# Movie remakes that make you ask "Why?!" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 19, 2011, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790 "2011-09-19T04:26:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/1 "2011-09-19T04:26:01Z")
Just saw a commercial for a remake of _The Thing_. WHY?! The original, as far as I’m concerned, is a masterpiece of the genre, and along with _Alien_ as near-perfect a sci-fi/horror movie as you will ever see. Any remakes, upcoming or past, that leave you scratching your head? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/2 "2011-09-19T04:45:21Z")
It’s a prequel. I just saw that they are remaking the Sarah Conner / Hellboy Beauty & the Beast TV series. Also Total Recall. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/3 "2011-09-19T05:19:37Z")
There are soooo many, it’s hard to pick. _True Grit The Taking of Pelham 123 3:10 to Yuma Bankok Dangerous Cat People Clash of the Titans_ There must have been a thousand remakes of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, various and sundry vampires, Freddy movies, etc. A lot of the horror genre movies are IMO just remakes with different people getting slashed. ---
**Author:** ![Shark\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Shark\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shark_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/4 "2011-09-19T05:21:53Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Just saw a commercial for a remake of _The Thing_. > > WHY?! > > The original, as far as I’m concerned, is a masterpiece of the genre, and along with _Alien_ as near-perfect a sci-fi/horror movie as you will ever see. > > Any remakes, upcoming or past, that leave you scratching your head? Wait. Do you mean the “original” _The Thing from Another World_ from 1951 or John Carpenter’s remake in 1982? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/5 "2011-09-19T05:29:44Z")
_The Wicker Man._ Oh, _God_ - this one was a debacle. The original was a really interesting mix of horror, comedy, and bizarro musical numbers. They remade it as a totally boring, drab, uninteresting straight-up “thriller” that was anything but thrilling. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/6 "2011-09-19T05:40:38Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > _The Wicker Man._ Oh, _God_ - this one was a debacle. The original was a really interesting mix of horror, comedy, and bizarro musical numbers. They remade it as a totally boring, drab, uninteresting straight-up “thriller” that was anything but thrilling. I _loved_ the remake! It was so horrendously bad that it crossed over into being hysterically funny. I swear there were a couple of times when I was laughing so hard I almost passed out. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/7 "2011-09-19T07:45:04Z")
_Assault on Precinct 13_ The original was wierd and atmospheric. The remake (and the change of villian) was lame and stupid. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/8 "2011-09-19T07:46:04Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > There are soooo many, it’s hard to pick. > > _True Grit > The Taking of Pelham 123 > 3:10 to Yuma > Bankok Dangerous > Cat People > Clash of the Titans_ > > There must have been a thousand remakes of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, various and sundry vampires, Freddy movies, etc. > > A lot of the horror genre movies are IMO just remakes with different people getting slashed. True Grit was a great original performance. Cat People was a completely original take with great performances. Clash was unnecessary but not awful. The other three I haven’t seen. Frankenstein, the Wolfman, vampires- are archetypal characters. Might as well lament the making of more Sherlock Holmes, classic lit, historical or Biblical films. There’s only been one Freddy remake- the rest were sequels. Of recent 1970s horror-scifi remakes/re-visionings- I like the two Texas Chainsaw Massacres, both Rob Zombie Halloween films, Willard w/Crispin Glover Star Trek Didn’t like The Hills Have Eyes The Wicker Man (I can’t watch it as a “So bad, it’s funny”). ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/9 "2011-09-19T11:30:29Z")
There are two reasons I can think of to remake films. Either brand recognition to get bums on seats, or reuse of an interesting or marketable concept. The two reasons are not exclusive. In that context it’s not difficult to understand why any remake gets made. I don’t have a problem with remakes in theory, it’s the reality that usually lets them down. _The Thing_ prequel (to the John Carpenter film) isn’t strictly a remake, as it’s set at the Norweigan camp, but it’s almost exactly the same setting and plot. It’s pointless artistically, we don’t need to see what happened there as we can imagine it from what is shown in the 1982 film. However, it’s possible the end result might be a suspenseful horror with up-to-date effects, bringing the story to a new audience. Unless it gets very good reviews, it’s probably best avoided by fans of the Kurt Russell version. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/10 "2011-09-19T12:00:25Z")
The two remakes of “King Kong”. The one in the late 1970s I suffered through in a movie theater looking at my watch wondering how long before it’s over. The other one from a couple years ago I put back in the Netflix envelope after an hour. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/11 "2011-09-19T12:12:27Z")
I can’t fathom that the world needs a remake of Footloose. Even given the “the studios just want to make money, use safe properties, etc” angle, I can’t imagine that the best idea they had was to remake Footloose. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/12 "2011-09-19T12:23:18Z")
> [@Shark\_Sandwich](#): > > Wait. Do you mean the “original” _The Thing from Another World_ from 1951 or John Carpenter’s remake in 1982? Well played, sir. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/13 "2011-09-19T12:24:33Z")
The Gus Van Sant shot-by-shot remake of Psycho is a classic of the “pointless remake” genre. Though, in retrospect, after having seen Vince Vaughn in all those frat pack yukfests the past 10 years, his performance as Norman Bates actually does make for some good unintentional comedy. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/14 "2011-09-19T12:35:06Z")
> [@Shark\_Sandwich](#): > > Wait. Do you mean the “original” _The Thing from Another World_ from 1951 or John Carpenter’s remake in 1982? To be fair, the 1982 version isn’t a straight remake of _The Thing from Another World_, it’s closer to the original [source materiel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Goes_There%3F). ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/15 "2011-09-19T13:05:49Z")
My possibly cynical thinking is that most of the remakes are done because the originals made money once and it’s easier and less risky than coming up with an original idea for a movie. I hated Mel Brooks’ do-over of _The Producers_ - I couldn’t watch past the first 30 minutes. I’m not sure why _Conan the Barbarian_ was redone - Ahnold’s version was goofy fun, but from the commercials, it looked like the recent attempt tried to take itself too seriously, and I believe it tanked. And Dakota Fanning’s scream-a-thon of _War of the Worlds_ was embarrassingly awful. On the other hand, the reinterpretation of Willy Wonka to me wasn’t so much of a remake and another way of telling the story. I wasn’t expecting Johnny Depp to play Gene Wilder, so I didn’t hate it. However, the shot-by-shot redo of \*Psycho \*made absolutely no sense to me. What’s so creative about doing something exactly the same as someone who did it much better in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/16 "2011-09-19T13:17:25Z")
Psycho was my first thought. Why remake a movie and then essentially just re-shoot it nearly exactly as the original? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/17 "2011-09-19T13:18:02Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > However, the shot-by-shot redo of \*Psycho \*made absolutely no sense to me. What’s so creative about doing something exactly the same as someone who did it much better in the first place? Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story once, about a man trying to rewrite _Don Quixote_. He was recreating the text word for word, but he wasn’t simply scribing it out. He was trying to reinvent the artistic process Cervantes went through while he was writing the novel, so as to better understand both the novel, and the novelist. It’s an interesting idea, and I can easily imagine Gus van Sant consciously trying to do exactly that with his remake of _Psycho_ - he’s a good enough artist for the idea to appeal to him, and enough of a wanker to actually follow through on it. I just can’t figure out why anyone would give him money to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/18 "2011-09-19T13:23:38Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Psycho was my first thought. Why remake a movie and then essentially just re-shoot it nearly exactly as the original? And the date I went to on that one went soooooo badly. :mad: ETA: I don’t remember the original all THAT well, but it can’t have been exact, because I remember getting a rather…proctological view of Anne Heche that I doubt anyone got to see on Janet Leigh. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/19 "2011-09-19T13:28:00Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > ETA: I don’t remember the original all THAT well, but it can’t have been exact, because I remember getting a rather…proctological view of Anne Heche that I doubt anyone got to see on Janet Leigh. > > -Joe Right. Also in the remake, Norman/Vince Vaughn is waxing his carrot, so to speak, as he’s peeping through the peephole. I don’t remember that happening in the Hitchcock original. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790/20 "2011-09-19T14:06:41Z")
I suspect on reason for the “remake” of _The Thing_ (rightly identified as a prequel) was inspired by the availability of CGI. Carpenter’s 1982 version used Bob Bottin’s very inspired and clever mechanical devices (along with a _very_[ little dimensional animation – Carpenter discarded most of that because its look wasn’t the same as Bottin’s mechanical work, although I’d have liked to have it included, myself.) But CGI lets you do incredible stuff with movies, so I can understand the draw. Nowadays you really _could_ put up on the scren those outrageous visions of The Thing that Mike Ploog sketched in pre-production visualization. On the down side, it also lets you get lost in for-its-own-sake creeopy imagery. One of the great things about John Campbell’s original story was that it was mostly a cerebral exercise and a logical puzzle, and the Thing didn’t overwhelm the story. The Hawks/Nyby 1951 version discarded most of the plot, but kept that part of it – the interplay between the people at the base really _make_ the story. Bill Lancaster’s script for the 1982 Carpenter version was much more faithful to Campbell’s story, right down to the sense of paranoia missing from the 1951 version, but I wish he’d been able to capture some of the wonderful interaction from the earlier film. Whether or not this version is wothwhile will really depend, I think, upon whether there is good writing and characterization to go along with those nifty special effects, or if it’s just a gorefest. As for remakes in general, we just had a thread about that. Movie Makers are, by the basic facts of their existence, fundamentally conservative creatures. They7’re gambling large chunks of money (and their own futures) on whether or not a film will be popular. So they tend to try to find something “original, but like something that people have seen and loved before.” This is why you see so many movies so obviously inspired, or ripped off,m from other movies, and why movies go in “cycles” (like Gangster movie cycles) – producers are hedging their bets by giving people what they’ve been proven to like before. This is self-defeating, since, although it might work for a while, people are looking for something new and original. This is one big reason why series and remakes are so popular with film makers. It’s why we seemingly have an infinite supply of _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ and _three Musketeers_ and _Robin Hood_ movies. For the record, I thought Peter Jackson’s _King Kong_ was a masterpiece, but the 1976 de Laurentiis versioon was thoughtless garbage (except for Rick Baker’s costume effects and Catlo Rambaldi’s mechanical arms). The remake of _The Day the Eart Stood Still_ was awful, as were remakes of _Day of the Jackal_ and _The Flight of the Phoenix_. But remakes can be superb. Who would rather that John Huston hadn’t done a third version of _The Maltese Falcon_, or that there wasn’t a 1939 sound, color, and musical version of _The Wizard of Oz_ after Baum’s own multiople short silent versions, or Larry Semon’s silent comedy version? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-remakes-that-make-you-ask-why/596790.md?page=2)