Can remakes be better than the original?

[JThunder]

@C K Dexter Haven

I don’t think musicals – like LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS or LI’L ABNER – would count. They’re not remakes, they’re completely revised into a different medium.

Nope. Same medium (i.e. film), different production.

As I grant earlier, Li’l Abner probably doesn’t qualify as a remake, since its storyline was fundamentally different. Little Shop of Horrors, on the other hand, kept the same characters and basically the same plot, with a few additions (e.g. the musical numbers and the Greek chorus). I think it qualifies, since the very nature of a remake allows for significant modifications without completely changing the whole thing.

[What_Exit]

@JThunder

Nope. Same medium (i.e. film), different production.

As I grant earlier, Li’l Abner probably doesn’t qualify as a remake, since its storyline was fundamentally different. Little Shop of Horrors, on the other hand, kept the same characters and basically the same plot, with a few additions (e.g. the musical numbers and the Greek chorus). I think it qualifies, since the very nature of a remake allows for significant modifications without completely changing the whole thing.

If original is a horror film and newer version a musical comedy, it is not really the same or a remake.

[FriarTed]

A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim in 1951 (?) > ACC w/ Reginald Owen in 1938 (?)

[Chance_the_Gardener]

@C K Dexter Haven

Plus, the obvious example is not from movies but from theatre: how many versions of HAMLET have there been? Are we to say they are all inferior to the earliest versions, because we don’t have boys playing the female roles? Because we use scenery? And, are we to say that Shakespeare’s version is inferior to the earlier version? Pfui.

The Hamlet legend dates to the twelfth century, surrounding a real Danish prince named Amleth. His story was recorded by Saxo Grammaticus circa 1200, then revised in the sixteenth century by François de Belleforêt. After the French version, Thomas Kyd wrote another Hamlet, which Shakespeare adapted his version from in the early seventeenth century. I strongly suspect this chronology is not definitive; I know there were many other versions of this story both before and after Shakespeare’s. I’m not terribly familiar with the other versions, but the consensus seems to be that Shakespeare’s remake is superior to the original and all the previous and subsequent versions. I’ve got to say that I like it.

I’m perfectly cool with people remaking classics and not-so-classics, even if the remakes aren’t as good as the original. One of my favorite movies is It’s a Wonderful Life, and I can’t say I ever get tired of seeing it remade in movies and TV and cartoons, no matter how badly. I even wrote an obnoxious sequel to it, which might be sort of amusing to political junkies, but I doubt it. (It was just for my own amusement, so leave me the hell alone already! I’m serious!)

[Labdad]

I’m probably in the minority on this one, but I thought William Friedken’s 1977 film Sorcerer was far superior to Henri-Georges Cluzot’s 1953 original, called The Wages of Fear. It might have had something to do with the fact it was first time I ever heard a Tangerine Dream score, but I also found the characters in Friedken’s film far more compelling.

[BigDummy]

@JThunder

Little Shop of Horrors, on the other hand, kept the same characters and basically the same plot, with a few additions (e.g. the musical numbers and the Greek chorus). I think it qualifies, since the very nature of a remake allows for significant modifications without completely changing the whole thing.

Yes, but as I understand it the recent version of Little Shop was an adaption of the play adapted from the original movie, rather than a direct remake of the original movie. Seems like there’s an intermediate step in there.