# What movie would you like to see remade, but better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [July 12, 2020, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072 "2020-07-12T00:03:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/201 "2020-08-11T15:50:36Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > I think maybe you missed some stuff. It’s clear in the dialog that the Dallas had radioed its findings back to the fleet. Admiral Painter and Ryan have an explicit discussion about it before he flies out to the sub. Jonesy isn’t irreplaceable, he just made the important connection. Any operator could repeat it once they adjusted the software. I remember the scene with Admiral Painter. He tells Ryan that the _Dallas_ has reported a contact, but he also says it’s identified as a “magma displacement”. And Jonesy is irreplaceable until he documents and shares how he tracked the \*Red October". He tells his captain how he does it, but there isn’t any indication in the movie that the information is shared outside of that lone submarine. I’m not saying that Ryan and the Navy shouldn’t help Ramius to defect. They could learn a lot by debriefing his crew and examining the sub. But they’ve already learned how to detect it, and they risk losing that if anything happens to the _Dallas_. I still think it’s a plot hole that the untrackable submarine is tracked almost continuously from the moment she puts to sea, and yet everyone still acts as if she’s some unprecedented threat. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/202 "2020-08-11T21:09:30Z")
You’re assuming a lot of things, and you’re assuming that the Navy is stupid. Just because the Admiral isn’t specific with Ryan and is skeptical doesn’t mean that the actual methods and practices aren’t being disseminated. Jonesy pretty much just told the software what to look at, he’s not performing some dark art. He’s not irreplacible. He showed Seaman Beaumont how to do it in like 5 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/203 "2020-08-11T23:28:29Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Getting the technology is way more important than keeping secret the fact that you have cracked it. And at the end of the movie, the Russians still don’t know that the technology was figured out. > > You’re nitpicking and these aren’t even the right nits. The major problem with the movie is that he Americans ever bought the Soviet story that Ramius wants to maneuver into position to fire his missiles. Red October has ICBMs. Ramius could have fired the missiles ten minutes after they set sail. He just had to get the key from the political officer. The book doesn’t make that error; the Americans surmise what’s really happening very early on. But that said, the movie still works. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/204 "2020-08-12T04:20:46Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > **The Final Countdown** (1980) was a fairly good film that seemed to be the origin of an entire genre of speculative fiction (where a modern military unit gets transported back in time where their sheer technological advantage creates havoc in the earlier time period) where a (then) modern American aircraft carrier the USS Nimitz accidentally gets caught in a time warp off the coast of Pearl Harbor Hawaii in 1980 and suddenly finds itself in the same space on December 6th 1941. Beat me to it. I saw this film in the theater in 1980 (at the base theater at NAS Alameda!), and was also disappointed in the ending. I liked it enough though that it made me want to be a Navy fighter pilot years before _Top Gun_ came out. Writing this post, it occurs to me that more time has now passed (40 years!) since that film was released in 1980 (which was also the year that it was set), than the 39 years between 1980 and the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Amazingly, 40 years later in 2020, the USS _Nimitz_ (CVN-68) is still in commission. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/205 "2020-08-12T12:23:48Z")
Robert Heinlein’s **The Puppet Masters**. It’s been done twice – once in a “Nosferatu” way, where the filmmakers didn’t get permission (and Heinlein sued), and once by Disney. The Disney version was a mixed bag 00 good pre-CGI effects, but they screwed with the script, putting in all sorts of inconsistencies and setting it in the present day. (One thing they did do right was get Richard Belzer for one of the roles – his past – and later – history paranoid conspiracy roles was perfect for the part.) Fer cryin’ out loud, keep Heinlein’s future setting with its space colonists. You can change the locations so they’re outside the Solar System, but the _ad hoc_ changes they made for the Disney version just didn’t work. And Puppet Masters was one of Heinlein’s best. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/206 "2020-08-12T13:33:55Z")
Another of my constant complaints – I want to see a decent version of Mark Twain’s **A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court**. There have been countless versions and blatant rip-offs, but nobody has yet done this anywhere close to correct. Two film versions were basically star vehicles – one for will Rogers and one for Bing Crosby. Animated versions are emasculated. Even the PBS version changed it so much that it was recognizable (making Merlin – the old fraud in Twain’s book – the 'wise one"). Or we get drivel like _A Kid in King Arthur’s Court_ that takes the concept of a modern hero dumped into Camelot, but ignores Twain’s book altogether. And the book is full of such wonderful images, some comic, some spectacular, others touching. I want to see The Destruction of Merlin’s Tower, and the Restoration of the Holy Fountain. I want to see the knights arriving on bicycles to save the day, and the release of Morgan le Fey’s prisoners, and King Arthur in the Smallpox Hut. A lot of people object that if you filmed the book as it is it would be insulting to Catholics, and that the ending is a downer. But it can certainly be written in a way not to offend, and no one says that you have to film it exactly as written. Connecticut Yankee can be one heck of a film, if it retained Twain’s sardonic wit (something no version has even tried to do) and imagery. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/207 "2020-08-12T14:00:39Z")
Possibly not surprising, considering my DoperName, but I’d like to see **This Island Earth** remade, but much better. The original movie was a.) iconic, and b.) deeply stupid. It took a “:fix-up” novel\* by Utah SF writer Raymond F. Jones with some great stuff in it, jettisoned almost all of the plot, and substituted a sort-of plot that seemed to have been generated by getting inspiration from pulp SF magazine covers (and ignoring the contents). No exposed-brain Metalunan Mutants in Jones’ book. No Metaluna, either, for that matter. Even the part they didn’t get rid of, they got wrong. The book, like the movie (ignoring the Green Ray shenanigans) opens with intrepid , handsome scientist Cal Meacham getting some bewildering and miraculously performing parts from an electronics firm he never heard of. He then gets a catalog of equally impossible parts, and orders what he needs to build an “Interociter”. In the film, he gets a schematic that shows him how to put it together, so he does. But in the novel, there is no such plan – Meacham has to work out how it goes together from what he can glean from the catalog. This is supposed to be a test of his engineering and reasoning capabilities, after all. Putting it together from a spelled-out plan, as if it’s an interstellar Heathkit, would only demonstrate that he was a good technician. “You’ce successfully assembled an Interociter,” says the voice from the assembled device, “ak of which few are capable.” Pshaw! Joe Wilson, his assistant, could’ve done it with all they gave him. In Jones’ novel he had to figure out how the parts went together, and even repair one. When he got it assembled, it was a significant accomplishment. Another detail I like in the novel is that we get to see some of the _other_ “tests” that were sent to other scientists and engineers at the same facility – Cal Meacham wasn’t the only one to be examined. These were devices in other specialties, like Mechanical Engineering. The other candidates didn’t succeed. If they had gotten just that part of Jones’ story right, it would have been far, far better than the film that did come out. There’s so much more that they pointlessly changed – “Exeter” was, in the book “Jorgasnovara”, which is more provocactive. The Earth Scientists weren’t chosen to perform R&D for the aliens – they were basically hired as lower-class talent to help with the grunt work (albeit high-level, high-yech gruint work) needed to help in the fight against an opponent in an interstellar war. (Maybe the filmmakers thought that was too demeaning). There were, as I say, no Metalunan mutants. The home planet wasn’t “Metaluna”. The home planet wasn’t incinerated and turned into a star. Nobody wanted the Earth scientists brain-wiped. et cetera et cetera, ad nauseum. Jones’ book sort of peters out, without a satisfactory ending, but I’m sure that can be fixed. With CGI you could do great effects, much better than in the original film. (The original story, by the way, doesn’t have a Flying Saucer – the alien craft is an ovoid. Flying saucers were such big news in the 1950s that it affected not only this film, but others as well. The alien ships in the stories _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ and _The Thing_ were based on weren’t flying saucers, either.) And the original movie never even bothers to explain the meaning of its own title. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/208 "2020-08-12T14:17:11Z")
> [@cormac262](#): > > The whole point of the movie was the commanders on the carrier facing this dilemma - knowing what they know, should they attempt to change the past ? I’m pretty sure the commander decided to intervene, but before they could, the “storm” sucked them back to the present. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/209 "2020-08-12T15:31:47Z")
I think you’re right. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/210 "2020-08-12T16:33:45Z")
> [@cormac262](#): > > And this also impacts the push to build an atomic bomb. So…the soviets figure it out first. And the world ends up very different. I agree with your post except for this. The Nimitz most probably has nuclear weapons, and even if they don’t there’s enough general knowledge about them out there to help the New Manhattan project with the design. They could save years. But first, you’d have to get refineries cranking out jet fuel! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/211 "2020-08-12T16:55:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 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. Man, I’d love to see a remake of the Hulk into the new MCU. I’d also love it if they either rebooted or remade Constantine. As for what you are asking, I’d like to see the 3 prequels of Star Wars remade with a better script, actors and director. It wasn’t the money, I don’t think, just a poor script and poor actors (some were ok) and some bad choices made. I guess the same goes for the latest trilogy as well…it would be nice if they had used the Thrawn story line which I felt was more compelling. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/212 "2020-08-12T19:05:12Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > …But first, you’d have to get refineries cranking out jet fuel! They had kerosene in 1941. Shouldn’t be a big problem. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/213 "2020-08-12T19:12:55Z")
The Bing one is fairly decent, since the START of Twains book is quite lighthearted. However, after a while the book gets very grimdark. ---
**Author:** ![Skunkdog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@Skunkdog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skunkdog)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/214 "2020-08-12T19:34:08Z")
I always thought the Kevin Costner film “The Postman” could have been a really good movie. I’m not sure if it was the script, the pacing, or Costner’s wooden acting that made it a dud, but there was definitely something there. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/215 "2020-08-12T19:36:29Z")
A remake of **It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World** would be fun with an A-list cast of contemporary comic actors. Gotta get Norm McDonald. I don’t see any alternative to casting Roseanne Barr in the Ethyl Merman role, however. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/216 "2020-08-12T19:37:24Z")
There was a film, fifteen years ago or so, called Rat Race that was basically an updated Mad, Mad World. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/217 "2020-08-12T20:41:29Z")
Looked **Rat Race** up on **IMDb**. With the exception of John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson and one or two others, the cast looks weak. A better cast and director is needed. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/218 "2020-08-12T23:57:55Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > A remake of **It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World** would be fun with an A-list cast of contemporary comic actors. Gotta get Norm McDonald. I don’t see any alternative to casting Roseanne Barr in the Ethyl Merman role, however. They did a It’s a Matt Matt Matt Matt World episode of the Leftovers a couple years ago focusing on Matt Jamison’s character, played by Christopher Eccleston. It was excellent, although it probably bore little resemblance to the movie apart from the title. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/219 "2020-08-13T12:36:11Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I’d also love it if they either rebooted or remade Constantine. The problem with the Hellblazer, as it originally was, is that it invented the genre of celestial politics (Heaven and Hell) with Sandman at the time, this has been ran with by Preacher since, which also suffers from the 15 seasons of Supernatural which ran the genre into the ground. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072/220 "2020-08-13T12:56:36Z")
I have to disagree. It might be an entertaining movie, but it’s not ACIKAC. Bing ain’t Hank Morgan, and the movie ain’t Twain. Just because it’s lighthearted doesn’t make it the same – Twain always had a streak of sardonic throughout the book. I want to see that in a movie adaptation of Yankee. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-like-to-see-remade-but-better/915072.md?page=12)