Where the Heart Is. Take OUT the scene where Ashley Judd’s character’s kids get attacked.
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.
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 . . .
The Greatest Story Ever Told . . .
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.
Believe me, it was tamed down from the book. :eek:
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.
That, or dinosaurs, gorillas, or zombies…
I would also have ended that movie with Red on the bus and cut out that beach scene at the end.
Thelma & Louise escape to Mexico, organize the Lesbian Revolutionary Vengeance Army, and come back to smash the patriarchy.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Yikes! Thanks for the warning, I’ll be prepared when I get around to reading it. 
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.
That would be hard to work in with the ‘discovering she’s a lesbian’ plotline.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.