# Movies that could be improved in a remake **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288 "2010-02-24T18:50:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigFatTabbyDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@BigFatTabbyDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigFatTabbyDave)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/21 "2010-02-25T23:03:54Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > Scanners It’ll be out next year according to the IMDB. Don’t understand why this one is included on so many fantasy remake lists. I love that movie, despite the slightly ponderous feel. Great late night viewing! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/22 "2010-02-25T23:05:37Z")
> [@Stuffy](#): > > The Running Man. Mainly it was so far from its book origin as to be a completely different story. Secondly in this day of Reality TV, it would be totally timely. In fact I could see a modified game show based on this show right now. Think American Idol meets COPS. The movie disappointed me too, but I don’t think a straight film adaptation of _The Running Man_ could get greenlighted by any studio, considering how the book ended. The hero hijacks a 747 and flies it straight into the TV network’s headquarters skyscraper. I hope I don’t need to spell out the problem there. Apart from that, the book is set in a frustrated Baby Boomer’s nightmare of a future corporate dystopia. (I suspect it dates from one of King’s heavy-drinking periods.) Lots of class war themes, completely at odds with today’s _zeitgeist._ But if they **do** do it, they should follow one strict rule: Do it straight. **Absolutely no part of the story should be played for laughs.** ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/23 "2010-02-26T00:01:30Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > The novel of the movie _Fantastic Voyage_ is significantly different from and (IMHO) superior to the movie. > IMDB indicates that a remake is in development. > Some say James Cameron will be the producer/director. > Asimov wrote the novelization even though he complained that miniaturization of matter was impossible. Yup, I’ve read that novel. If I remember correctly (it was many years ago), Asimov talks in the book about the various ways miniaturization could be achieved (removing space between the atoms, removing some atoms, or actually shrinking the atoms themselves) as a way to handwave it. Asimov also dealt with one of the glaring holes in the movie: A white corpuscle digests one of the shrunken people (and, supposedly, the ship), and in the movie they just leave it. In the novel, they realize that digesting does not equal cease-to-exist, and when the time limit is up, the bits of the digested ship and person will expand, killing the person they were trying to save. So in the novel, the people push the white corpuscle with them to the extraction point. And when they unshrink, there’s a pile of junk – the former ship – next to them. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/24 "2010-02-26T00:14:03Z")
Plan 10(!) from Outer Space! ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/25 "2010-02-26T00:19:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The movie disappointed me too, but I don’t think a straight film adaptation of _The Running Man_ could get greenlighted by any studio, considering how the book ended..\*\* I forgot it ended that way, for some reason that story and the Long Walk are linked together in my head like a double feature or something. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/26 "2010-02-26T00:27:02Z")
Two things disappointed me about the film adaptation of _Hannibal:_ 1. They left out Hannibal Lecter’s “Memory Palace,” a bit which not only is too good to pass up as character development, but is just perfectly made for the big screen. 2. In the ending of the book, Starling elopes with Lecter to live a life of elegance, luxury, and, it is implied, occasional gourmet cannibalism. I just **knew** no studio would have the guts to end the movie that way! ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/27 "2010-02-26T00:30:38Z")
**Catch-22**. I was very disappointed by the movie. I felt that all concerned had tried as far as possible to strip away most of the elements that made the novel great, and reduce it to an almost straight, linear narrative about a few offbeat characters on an airforce base. We’re all a bit more sophisticated now, and we’ve seen ‘Pulp Fiction’. We’re cool with non-linear structures, with different timelines in one movie, with stories overlapping or scenes being shuffled around a little. I think there’s scope for some ambitious director to adapt Catch-22 for the silver screen in a way that honours the dizzying, convoluted structure of the novel (without necessarily trying to slavishly mimic it page for page), and conveys something of the same experience. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/28 "2010-02-26T00:53:47Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > **Catch-22**. I was very disappointed by the movie. I felt that all concerned had tried as far as possible to strip away most of the elements that made the novel great, and reduce it to an almost straight, linear narrative about a few offbeat characters on an airforce base. > > We’re all a bit more sophisticated now, and we’ve seen ‘Pulp Fiction’. We’re cool with non-linear structures, with different timelines in one movie, with stories overlapping or scenes being shuffled around a little. I think there’s scope for some ambitious director to adapt Catch-22 for the silver screen in a way that honours the dizzying, convoluted structure of the novel (without necessarily trying to slavishly mimic it page for page), and conveys something of the same experience. That’s my real answer. I just came to post it and see I was beaten to the punch. Even if they don’t adopt the non-linear structure, they could at least make an attempt at capturing the _spirit_ of the book this time. ---
**Author:** ![parthenokinesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/cc9497/32.png) [@parthenokinesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/parthenokinesis)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/29 "2010-02-26T01:03:15Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I think Soylent Green could be remade into a better movie, though the original is a classic of screen cheese. Global warming, overfishing, and other environmental concerns have actually increased since the original was made. Resentment over the growing gulf between the rich and everybody else has also spiked since those days what with the implosion of industry and several economic crises that also took place since Charlton Heston’s glory days. > It’d be critical to avoid the much parodied line “soylent green is people!” if one wanted to play it straight. If one was going for more of satirical/blackly comedic tone, not so much. The whole “Soylent Green is People!” is been so completely spoilered that incorporating the awareness of that into a remake could be a lot of fun. Having the protagonist be the only one who reacts to that revelation. There’s a lot of opportunity there. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/30 "2010-02-26T01:44:31Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > **Catch-22**. I was very disappointed by the movie. I felt that all concerned had tried as far as possible to strip away most of the elements that made the novel great, and reduce it to an almost straight, linear narrative about a few offbeat characters on an airforce base. I think Mad Magazine had the right take on this. At the end of their parody, Yossarian is in the hospital, and he asks the doctors how long it will take him to get well. The last panel shows Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould as his doctors, and they tell him “You’re not going to get well. We did this ‘insane war movie’ bit before you - and _better_!” Catch-22 was made not long after M_A_S\*H, and it suffered by comparison. ---
**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:** [February 26, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/31 "2010-02-26T03:44:16Z")
\*\*Starship Troopers I, Robot\*\* for starters. They could try to make them, you know, at least a little bit faithful to the original books. We’ve discussed ST at length on this board. And I, Robot started out as an original story, related to Asimov’s work only by a shared background. Taking a completely different story and then changing the character’s names to those in Asimov’s book does _not_ make it an adaptation. **A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court** – my perpetual complaint. Not one version of this book has been at all close to Twain’s vision. They’ve either been star vehicles to showcase the studio’s darling (Will Rogers or Bing Crosby), or else they shied away from any hint of controversy. **Fahrenheit 451** , as has been noted in another thread. With CGI they could do justice to the script. Hopefully, that’s what they’re now doing with the remake. **The Time Machine** – you can’t count that monstrosity from a few years ago. Someone ought to have the guts to show Wells’ vision unexpurgated. And you could do such a great job with the machine and its traveling. And how about the giant crab things at the End of the World? **Conan** – we’ve had two Conan movies that didn’t really capture the spirit of Robert E. Howard’s barbarian (two and a half if you count **Red Sonya** , which you at least halfway could), but the effects weren’t the greatest. With CGI you could realize those monsters and magic, without recourse to mechanical effects. **This Island Earth** – not only could they do decent effects with CGI, they could take a stab at actually incorporating some of Raymond F. Jones’ book into it this time. In the original, the only part that follows the story is the opening “test” with Cal building the Interociter – and theey managed to screw that up, too! Cal isn’t putting together a Heathkit Interociter from plans and parts sent to him by the nice Metalunans – that would only be a test of his abilityx as a soldering iron monkey – _they didn’t provide any schematics_ in the story. Cal had to dope out the structure from clues in the catalog – _That’s_ a test of his deductive abilities! **Brave New World** – we’ve had one TV-movie that _looked_ like a TV movie, and another that looked better but still didn’t satisfy. With CGI they could finally create a believable Future World. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/32 "2010-02-26T03:48:59Z")
[quote=“CalMeacham, post:31, topic:530288”] **A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court** – my perpetual complaint. Not one version of this book has been at all close to Twain’s vision. They’ve either been star vehicles to showcase the studio’s darling (Will Rogers or Bing Crosby), or else they shied away from any hint of controversy. \*\* Frankly, it wasn’t that great a book, and has not held up well, and much that seemed topical in it at the time is completely irrelevant today. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Conan** – we’ve had two Conan movies that didn’t really capture the spirit of Robert E. Howard’s barbarian . . . How not? I thought the films presented something pretty much like the Hyborian Age and Conan as Howard envisioned them. ---
**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:** [February 26, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/33 "2010-02-26T03:58:59Z")
BG, I definitely disagree. Twain’s skewering of Arthurian romance and his images are still marvelous. It’s not his fault that the idea of “future guy going back to the past and showing 'em” has been done to death – nobody seems to have done it _right_ – making as much fun of the time traveling hero as of the era he visits. I’d freakin’ _love_ to see Hank Morgan destroying Merlin’s Tower with lightning, or the Miracle of the Restoration of the Holy Well, or the Showdown in the Arena with Morgan and his lasso and pistols against the massed knighthiood of England. All high points in the book, but not one of them ever depicted in film. Nor have we been treated to Knights on Bicycles or wearing advertising sandwich boards. You think this is past-relevant topical? Heck, it’s timeless. As for the Conan films – nope, I don’t think they really captured the feel of Howard’s stories. Arnold ain’t Conan, and the films have none of Howard’s verve and sweep. Dammit, the stories should flow with facility and wonder, and those flicks didn’t. Gimme _Red Nails_ or _The Tower of the Elephant_. ---
**Author:** ![HISSNLISSN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ed8c4c/32.png) [@HISSNLISSN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HISSNLISSN)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/34 "2010-02-26T04:23:40Z")
The worst kinds of films, including nearly all mentioned here, are those that take some interesting source material and translate a compelling story into an all too literal filmic exercise. **1984** (along with Catch-22, great example) was the first that came to mind when I read the title - why bother if that’s what you’re going to come up with? Blame it on the aesthetic & zeitgeist of the time perhaps, but it really just ‘misses’ in all the places where it should be a hit. The fan in me would love to see Alfonso Cuarón take on an adaptation, but it would likely be plagued by the same problems as the original, cast aside as a re-tread with little merit other than its mere existence (and as a visual Cliff Notes for teens.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/35 "2010-02-26T04:54:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > BG, I definitely disagree. Twain’s skewering of Arthurian romance and his images are still marvelous. It’s not his fault that the idea of “future guy going back to the past and showing 'em” has been done to death – nobody seems to have done it _right_ – making as much fun of the time traveling hero as of the era he visits. I’d freakin’ _love_ to see Hank Morgan destroying Merlin’s Tower with lightning, or the Miracle of the Restoration of the Holy Well, or the Showdown in the Arena with Morgan and his lasso and pistols against the massed knighthiood of England. All high points in the book, but not one of them ever depicted in film. Nor have we been treated to Knights on Bicycles or wearing advertising sandwich boards. > > You think this is past-relevant topical? Heck, it’s timeless. Well, I was thinking of the chapter on “Sixth Century Political Economics,” which might have seemed topical in the context of late-19th-Century tariff debates but is meaningless today. Or the scene where Morgan rescues the “princesses” from the “castle,” showing Lady Alisande to be not merely a product of her time but a totally delusional psychotic (and then he **marries** her). And the constant attacks on slavery, feudal aristocracy, the Catholic Church, and medieval superstition were beating of dead, or dying, horses even in 1889; something on the abuses of industrial capitalism would have been more topical. And it has been said of Twain that he “was stylistically tone-deaf, producing equal amounts of brilliant prose and overwritten trash without ever seeming to notice the difference” ([_An Incomplete Education,_](http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Education-Constant-Einstein-Stein-Twelfth-Theory-Half-Life/dp/B0020ZGD1S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267159755&sr=8-2) by Judy Jones and William Wilson), and _Connecticut Yankee_ certainly offers examples of the latter. (The scene where the young mother is hanged for theft is just embarrassing; the more so as it is based on her husband having been impressed into naval service, a dead-horse issue in 1889, and completely irrelevant to the Arthurian period whether in history or in legend.) And frankly, what’s the point nowadays of skewering the Arthurian legends anyway? Who reads Malory any more? And what made Twain think armored knights could cover a given number of miles faster on bicycles than on horses? Remember, we’re talking bicycles, not motorcycles. ---
**Author:** ![Scruff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Scruff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruff)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/36 "2010-02-26T05:08:04Z")
How about **Doc Savage**? There was an OK movie way back, but which was very much in the camp/tongue-in-cheek style of the Adam West “Batman” movie. You could make a decent version of it now; darker, perhaps and set in the 1930s. Of course, I could have been influenced by the fact that I just unpacked a box of books after the move, and found the “Doc Savage” Bantam reprints from the 1960s 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/37 "2010-02-26T05:39:27Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As for the Conan films – nope, I don’t think they really captured the feel of Howard’s stories. Arnold ain’t Conan, and the films have none of Howard’s verve and sweep. Dammit, the stories should flow with facility and wonder, and those flicks didn’t. Gimme _Red Nails_ or _The Tower of the Elephant_. Red Nails true to the story would be a great movie. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/38 "2010-02-26T05:53:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > \*\*Starship Troopers. I’m sorry but Starship Troopers has never been made into a movie. Nope. Never. Not even close. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/39 "2010-02-26T06:51:52Z")
> [@Scruff](#): > > How about **Doc Savage**? There was an OK movie way back, but which was very much in the camp/tongue-in-cheek style of the Adam West “Batman” movie. > > You could make a decent version of it now; darker, perhaps and set in the 1930s. > Of course, I could have been influenced by the fact that I just unpacked a box of books after the move, and found the “Doc Savage” Bantam reprints from the 1960s 😃 Ah, yes, [Doc Savage!](http://davidszondy.com/future/man/doc_savage.htm) That would have potential! And I’d really like to see them bite the bullet and include his corrective brain surgery for criminals and play it straight. On the same note, I’d like to see a _Fu Manchu_ movie done true to the spirit of the Sax Rohmer novels, with Fu portrayed as the [“the yellow peril incarnate in one man”](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YellowPeril) and a deadly threat to “the rule of the white race,” **and therefore a villain,** without the slightest hint of irony or PCness. Just to see what would happen. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288/40 "2010-02-26T07:01:19Z")
I’d also like to see a _Batman and Robin_ remake, and Robin should be no older than **twelve,** like he was when he first appeared in the comic book. Robin is not the Young-Adult Wonder. Robin is not the Teen Wonder. Robin is the **Boy** Wonder. Those were the days, when a guardian could take his pre-adolescent ward along on extremely dangerous vigilante crimefighting missions and nobody suggested this was irresponsible parenting . . . I mean, it’s only a tradition going back to Herakles and Iolaus! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-improved-in-a-remake/530288.md?page=3)