Zardoz - The premise is not bad at all, the execution is well…they have Sean Connery in a red diaper and there is a scene of him laying on a table while they dicuss his erection(no nudity). But a group of survivors of an apocalypse using super science to be virtually immortal while manipulating and exploiting what few humans survived through a false god, and a secret rebellion from within, what sounds bad about that?
Day of the Triffids
The late lamented Gene Siskel once commented, “Why do they only remake movies that were done right the first time? They should remake the *bad *movies; the ones that were a good idea, but done poorly?” That is a total paraphrase, but it was the gist of his point, and I think he was right.
I’d love to a see a modern day remake of Pygmalion, preferably set in the modern day U.S… Speech is as much, if not more, of a class distinction now as it was in turn of the century London.
I think Bell, Book, and Candle could have a great remake with some very moderate updating and a better actress than Kim Novak.
And apologies for the 300th time I’ve said it, but… I’d love to see a miniseries remake of Gone With the Wind, this time much truer to the book. Even at 4 hours, the movie had to scrap many of the best characters and side plots. I’d also have more realistic houses and of course get rid of that whole “land of cotton and cavaliers” foolishness at the beginning of the movie.
Would you keep the white sheets?
The Last Starfighter
Or maybe a sequel, The Next Starfighter.
Highlander. I do still like the original movie and it does have a great performance by Mr Krabs but it is extremely flawed. But much better could be done with the premise. They could even do sequels that didn’t shit on the original premise.
Sadly, it’s been done ( in 2009), and they screwed it up
They already hasd done an excellent job in 1981. Far better than the 1962 movie (which still had some good points, although they managed to seriously dumb it down). The 1981 BBC version did a very good job on the script and limited special effects:
The 1962 film:
I would like to see a good, modern remake of The Lathe of Heaven.
A bunch of science fiction films ought to be remade, in the hopes that they’ll get them right:
The Puppet Masters There have been two versions already, one cheapie without acknowledgement (*The Brain Eaters[/i}0 and the other by Disney, of all folks, who got some of it right but messed up everything else.
Starship Troopers – enough saif
I, Robot – I, for one, like the Ellison script, but anything that actually tried to be an adaptration of the book would be an improvement.
From the Earth to the Moon – not the Tom Hanks-produced miniseries, but the Juloes Verne classic. The original film version (not the Melies one that always gets excerpted for SF history specials, but the 1958 film) was, even for a Verne adaptation, abysmal.
C’mon, people, Steampunk is supposed to be In. A period film version of this ought to be great.
The Time Machine – I love George Pal, but his version was big on monsters, and low on thought. The recent remake by Wells’ descendant was worse. One of these days they’ll film the book.
and my perennial complaint:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – two versions were vehicles for stars ( Will Rogers, Bing Crosby), with little desire to be interpretations of Twain. The other version were too timid to be faithful. Even the PBS version shamelessly rewrote Twain to subvert his point. No version has been verty faithful, most of them leaving out the best parts. You can adapt this without insulting the Catholic Church. But you shouldn’t make a version which erases the Twain style, acerbic observations, and wit. Yet every single filmed version has done precisely that.
Fantastic Voyage
Back in the '80s I tried to convince John Waters to remake What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, with Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor. He said that was too weird even for him.
I read here some time ago that Treasure of the Sierra Madre would be awesome if it was remade as a space adventure. I think it lends itself perfectly to ‘miners on the edge of space’ treatment
Good one!
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo would be my choice. Yes, it would be hard to replace Shelley Winters, but the atmosphere is chilling and I’ve always appreciated the Hansel and Gretel retelling of the story. I’d be so in to see a remake!
Gosh. I didn’t even know that a movie had been made of The Lathe of Heaven!
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 78%.
It might not be that bad.
There are two.
The first was a PBS production. It was pretty good – no big special effects, pretty faithful. It had the blessing of author Ursula K. LeGuin. It was one of the most requested PBS movies, and was finally released a few years ago, after they’d finally cleared up all the copyright issues. I’ve got a copy.
The other was a made-for-cable bigger budget version starring James Caan. It wasa, from all reports, unfaithful and awful. I assume that when the poster called for a good modern remake, it was this one he had in mind.
If you are a fan of Larry Niven’s Known Space series, one of the books in the Man-Kzin Wars sub-series has a story (In the Hall of the Mountain King) that is a take off on TotSM. Yes, it has the line in it.
The first story in the arc (The Children’s Hour, IIRC) is, near as I can tell, has elements from Casablanca, and I’m not sure what the second one (The Asteroid Queen) is supposed to be a take off of. Despite the name, I don’t think it’s an homage to The African Queen, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen the movie.
Steve Sterling and Jerry Pournelle co-wrote the story arc.
Re-makes…hmmm…it’s hard to think of a movie that I would want to have remade. If it was original and terrible, why go to the trouble of remaking it? Especially when there are so friggin’ many properties that haven’t had their shot at the big screen yet: Rendezvous with Rama, At the Mountains of Madness, The Mote in God’s Eye, Snow Crash, etc…
I’ll throw out the last Matrix movie, and maybe the middle one too? Soylent Green? Maybe Logan’s Run, make it a little closer to the Nolan and Johnson novel?