It occurred to me to wonder how the remake of Battlestar Galactica would have been received if the original had never existed. If you didn’t have the orginal as “backstory”, would for example the polytheism or the fact that it’s set forty years after a human-robot war that we never see leave people scratching their heads going wtf?
What remakes arguably simply wouldn’t work as stand-alones?
I can’t recall a remake that required you know the original – remakes are independent entities, usually based on the same source material.
The original BG didn’t have polytheism in it, and the original was also set at the end of a human-robot war (supposedly). If you didn’t see the original, you wouldn’t have had the slightest problem understanding what was going on.
Now, there are sequels that require you know the original (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers), but those are generally continuing the original story.
Yeah, BSG would have worked(and basically did work) without its original. I’ve never seen it and knew nothing about it had it been called “Robot War” or something, it would have been the same for me except for the lame title.
The Stepford Wives, of course. The “remake” is incredibly inconsistent and pointless, and can’t make up its mind about what it wants to say or be. If you didn’t have the original as an anchor with its definite story to peg the events of the remake to, it’d be be even more incomprehensible.