Yet even more usless 80's remakes...Ughh
- Thread starter PKerr
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While i would agree at times with sentiment that Hollywood is creatively bankrupt. When is a remake too soon, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?
Sometimes a remake can be better than the orginal or the most recent remake, plus of course sometimes we look back through rose tinted glasses. Our Nostalgia for things that we grew up with can cloud our memories of just how good it was.
To me "Batman Begins" was better than "Batman" (Tim Burton's)
Whilst I prefer the original "The Italian Job" to the more recent one.
Sometimes a remake can be better than the orginal or the most recent remake, plus of course sometimes we look back through rose tinted glasses. Our Nostalgia for things that we grew up with can cloud our memories of just how good it was.
To me "Batman Begins" was better than "Batman" (Tim Burton's)
Whilst I prefer the original "The Italian Job" to the more recent one.
Interesting. I read the reviews of both of Perry's studio albums in the All-Music Guide (two 1/2 stars for each) and the reviewer said that Perry is the ultimate commercial artist who will do anything to sell records and as a result really has no style or personality of her own. It's all geared toward making her as big a star as possible, whatever she thinks will sell the most records.
Look at the videos: her breasts shooting wipped cream, she likes to make out with girls....or does she, singing a sultry ballad while stripping down to bra, panties and garter belt, etc. Jumping on the 80s bandwagon is more of the same.
One thing you can say for her: the formula is working. She's moving past Gaga in terms of sales. I guess having her butt naked except for a wisp of cotton candy or smoke over it on her latest album cover doesn't hurt, huh?
You know, I'd agree with all of this. And yet, I still find Perry's music rather catchy and likeable. Go figure.
Not to mention, there are only about fifteen basic stories in existence since the beginning of time, and they are being remade through the history of mankind: name, appearances, and details might change, but the basic stories are always the same. And yet, stories are still good, and we as a whole get a lot of enjoyment from them.
I'd like to see a Weird Science remake, in which Lisa actually teaches the kids flirtation mojo, rather than conjuring up a fantastical life-or-death crisis to all but force the two pairs together. And if they made such a movie and it sucked, I could simply ignore it. Win-win. 
(Okay, what I'd really like to do is write and direct the WS remake. Call me, Universal!
)
(Okay, what I'd really like to do is write and direct the WS remake. Call me, Universal!
)
Precisely.
Improve isn't the word I'd use. 'Update', rather. Star Wars would be a different movie, not the same movie with new actors. They'd be making a modern blockbuster, and blockbusters have, you know, evolved since the late 1970s. Just compare that film to something like J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, for example. Very different tone in the writing.
Yes.
In fact, I'd compare it to another 1990s remake of an iconic black and white film with a menacing sociopath: Cape Feare. Scorsese's version kept the Bernard Hermann score (as van Sant kept Psycho's Hermann) but had a significantly different script and a far more fractured family dynamic. Is the original Cape Feare great? Yes. So's Scorsese's.
By contrast van San'ts film only works as a kind of art school excerise. The character of Norman Bates is significantly changed, but that's only by casting Vince Vaughn in the role and letting his dumb oaf persona serve as a stark contrast to Anthony Perkins... and hell that doesn't work.
Greetings from Ireland.
Believe it or not the Star Wars films are very well known globally. They're spectacle filmmaking, it translates well.
I know. I was in my teens back then.
I miss those days....
And for the record, I think every movie that has ever been made should be remade three times each. Even the remakes. And the remakes of the remakes.
If nothing else it would confuse the the hell out of our decendants.
We should also preface every film with "based on a true story," just to throw them even more.
Well, the obvious change to make with Star Wars would be to make it fit with the prequels better. The new version would have to re-write parts of the storyline that no longer fit with the prequels mostly dealing with plot points that Ben seems to have forgotten, like owning droids. If you were redoing the entire original trilogy, Luke would obviously find out that Leia is his sister much earlier - to avoid awkward kisses.
Seriously though, I'm still hoping to see that Forbidden Planet remake.
I agree. But I still wan to see that remake.
Precisely. Remakes don't replace the earlier versions. They just give you, er, another version.
It's weird. People often seem to think that a remake is going to "ruin" the previous version somehow. "The old version is great! Leave it alone!" But how exactly is the older version hurt? It's not like the old version is reedited or yanked out of circulation or banished to limbo. The old version has been left alone. It's still the same movie.
Did the 1950's version of THE THING disappear when the John Carpenter version came out? Did the original CAT PEOPLE stop being a classic when the remake came out in the 80's? Can you like more than one version of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME?
No, no, and yes.
Eh...I would say there is one situation where that could be true. People say that everything's on DVD nowadays, but as many fans of the older eras of films are aware, it's most definitely not true. There's wide swathes of the less popular parts of various studios' movie catalogs that still hasn't been transferred to DVD, sometimes not even VHS. There's even a few movies whose only existent versions in the modern day outside the original filmstock are Laserdisc. And with Bluray getting bigger and bigger now, it's just going to be in even bigger problem since studios would see even less of a reason to convert a movie to BD when it was never even converted to DVD. And remakes of films from that era that haven't yet been transferred could cause those studios to push down the priority of transferring the original even further, since with the remake it would be seen as less of a concern.
Then again, it could also cause them to move it up, for promotional purposes and all. But it's something to be aware of, if nothing else.
I want to see a remake of Steve McQueen's The Blob. That's a classic movie if there ever was one.
I want to see a remake of Steve McQueen's The Blob. That's a classic movie if there ever was one.
Oddly enough, that was actually remade in the Eighties.
If that was a play on "useless 80's remakes," then I salute you, sir. Very meta.
Of course, the whole idea that every movie should be available on home video is a fairly new one. I'm old enough to remember when the only time when you could see a classic old movie was when it showed up on the late, late show, or maybe at a college or revival theater. So, in general, your odds of being able to see the original anything are better today than ever before. (Hell, TCM was running a Lon Chaney silent-movie marathon the other day. There's no way I could have seen any of those movies back in the day.)
And, if anything, I think a remake does increase the visibility of the previous version, which often gets a fancy new DVD release to cash in on the remake. THE AVENGERS movie sucked, but it did mean that the original Diana Rigg episodes got re-released in the USA in a spiffy new boxed set. And I note that AMC is rerunning the original eighties version of CONAN THE BARBARIAN tonight, no doubt because the remake is opening this weekend.
(I'm actually surprised and disappointed that nobody is airing the original FRIGHT NIGHT this weekend. I was looking forward to seeing that again.)
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