To be fair, the gay Zorro is — in, oh, half-a-dozen ways — better at heroics than the Zorro he replaces: one of them battles injustice by succeeding at everything he tries, and the other is, uh, heterosexual.
I doubt The Towering Inferno could be remade.
After the 9/11 attacks and the collapse of the WTC twin towers I am not sure there would be a good reaction to a fictional film depicting a skyscraper burning up
The episode of Jeeves and Wooster where Bertie’s friends start a minstrel band, complete with blackface, definitely wouldn’t fly these days.
I happened to catch Rhapsody in Blue the other day. It’s a biopic of George Gershwin from 1945, and has some of Gershwin’s contemporaries playing themselves. One of those is Al Jolson, who’s seen a couple times in blackface, including singing Swanee.
I wonder how that could be handled these days. If you’re trying to portray that early-20th-century musical theater world, blackface was a thing that happened. Is it excusable to portray it in that historical context?
Interestingly, RiB also includes performances by two African-American musicians/singers, Anne Brown and Hazel Scott. That was probably rare at the time.
(While writing this post, I read a little of the history of Porgy and Bess. I gather it was controversial in the '60s for its portrayal of African-Americans, but has been somewhat re-evaluated since then.)
OJ saving a cat probably wouldn’t be a crowd pleaser, either.
Skyscraper - 2018 starring Dwayne Johnson.
“A security expert must infiltrate a burning skyscraper, 225 stories above ground, when his family is trapped inside by criminals.”
Interesting video about the “adorkable misogyny” of media like this (it’s mainly about Big Bang Theory, but it’s relevant to this thread because it does credit Revenge of the Nerds for popularizing the concept).
I don’t think Ace Ventura: Pet Detective could be remade due to the amount of transphobia in it. I never did watch The Crying Game, the movie that part of Ace Ventura was supposedly based on, so I can’t speak to that one.
I remember thinking The Seven Year Itch (a purportedly hilarious comedy about a guy sexually harassing his nameless neighbour while his wife and kid are away) had aged poorly when I saw it in the '90s. I doubt it has improved much since then.
Considering THAT movie was considered a box office failure and got very mixed reviews --it may actually prove my point.
I don’t see why they could NOT do a remake of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It is not like the transphobic plot elements are integral to the story of a detective investigating crimes against animals/pets.
Speaking of which, that is one of my favorite films but it does feature Dan Aykroyd in blackface and rape-by-gorilla. I suspect it would need to be re-written if someone tried to make it today.
Even in the era it was made, I never understood the whole notion of a movie (and very successful stage play!) where the entire plot is “creepy middle-aged married man fantasizes about fucking the hot girl upstairs”. Aside from the creepy middle-aged man demographic, who might like the implausible aspect that the hot young girl actually seems interested in the creep, who on earth would find this plot appealing? Is the fact that he doesn’t follow through and fuck her supposed to be some kind of heroic feelgood ending?
According to Wikipedia, the guy does have sex with the girl in the original play with “hilarious guilt” ensuing in the 3rd act.
Changing attitudes don’t make these movies impossible to remake, they’d be remade with changes. The comedies in particular would require little modification of the scenes considered offensive to setup the circumstances. Comedy is beyond ordinary sensibilities, all it needs to do is make people laugh. Every generation has people constantly on the prowl for something that will offend them, and good movies will continue to mock them and their attitudes.
Please, referencing some neckbeards to prove a point on the Dope?
Revenge was a comedy. The plot was just a structure to hang jokes. It went for all the low hanging fruit. You can tell by the very subtle names they have, yeah know, like Booger and Ogre.
Obese college girls are a stereotypical outcast group. They shouldn’t be, but that is not the films business. That it is so over the top makes the ostracization the joke. These are soon to be adults, acting like playground kids. It’s not deep but it’s definitely not making fun of heavy women or intelligent people or homosexuals.
And I will stop my portion of the thread derail for now.
Yeah, but there are some cases where the problems are intrinsic to the entire premise. Where a “remake” would be an entirely different movie. That’s true of the “hilarious frat boy prank” movies and probably some others mentioned in this thread.
Why would Revenge of the Nerds be an entirely different movie? They would change one scene so it doesn’t look like a rape. That scene as done was not at all critical to the movie.
There isn’t the same stigma attached to being a nerd nowadays as there was in the 80s, so the whole premise of Revenge of the Nerds wouldn’t work quite the same way.
It could be remade but not as a comedy - more of a stalker/slasher/horror flick. There’s probably an accidental remake along those lines already. Those type films are not in my viewing habits.