than that horrendous Chris O’Donnell (gag) version. If you haven’t seen the Richard Lester-directed one with this cast:
Michael York as D’Artagnan
Oliver Reed as Athos
Frank Finley as Porthos
Richard Chamberlain as Aramis
Faye Dunaway as Milady de Winter
Raquel Welch as Constance
and a great performance by Charlton Heston as Richelieu
then you must go right out and rent it. It is an excellent adaptation of the spirit of the book - not just the overall idea. There were actually two movies released - The Three Musketeers covers the first half of the book and The Four Musketeers covers (surprise) the second half.
That Chris O. (gag) version has Dumas rolling over in his grave.
Sphere should not have strayed from the book so much. It was an embarrassment. I had no problem with the actors in the various roles… I just hated the changes that cheapened the story. And I had SOOOOOOOO looked forward to it!!
<sigh>
Journey to the Center of the Earth. I’d love to see a version that would hold completely true to the book.
No evil Count Saknussem.
No blowsy women along on the expedition.
No cute ducks.
No tribes of lizardmen chasing leather-bikini-babes. (I think that was in one of the made-for-TV versions.)
And NO GODDAMNED LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS!!!
I like to think Max von Sydow, Daniel Day-Lewis and Dolph Lundgren would do the original characters justice.
The Mummy was itself a remake of the 1932 movie. It looked like they wanted to make basically the same movie with modern special effects. Didn’t go over well with a modern audience.
IMHO, they should have simply come up with a new story about mummies. Couldn’t have been that hard. But then if you’ve blown your budget on special effects …
It’s hard to think of movies that have disappointed me, but I know they’re out there somewhere.
Why not remake Cassablanca? It would provide an excellent opportunity for a serious actress like Pamela Anderson to show us her full range. No, wait… aaaaarghhhhhh
Grosse Point Blank. I like Cusack and I thought the idea was clever, but the movie just seemed long and pointless. Dump the lame romantic subplot and concentrate on what could have been a pretty funny idea.
My mistake. I believe A Fistfull of Dollars is what was based on Yojimbo as well as being the basis for that sheite Bruce Willis remake. But I should have read the thread first and realized that was already addressed. <sigh>
I want to see someone do a decent version of Burnette’s A Little Princess. The Shirley Temple version wasn’t true to the book, but that’s only to be expected. But then they do a big, hyped up “new” version…and copy the plot of the Shirley Temple version.
The thing is, in the book, the little girl’s father dies. And he stays dead. No, he can’t show up alive at the end of the movie, that doesn’t work! Imagine if at the end of Party Of Five the parents showed up, surprise, we weren’t dead after all!
Wouldn’t it have been cool if the Bandit went to Boston to get that clam chowder, and Buford T. Justice chased him?
“I’m the brother of a truck-drivin’ mother… boogily boogily boogily…”
A remake of the SEIGE is definitely in order. After the general played by Willis tells them exactly what is going to happen if they send him in they get all soft and fuzzy. Then hang him for doing exactly what he said he would do.
Make a Lovecraft Story into a movie that doesn’t suck. Necronomicon Book of the Dead was alright but they changed Cool Air around too much. I would love to see a good version of Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kaddath, The Dunwich Horror, or Call of Cthulhu.
Redo…It, The Stand, and Needful Things…i’m sorry but those movies were no where near as good as the book, and while your at it how about a Dark Tower Trilogy.
I’m all for redoing Highlander, casting a Scotsman as the Scotsman, a Spaniard as the Spaniard (Connery was great, no mistake, but he’s about as Spanish as Jackie Chan), and keeping Clancy Brown as a more bad-ass Kurgan.
My instincts tell me that it was Hopkins. Coppola has been nothing but a hired hand in Hollywood since Apocalypse Now, so anything an actor says will work is probably OK by him.
Ironically, one of the most groan-inducing exchanges in the movie, which people assume was added by the screenwriter (“Do you want to perform an autopsy?” “No, I just want to drive a stake through her heart and cut her head off.”) was lifted verbatim from Stoker.
The Road To Wellville: after this movie came out, I ran across a magazine article protesting how nearly completely fictional the movie was. The magazine hd a several-page acount of the early history of the cereal industry in Battle Creek, as well as the Kellog brothers. The truth would have definitely been more interesting, as well as, , just for once, , , -the truth.(sigh) TLC, anyone? - MC