# Why remake an already great movie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2017, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521 "2017-09-17T03:38:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/41 "2017-09-17T21:44:33Z")
The best version of Dracula starred Bella Lugosi in 1931. It’s been remade many, many times. I’ve never seen another actor play that part so well. Unfortunately the movie itself is very dated. Remakes are the best option to get younger people to watch. Flight of the Phoenix is my favorite Jimmy Stewart film. One of his more complex roles. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/42 "2017-09-17T22:00:02Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > This thought isn’t original to me. I can’t remember who said it first: > > “They shouldn’t keep remaking good movies. They should remake bad movies, and this time make sure they get done right.” I think it probably would be more interesting for filmmakers to take a movie that didn’t work the first time and try to make it better instead of taking a movie that _did_ work the first time and try to recapture the magic. But as far as marketing goes, “Come see a new version of a beloved classic!” seems like an easier sell than “Remember that terrible old movie? It’s back, and this time maybe it doesn’t suck as much!” ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/43 "2017-09-17T22:19:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Dropo- the Bonnie and Clyde (1967) version was horrible. As you have given no criteria to support this decidedly minority view, I cannot dispute the fact that you hold such an opinion. Given what has become the generalized context of this thread - remakes compared to the originals - if _B&C_ is “horrible,” what does that make _The Bonnie Parker Story_ (1958)? No one in their right mind would claim it’s in any significant way better than _B&C_. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/44 "2017-09-17T23:06:24Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > As you have given no criteria to support this decidedly minority view, I cannot dispute the fact that you hold such an opinion. > > Given what has become the generalized context of this thread - remakes compared to the originals - if _B&C_ is “horrible,” what does that make _The Bonnie Parker Story_ (1958)? No one in their right mind would claim it’s in any significant way better than _B&C_. Well, maybe you got me on that. But- Bonnie was not beautiful, and the film makes B&C into heroes. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/45 "2017-09-17T23:11:06Z")
also don’t most of the movies skip over the sexual preferences of b&C or romantically link them together ? Most of the crime encyclopedias ive read painted clyde as gay and bonnie as a sex addict (or nymphomaniac as written back in the day) both considered predatory … ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/46 "2017-09-17T23:22:59Z")
_B&C_ is grossly inaccurate; _The Bonnie Parker Story_ even more so (and Dorothy Provine looks as much like Bonnie as Faye D.) And there is certainly something unsavory about making (anti-)heroes out of petty thieves and killers. I am less bothered by this than some, as I do not believe fiction filmmakers have any loyalty to the facts. To me, it is a story about bandits whose names happen to be Bonnie and Clyde and any similarity to actual history is purely coincidental… ---
**Author:** ![jerez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/47 "2017-09-18T10:04:08Z")
\*\* > [@](#): > > Why remake an already great movie? \*\* Just taking a guess, here, so feel free to disagree. Maybe it gives studios more control and saves them money, the idea being that, as many ideas can be drawn from previous versions, there would be less need for creative input from talented (=expensive) professionals. Also, producers may think they’re a safer bet, because they assume that more people will have a reason to want to see a remake (title is familiar, etc.) ---
**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:** [September 18, 2017, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/48 "2017-09-18T12:04:10Z")
Disastrously bad remakes: **The Jackal** (Day of the Jackal) \*\*The Wicker Man Flight of the Phoenix The Trouble with Charley\*\* (utterly pointless remake of Stanley Donon’s **Charade** , minus all the wit.) **Sleuth** – I don’t care if Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay and is an infinitely better writer than Anthony Schaffer (they say) and Kenneth Branaugh directed it. (And Michael Caine got to play “the other part” this time). It freakin’ missed the entire point of the original, discarded all the mystery references and quotable lines, and replaced Andre Wyke’s games-filled domicile with a stark empty set (which alone should tell you that they missed the boat). **Total Recall** – if there was a point to remaking this Paul Veerhoeven movie, I completely missed it. There has to be a better reason that CGI became available **Robocop** – if there was a point to remaking this Paul Veerhoeven movie, I completely missed it. There has to be a better reason that CGI became available **The Day the Earth Stood Still** – It doesn’t help that the original’s Gort still looks infinitely better than the CGI Gort in the remake, and that the dramatic raising of the visor _still_ looks damned good, all these years later. There’s a lot more I could say, but I’ll leave it at that. **King Solomon’s Mines** – The Richard Chamberlin/Sharon Stone/Herbert Lom/John Rhys Davies version from the eighties. How do you misuse that much talent all in one place? **The Phantom of the Opera** – Every version except the original 1925 and the version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. I could do a whole thread about this. **A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court** – actually, as I’ve said many times, there’s _never_ been a good version of this one. I have to disagree about **Thief of Baghdad** – I know I’m in the minority, but I prefer the 1925 Douglas Fairbanks version to the 1940 Alex Korda version, even though the latter has sound and color and then-state-of-the-art special effects. The former has Douglas Fairbanks at his best, and William Cameron Menzies art design and sets. I also disagree about **King Kong**. The 1976 version was garbage (except for Rick Baker’s and Carlo Rambaldi’s mechanical effects work), but the 2005 Peter Jackson version was , to me, superb. This is ac rare case where I was the precise target audience the director was aiming for. I was raised on Forest J. Ackerman’s paeans to the original and his behind-the-scenes coverage of it, and grew up watching the 1933 classic over and over so many times I knew it by heart, so when Jackson riffed on the original I caught every reference, fro his throwaway line about Fay Wray to the re-imagining of the characters and the _Venture_ to his bringing back the long-lost Spider Pit sequence and the way at the end of the fight with the T. Rex the CGI duplicates Kong’s moves from the 1933 film. Jackson’s interpretation of New York at the end fits in perfectly with my imagining of the scenes (and I absolutely _loved_ that he set it in NYC in the winter – that was wonderfully correct). And making Rick Baker the one to fire the coup de grace was the correct choice. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/49 "2017-09-18T12:10:19Z")
Would you pay money to see a remake of Fritz Lang’s classic “Metropolis” - certainly the special effects could be improved. The addition of sound might add a new dimension as well. ---
**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:** [September 18, 2017, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/50 "2017-09-18T12:28:35Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Would you pay money to see a remake of Fritz Lang’s classic “Metropolis” - certainly the special effects could be improved. The addition of sound might add a new dimension as well. I would probably pay money just to see what they did with it (Heck, I saw the anime _Metropolis_ for just that reason). While I think it would be _possible_ to do a modern version of it that does justice to Thea von Harbou’s book and to Fritz Lang’s film (I occasionally imagine such a thing in my head – I’m a great Mental Movie director), I seriously doubt that anyone _would_. It wouldn’t resonate with a modern audience, the tag line “The mediator between the Brain and the Hand must be the Heart” sounds way too hokey. there isn’t enough sex in it (although they could certainly jazz up the Yoshiwara sequences and be truer to the story’s spirit with more sex. And a modern film could include the drug use that’s in von Harbou’s book, although not Lang’s film). but it ultimately wouldn’t work because its time has passed – the attitudes aren’t the same today, the audience mindset and expectations aren’t there. It’s a 1920s vision of the Future that kind of ignores all that came afterwards and changed those images of the future. It glorifies _Steam_ for cryin’ out loud and electric lights and private automobiles as the height of technology. There are no computers or lasers or cell phones. It showed private airplanes in the city and the first\* robot in SF movies and the first\*\* Mad Scientist Lab (which a few years later would inspire Universal’s _Frankenstein_ when these were original and unique images. A modern remake could only look retro, and this be a completely different thing. \*Well, except for a couple of curiosities, like the ones Exapno showcases on his website. \*\*Except, again, for a couple of lesser films, including the 1910 Edison _Frankenstein_. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/51 "2017-09-18T20:11:00Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > [Here](http://screenrant.com/remakes-better-than-original/)’s a list of remakes that are, according to the writer, better than the original. The list includes The Departed, True Lies, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Scarface. I totally agree that John Carpenter’s **The Thing** was a better movie than the 1951 **The Thing from Another World**. In fact, it’s one of my favorite movies. However, I’ve never considered Carpenter’s version a remake of the Hawkes production. Rather, it is an alternate (and vastly more faithful) adaptation of the source material. However, I totally \*disagree \*that **The Departed** is superior to **Infernal Affairs**. The Hong Kong original, to me, is much more interesting–provided you watch it with the original ending, and not with the ending filmed for “sensitive” countries where bad guys must meet their comeuppance or something. ---
**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:** [September 18, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/52 "2017-09-18T20:24:45Z")
Whether or not you think The Departed is better or worse than Infernal Affairs, I think you have to acknowledge that The Departed is a great movie. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Editing at the Academy Awards. And Mark Walhberg was even nominated for his acting. ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/53 "2017-09-18T20:31:35Z")
I really don’t care if a remake is “better than the original” or not. Is it anywhere on the spectrum between ok and great on its own merits? I want to see it. I like seeing new interpretations of things. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/54 "2017-09-18T20:32:44Z")
It’s a good idea to remake kids movies since movie styles change. Kids can often get turned off from a movie because the storytelling, editing, look, pacing, acting, colorization, resolution, etc. are all different than what they are used to. And even if the style is compatible, kids will often reject the movie because it’s an old movie. So remaking the movies may be the only way to introduce the kids to that movie. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/55 "2017-09-18T23:59:19Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The best version of Dracula starred Bella Lugosi in 1931. > > It’s been remade many, many times. I’ve never seen another actor play that part so well. There is a difference between “remaking” a movie, and making a new film from the same source material. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/56 "2017-09-19T15:27:48Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > There are so many young people that turn their noses up at an “old movie” that a remake is the only way they’ll watch. > > Cast today’s flavor of the moment actors and you’ll fill the theater. > > Stream or rent the original from Netflix and your 16 year old could care less. > I’ve been there and lived that conversation too many times. True enough, and frequently every generation thinks their generation of the movie is the best. Sort of like how everyone remembers SNL as being good when _they_ watched it; but now it’s not funny anymore. 🙂 > [@hogarth](#): > > You could say the same things about the film “Ocean’s 11”, but I’m pleased with the remake. This is an example of where the new one is a lot better. The 1960 version is currently at 48% on RT. > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > There is a difference between “remaking” a movie, and making a new film from the same source material. Not really. For all intents and purposes most “remakes” (except the aforementioned Psycho shot-for-shot remake) are making a new film from the same source material. I think most people would agree anything tagged with the word “remake” includes [“remaking” a movie, and making a new film from the same source material]. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/57 "2017-09-20T01:50:50Z")
> [@divemaster](#): > > I totally agree that John Carpenter’s **The Thing** was a better movie than the 1951 **The Thing from Another World**. In fact, it’s one of my favorite movies. > However, I’ve never considered Carpenter’s version a remake of the Hawkes production. Rather, it is an alternate (and vastly more faithful) adaptation of the source material. But the 2011 The Thing was far inferior. Although technically it’s a prequel that tells the story of the ill-fated Norwegian team encountered in the 80s film. It’s basically the same story. One could possibly justify the 2005 remake of Carpenter’s 1976 Assault on Precinct 13. The original was a bit of an obscure film. Although it wasn’t great. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/58 "2017-09-21T23:37:22Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Why remake the great 1965 movie _Flight of the Phoenix_? > > I mean you have already got fricken’ James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine and George Kennedy all giving outstanding performances and you think you are going to put out a better version of the story?? I dunno, but maybe a version people under 50 might go see. ---
**Author:** ![Ispolkom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@Ispolkom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ispolkom)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521/59 "2017-09-22T13:53:01Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I have not seen the remake of _Shaft_. I don’t feel like I need to. You don’t need to. You really don’t. It’s as bad a movie as I have ever seen that didn’t have Nicholas Cage in it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-remake-an-already-great-movie/796521.md?page=2)