I just thought it was a very solidly-made thriller, smart, creepy, and very plausible and possible in today’s world. The changes they made from the original made a lot of sense in context, and it just worked really well as a whole. I liked it enough to see it twice in the theater during its run last year, and I saw the original within the same week as the remake.
[complete heretic]
Burton’s Planet of the Apes. It certainly wasn’t worse than the original.
[/complete heretic]
The recent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, while it had plenty of flaws, was far superior to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
I thought the American movie The Ring was vastly better than the original Japanese film Ringu. (I haven’t read the book, so I can’t tell you how that compares to the movies. And I think I’m going to stay away from “Ring 2”)
I can’t believe you all are missing the biggest one – Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings absolutely blew away the original Bakshi cartoon.
Too early to say anything about the upcoming version of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe but compared to the cartoon and the BBC production, it’s gonna have an easy time of it. 
Shit man, we’re talking about 1910 here. The average “feature” length was about 10 to 15 minutes back then!
The 1938 version of The Dawn Patrol was far better than the 1930 version. It can be argued that the 1941 version of The Ghost Train was better than the 1931 version. <shrugs>
In my opinion, the original versions of The Thomas Crown Affair and *Ocean’s 11 *were completely uninteresting. The new versions aren’t exactly great cinema, but they’re a lot more fun than the originals for me.
I prefer the 60s version of The Killers (the only movie I can think of in which Ronald Reagan actually gives a great performance) to the 40s version. Lee Marvin rules.
The 60s and 90s versions of Cape Fear are, IMO, about equally sweet.
The musical “Little Shop of Horrors” was better than the original black-and-white film.
The non-musical movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman” was as good as the stage musical, but in a different way (and they both deserve kudos for making such a good vehicle out of such an unreadable book).
The TV movie of “The Shining” was as good as, if not better than, the original film.
Star Trek 2 was a movie sequel to a tv episode, so it’s not a remake in any sense of the word.
And I beg to differ with the second – the movie of MASH ruled, and was far superior to the silly tv series! IMO, of course :).
I enjoyed The Thomas Crowne Affair remake more than the original.
But, of course, the movie came BEFORE the TV series… :wally
How about the original Battlestar Galactica vs. the new one? I think the current one is much better.
Your point?
I happen to like Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead more than Romero’s original.
Not really. Batman the TV series succeeded greatly as *camp.
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The current Battlestart Galactica is an insult to the original- and the producers, directors and writers should all be shot at dawn. It was deliberately made as an insult and an affrotn to the original. I admit the original wasn’t Emmy material, but when you re-make a TV show, then don’t insult the source material.
I thought The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford was an excellent movie. I never saw the TV series, so I’m not comparing it to that, but instead to the other movies based on old TV shows. Along the same vein, I thought the Addams Family movies had a lot of style.
I was an avid fan of the original BSG, and I mourned when it was cancelled after one season. But I have avidly followed every episode of the new Battlestar Galactica and it is one of the tightest, well written and suspenseful stories I have ever seen. It is definitely Emmy material, and it is a shining, no I take that back, it is a gritty honor to the source material.