Remakes that are better than the originals?

[Dusty Ayres]

It's nice to hear this as I thought I was the only one bored to death by Thunderball. I've only watched it twice, once when I was 10 or so and then when I was in my 20s and all I remember from that mind-numbing movie is lots and lots of SCUBA diving.

Oh yeah, the underwater scenes go on FOREVER. Plus, Largo has got to be one of the most boring Bond villains ever. (He had much more personality in the remake. Ditto for the Fatima Blush.)

Yeah Thunderball is just dull, and it ends really abruptly, the finale on the boats terribly shot.

Remakes I like compared to the original:

The Haunting (1999)-mostly because it washed the taste of the shitty Blair Witch Project out of my mouth.

Dear lord, I never thought I'd hear anyone prefer the '99 version It's ten years later and I've only just started to forgive everyone involved in that bastardization, personal opinion I know but Blair Witch is light years ahead, strange noises and the imagination beats cgi and Cath Zeta Jones being a LESBIAN! any day for me

Sorry, but Blair Witch Project was just a waste of time and money, and I could never get over what exactly was frightening them in the woods, or why I should care. By contrast, The Haunting actually delivered on what it was supposed to be, even if it did use a little too much CGI and the end of the story was altered. Running about in the wood is not being scared anymore than just being chopped up is-perhaps the makers of The Blair Witch Project and the sycophant 'movie critics'could study how the makers of original version of The Haunting handled things that go bump in the night and learn how to handle a horror movie-for me, The Haunting wins hands down, with two and a half stars from me.

P.S. I originally saw both movies the same night, and I got to see the second one only because I got a free movie for seeing the first, due to a promotion held by Famous Players.

 

[Starkers]

To each their own I guess. For me what makes Blair Witch is the just overiding sense of dread, and general wrongness that permeates the film. I can still remember seeing it the first time in the pictures and, right at the end, I had my hand on my then GF's knee and literally dug my fingers into her knee! Precious few films have gotten me that on the edge of my seat (frankly Die Hard is the only other one that springs to mind). I also like the mthology they invented for the film.

By contrast I can't remember if the Haunting remake made me angry or laugh, but either way it wasn't the effect the makers were likely going for.

But yeah when it comes to scary noises the original Haunting wins hands down, still my favourite horror film and can't see anything ever displacing it.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I think Zombie just had a radically different interpretation of Michael Myers. Carpenter's was the silent boogeyman type, but Zombie's was this sympathetic, well-developed individual that lost a lot of the mystique and allure that made Carpenter's version so dangerous.

Like I keep saying, I don't find Zombie's Michael Myers to be at all sympathetic. He's a terrifying, soulless killer and Zombie is able to portray that in a much more intense, unrelenting way than Carpenter can with his low-budget minimalism.

Of course on the Bond front I could also always nominate The Spy Who Loved Me, being a far superior remake of You Only Live Twice...

Agreed. As bored as people here seemed to be by Thunderball, I thought You Only Live Twice was much worse.

But The Spy Who Loved Me rocks! It's my favorite 007 movie of the '70s and easily beats out all of the dullness that permeates the '60s films.

- A Christmas Carol (Alastair Sims tops everyone before and since)

Personally, I think adaptations of A Christmas Carol peaked with A Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine.

And if we're talking about multiple versions of adaptations now, I'd say the Kenneth Branagh & David Tennant versions of Hamlet are far superior to the earlier movie versions starring Laurence Olivier & Mel Gibson.

Remakes I like compared to the original:

The Haunting (1999)-mostly because it washed the taste of the shitty Blair Witch Project out of my mouth.

Dear lord, I never thought I'd hear anyone prefer the '99 version It's ten years later and I've only just started to forgive everyone involved in that bastardisation, personal opinion I know but Blair Witch is light years ahead, strange noises and the imagination beats cgi and Cath Zeta Jones being a LESBIAN! any day for me

Wait, so a hot lesbian is in the minus column for you?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

As bored as people here seemed to be by Thunderball, I thought You Only Live Twice was much worse.

Agreed. I find YOLT a very tough one to get through from start to finish. Connery is pretty clearly bored with the role and just waiting out his contract.

But The Spy Who Loved Me rocks! It's my favorite 007 movie of the '70s

I agree with this part. But 70s Bond films are pretty slim pickings, IMO.

 

[Warped9]

Of course on the Bond front I could also always nominate The Spy Who Loved Me, being a far superior remake of You Only Live Twice...

Agreed. As bored as people here seemed to be by Thunderball, I thought You Only Live Twice was much worse.

But The Spy Who Loved Me rocks! It's my favorite 007 movie of the '70s and easily beats out all of the dullness that permeates the '60s films.

You know I never thought of The Spy Who Loved Me as a remake of You Only Live Twice, but now thinking about it could be interpreted as such. And, yes, I too like TSWLM better than YOLT. Connery's best Bonds were his first three then it's a slide from there.

 

[Starkers]

I think Zombie just had a radically different interpretation of Michael Myers. Carpenter's was the silent boogeyman type, but Zombie's was this sympathetic, well-developed individual that lost a lot of the mystique and allure that made Carpenter's version so dangerous.

Like I keep saying, I don't find Zombie's Michael Myers to be at all sympathetic. He's a terrifying, soulless killer and Zombie is able to portray that in a much more intense, unrelenting way than Carpenter can with his low-budget minimalism.

Of course on the Bond front I could also always nominate The Spy Who Loved Me, being a far superior remake of You Only Live Twice...

Agreed. As bored as people here seemed to be by Thunderball, I thought You Only Live Twice was much worse.

But The Spy Who Loved Me rocks! It's my favorite 007 movie of the '70s and easily beats out all of the dullness that permeates the '60s films.



Personally, I think adaptations of A Christmas Carol peaked with A Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine.

And if we're talking about multiple versions of adaptations now, I'd say the Kenneth Branagh & David Tennant versions of Hamlet are far superior to the earlier movie versions starring Laurence Olivier & Mel Gibson.

Remakes I like compared to the original:

The Haunting (1999)-mostly because it washed the taste of the shitty Blair Witch Project out of my mouth.

Dear lord, I never thought I'd hear anyone prefer the '99 version It's ten years later and I've only just started to forgive everyone involved in that bastardisation, personal opinion I know but Blair Witch is light years ahead, strange noises and the imagination beats cgi and Cath Zeta Jones being a LESBIAN! any day for me

Wait, so a hot lesbian is in the minus column for you?

Not exactly, its the in your face way Jones keeps banging on about it, no subtlety, Theo in the original is way better--Zeta Jones' character sums up the remake; obvious!

On the whole though I have no issue whatsoever with lesbians

 

[Lonemagpie]

Not exactly, its the in your face way Jones keeps banging on about it, no subtlety,

Well, the way she keeps yapping on about "I'm a lesbian, isn't that cool" but never actually *does* anything - didn't the director know the "show, not tell" rule of storytelling?

 

[Starbreaker]

Well, I'm convinced Rob Zombie's Halloween is the better version of the two now. Props to the original, but after seeing the remake several times, watching the 4.5 hour documentary, etc... I've fallen in love with this film after being ambivalent about it when I saw it in theaters.

 

[Greg Cox]

I love the original Robert Wise version of THE HAUNTING, but I couldn't make through the remake (and I almost NEVER give up on movies once I start watching them). They took a movie famous for its subtlety and made it a big, splashy, overproduced mess.

A shame, since they had a good cast . . . .


On the other hand, I like the remake of CAT PEOPLE, which couldn't be more different in tone from the original Val Lewton version, which I also like.

 

[Starkers]

Not exactly, its the in your face way Jones keeps banging on about it, no subtlety,

Well, the way she keeps yapping on about "I'm a lesbian, isn't that cool" but never actually *does* anything - didn't the director know the "show, not tell" rule of storytelling?

It does almost come across like she likes to think she's a lesbian because it makes her cool and unusual rather than she actually is one! A bit like Jane in Coupling

 

[Corwwyn]

If we're including television, too, then the new Battlestar Galactica series really puts the old one to shame.

QFT.

I suppose, with effort, one could argue that nugalactica might be better than galactica80, but really, they're both shite.



But don't listen to me, I think the Bogey versions of The Maltese Falcon and Sabrina were the best and the 1933 King Kong is still unmatched.

 

[Lonemagpie]

The Bogie Maltese Falcon *is* a remake!

The original was 10 years earlier, with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade... There's also a remake of that, called Satan Met A Lady, from 1936, so Bogie's version is actually the third.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Like I keep saying, I don't find Zombie's Michael Myers to be at all sympathetic. He's a terrifying, soulless killer and Zombie is able to portray that in a much more intense, unrelenting way than Carpenter can with his low-budget minimalism.

The problem is that Zombie tried- and ultimately failed- to make Myers sympathetic. He tried to explore the psychology of the character- that's why, I'm presuming, we got scenes of Myers as a child in a mental asylum with Loomis. I guess some people these days prefer over-the-top, relentless gore and violence over subtle minimalism- I'll take the minimalism over repetitive, in-your-face violence any day of the week.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

"2001 Maniacs" is leaps and bounds ahead of the original, which actually kind of sucks.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Like I keep saying, I don't find Zombie's Michael Myers to be at all sympathetic. He's a terrifying, soulless killer and Zombie is able to portray that in a much more intense, unrelenting way than Carpenter can with his low-budget minimalism.

The problem is that Zombie tried- and ultimately failed- to make Myers sympathetic. He tried to explore the psychology of the character- that's why, I'm presuming, we got scenes of Myers as a child in a mental asylum with Loomis. I guess some people these days prefer over-the-top, relentless gore and violence over subtle minimalism- I'll take the minimalism over repetitive, in-your-face violence any day of the week.

I still don't agree with that interpretation. If anything, I think the asylum scenes are supposed to give us more insight into the mindset of Dr. Loomis; how burned out & terrified he is of Michael Myers.

 

[Starkers]

And yet in the original I though Pleasence conveyed that with just a few seconds of wide eyed mania!

I really need to watch the Zombie remake at some point though.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I still don't agree with that interpretation. If anything, I think the asylum scenes are supposed to give us more insight into the mindset of Dr. Loomis; how burned out & terrified he is of Michael Myers.

And yet in the original I though Pleasence conveyed that with just a few seconds of wide eyed mania!

Exactly. Before his version of "Halloween" came out, I read an interview with Rob Zombie where he was criticizing the original for making Dr. Loomis such a one-dimensional character who mostly just runs around looking freaked out and talking about how dangerous Michael Myers is. He went on to talk about how anxious he was to flesh out the character more, as if he believed doing so would 'improve' the character and story. It was at this point I knew that Rob Zombie simply didn't get what makes "Halloween" 1978 awesome and why his version isn't worth watching. All the reviews I've read only confirm what I suspected. As the expressions go, 'sometimes less is more', and 'if it a'int broke, don't fix it'.

I don't need back story for Loomis and Myers. I think the minimalism of their characters is part of what made them so effective in the 1978 movie. Michael Myers witnesses teen sexuality at a young age and freaks the fuck out. He is traumatized, never gets over it, and kills all those who engage in sexual activity. And we're never told this. It is implied subtly. Showing, not telling. Loomis is wild-eyed and intensely cautious based on years of observing Myers (which is left to our imagination, and I'm glad it is, as his words are more powerful than any flashbacks could be). I don't need to see how trashy the Myers family was during Michael's childhood, him torturing animals as a kid, or whatever stereotypical serial killer bullshit Zombie dreamed up to 'flesh out' his character. It would be like if "The Dark Knight" had cheesy flashbacks of The Joker's parents treating him like shit. As if we needed that when The Joker talking about them with a knife in Gambol's mouth was so captivating.

 

[Cicero]

The Maltese Falcon (entirely for Greenstreet and Bogart; there are many things I prefer about the original)
Ocean's 11
Casino Royale (which isn't to say I like either)
The Mark of Zorro
You've Got Mail
The Wizard of Oz
True Lies
The Fugitive
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Italian Job
The Maginificent Seven
Star Wars

The Man Who Knew Too Much was equal to the original (by virtue of differing strengths and weeknesses), but not better.

Pretty much every remake of any Agatha Christie adaptation is better than the first. This is a curious phenomenon.

An exception, unfortunately, is Suchet's Murder on the Orient Express. He is excellent, as always, but the adaptation is vastly inferior to Albert Finney's version (which was aided by supporting turns from Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Berman, and John Gielgud, among others).

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Star Wars

Star Wars wasn't a remake.

 

[Harvey]

Star Wars

Star Wars wasn't a remake.

Though it certainly carries the heavy influence of the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials, as well as Kurosawa's THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, it surely isn't a remake in any sense that I've seen the word applied.

What's your reasoning behind the pick, Cicero?