Did you ever see a movie and think, “If they only had(more money, a better director, better or different actors, a tighter script) this would have been great!”?
My submission would be the first theatrical Hulk movie. The premise is supposed to be “weak-ass nerdy socially inept scientist transforms into incredibly big and strong out of control force of nature”, and what we get for the former is strong, handsome and well built Eric Bana. Frankly, Edward Norton was a better actor and fit the archetype needed much better, and I think the franchise would gone on for a lot longer if they had started with him, in my opinion.
Any other submissions?
I can’t decide between two movies-based-on-books that left a bad taste in an avid sci fi fan’s mouth.
Damnation Alley could have been Escape From New York five years early. As it was, it was a cash-the-paycheck, rote adventure of a “ragtag” group in a high tech vehicle with a plot that shared only the title with the original Zelazny novel.
I’m sure I’ll get pushback on Logan’s Run, but read the book first (for some reason, the most devoted fans of the movie never seem to even know there was a book it was based on). The book is a pell mell dash through a candy colored dystopia as a teenager tries to unravel the society that kills its citizens on their 21st birthday (the film made the death age 30 so they could cast a 35 year old star, which completely changed the dynamics and the stakes). If Damnation Alley could have been Escape From New York, Logan’s Run could have been Snowpiercer more than 40 years early.
Pathfinders: In The Company Of Strangers, Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers (2011) - IMDb The story of the first paratroops on the ground on D-Day, It’s an absolutely epic story but the movie was total crap, poorly acted, poorly written, and poorly shot with a cast of unknowns, obviously made very cheaply
Produced, written and directed by Curt A. Sindelar and is his only credit in all three categories
It’s be nice if the 1970 semi-disaster* “Darker Than Amber” could be remade with decent casting (Christian Bale would be a big improvement over Rod Taylor), adequate direction and production. It still surprises me that no one has ever made a hit movie, much less a good one based on John MacDonald’s Travis McGee.
*According to Wikipedia "MacDonald disliked the film calling it “feral, cheap, rotten, gratuitously meretricious, shallow and embarrassing.” Too bad he didn’t say how he really felt.
**It’d be OK if they re-animated Theo Bikel as Meyer for the remake.
Doc Savage.
Flash Gordon.
Buck Rogers.
Canadian Mounties vs Atomic Invaders. (I’ve never actually seen this one, but the title is awesome!)
A Busby Berkely-style musical, filmed in Imax 3D.
A Fu Manchu movie, but with the Chinese as the good guys, and the British as the bad guys. (Or, set it in a neutral country, and portray them both as honorable adversaries.)
Almost the entire DCEU. Just making sure Snyder never gets within a light year of the movies would be a good start.
Starship Troopers goes without saying. I want power armor and a plot that hews to the book, dammit! I’d also like the remake to feature the on-screen maiming of Verhoeven and every other perpetrator of the film. No stunt people or CGI.
Well, until a bit over a year ago, it would have been Dune of course. Not because it wasn’t visually amazing, or didn’t have an awesome cast, but because the freaky story alterations. So we’ll see if I get the ‘but better’ part. I’ve also been lucky in seeing a remake/sequel to Dark Crystal (even if not as a movie), and a much better Judge Dredd movie (Dredd). And since Black Hole has already been mentioned by @GuanoLad …
I would probably go with The Running Man, but actually adhering to the novel rather than the Auhnold-fest of the previous movie.
In a time of excess reality TV, increasing (and often legitimate) distrust of police, as well as other environmental and social issues, it would be both entertaining and possibly thought provoking, without the the loss of the twist that is Soylent Green, which would otherwise be an amazing choice.
The Sum of All Fears. It’s not Clancy’s best book and a movie should be able to eliminate half the crap that a good editor should have done for the book.
But my god, the film was awful. I mean truly awful. So many changes from the book that weren’t necessary, just an unwatchable film.
The Explorers The first half of The Explorers is a fairly good movie about a group of teens meeting a group of alien teens. The second half was a totally cliche comedy.
Remake it so that the entire movie is about the interaction between the aliens and the humans. Stick in a bunch of alien worlds, maybe even a romance between a human and an alien.
The Hobbit Remake it so that there are only two movies and maybe add an extra hour to include anything from the original second movie that was important.
I think both of them set off like a house on fire - breathlessly compelling, can’t take your eyes off the screen - and then somehow lose their way. Jacob’s Ladder becomes gratuitously weird, and Fight Club almost silly at times (the self-fight, for example). In a perfect world they could be fixed in the editing suite, because the cast for each is spot on. Re-edited, rather than remade, in the case of these two.
The movie made a shambles out of this fantastic show about a group of Broadway dancers. It should be remade in the same style as the recent Hamilton movie, where you see the stage as the theater audience sees it.
I won’t go into all the ways the movie butchered this brilliant show, but I will mention THE most offensive one. During the whole show, the dancers are learning a routine to the song “One” (“one singular sensation, every little step she takes…”). You see them endlessly rehearsing it, pieces of it, sections, bits, steps, etc., and the climax/conclusion of the stage production is that you get to see the whole dance number all put together all at once.
You never see that whole dance in the movie! You see it cut up into slices, filmed from angles where you don’t see the dancers’ whole bodies, weird cuts and splices–it’s infuriating! By the time this movie came out, thousands and thousands of people had seen this show and wanted to see the dance number at the end–why did some bright person decide to change the climactic moment?
Let’s not go into how the song “What I Did for Love” was repurposed. Aaagghh!
BTW, fans of this show will love “Every Little Step” (currently showing on amazon prime). It’s a brilliant and riveting documentary that “follows the plight of real-life dancers as they struggle through auditions for the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line. Also investigates the history of the show and the creative minds behind the original and current incarnations.”
Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. But I would really have liked to see what they could have done with it if they hadn’t felt the need to write it for kids.
Hancock with Will Smith and Charlize Theron. I absolutely love action movies and thought I was watching a brilliant one-- until they wedged in the stupid and nonsensical romance.
On sort of the same vein, Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. It had giant robots with lasers for eyes!!! Pew! Pew! Unlike Hancock, Gwyneth Paltrow’s character ruined the movie the movie from the very beginning.
I’ve also been lucky in seeing a remake/sequel to Dark Crystal (even if not as a movie), and a much better Judge Dredd movie (Dredd). And since Black Hole has already been mentioned by 