I thought Cecil said it was unclear and we should judge it, actually.
Evil Dead II is just a remake of Evil Dead.
I always thought that was weird.
He also noted there are an amazing number of similarities between the two works. And these are not just common elements that vaguely match and have appeared in dozens of stories. These are very specific items that have only appeared in two works. A villain killing his brother to take his place and the dead brother’s son seeking revenge - okay, that’s a reasonably common theme. The villain being a lion with a scar on his face - name a third movie where that happened.
And the defense has always consisted of one thing; the people who were accused of ripping off The Jungle Emperor have continously denied doing so. That’s it. No reasonable alternative explanation of how the similarities occurred.
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House was remade as The Money Pit.
Imagination.
Sure, but there are limits to imagination as a reasonable explanation.
If I invent a SF series and I have an alien crewmember as one of the officers on a starship full of humans, that’s imagination. But if my officer has an alien father and a human mother and the distinguishing characteristics of his race are logic and repression of emotions and he has pointed ears and says “fascinating” a lot, then I better expect accustions that my “creation” owes more to plagiarism than imagination. And it’s going to take more than me saying “Sure, I watched a lot of Star Trek, but my Commander Spork character is completely original” to convince people otherwise.
Also Hrafninn flýgur aka When the Raven Flies aka Revenge of the Barbarians.
Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas, remade as Silk Stockings, starring Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire.
The Opposite Sex was a remake of The Women (the good version, not last year’s piece of dreck).
Cruel Intentions was remade a year later as Cruel Intentions 2.
Mel Gibson’s “Payback” was a remake of Lee Marvin’s “Point Blank.”