leave the fucking dumbass vampires out of it.

No way! The movie exists to pull that bizarre vampire 180. There's loads of running man movies, and loads of vampire flicks, but From Dusk Til Dawn is unique.