Movies that should never, EVER be remade

Off Topic!!!
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I’m right there with you on both of these. I was shocked that 2049 was as good as it was. And Alien, oh man, the squandering of this extraordinary story after Aliens was just unspeakable. If I were forced to say which is the worse cinematic crime – the Alien sequels or the Star Wars prequels – I don’t know that I could. Both were just unforgivable.

I’ll also throw in Robocop and Ghostbusters. The new Ghostbusters was a competent film but just felt un-asked-for, and Robocop was just painfully bad, 90 minutes I’ll never get back.

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44

I remember a brief time before the Poltergeist remake’s plot was revealed where the remake sounded like it was going to be in the same timeline, but a separate incident.

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45

Edison’s “The Kiss”.

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46

What about The Arrival Of A Train though? I’m seeing a role for Jason Statham in there somewhere. And would need to be shown in IMAX, obvs.

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47

:wind_face:
Long winded alert!

:crown:
What can be remade? Certain ‘actors movies’. They keep re-telling Queen Elizabeth I’s story because it’s a juicy tale with a compelling historical figure. The joy is seeing what Cate Blanchett or Helen Mirren or Bette Davis or Glenda Jackson, or Judi Dench, or Flora Robson, or any top drawer performer can do with the role.

:cowboy_hat_face:
You never know? Sometimes I don’t want something remade, but it turns out alright: True Grit, two wonderful versions, two distinct visions at play, each outdoing the other at certain points (I prefer Wayne in the lead, and the Coen’s made a mistake getting rid of the cat, not only because I like cats, but it says a lot about Cogburn’s prickly personality and who he’s going to be loyal too - however they are master storytellers and were spot on in the casting of Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, she’s the right age, the right personality, she fixes one of the casting blunders of the original)

:yawning_face:
Sure, but can you shut up and just answer the question? Is there anything that should never EVER be remade?

:film_projector:
There are directors with such a distinct look and feel, and who are drawing from themselves to such a degree that you can’t separate the person from the movie - those I’d not like to see remade - Fellini, for example - never remake 8½ or La Dolce Vita

Buster Keaton can’t be bested, so don’t even try. Leave The General, Sherlock Jr. and Steamboat Bill Jr. alone. (edit - and yes, I’m aware Red Skelton did several of Keaton’s routines on screen, and I like Red, but still still… don’t wanna remake)

Never remake my all time favorite movie, On The Waterfront - to me it’s pitch perfect - the cast, the score, the direction, the era in which it was made (correlating with the true waterfront story and real life people it was based on), the camera work and those gray, overcast skies. Brando giving the greatest onscreen performance in the history of film. No, leave it the hell alone!

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48

Sadly, that one’s happening. I’m still salty about that.

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49

Then what’s your opion of the 2018 version? That’s the third remake.

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50

Too late.

image

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51

True. I re-watched Masculin Féminin recently as I picked up the recent Criterion reissue. I could certainly do without a remake of that (‘the children of Tik-Tok and Four Loko’?)

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52

Here are some that shouldn’t be:

  • Jaws
  • Big Trouble in Little China
  • Smokey and the Bandit
  • Forbidden Planet
  • Them
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53

They remade Robocop? McCLOUD!!!

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54

Top of my list would be Citizen Kane. There is just no way any one, however well intentioned they might be, could add anything of value or “improve” that movie.

Next on my “do not touch” list would be Mary Poppins. This was the very first movie I ever saw in a theater. I was maybe 5 years old by the time I saw it and I was absolutely gobsmacked by the experience. In one movie you had a flying nanny (who can also slide up the banister!), singing chimney sweeps dancing on the rooftops, singing & dancing penguin waiters, free range carousel horses, a talking umbrella handle – even a tea party on the freaking ceiling!!! I swear, it took about 3 days for my eyes to pop back into my head! I can honestly say no move has ever given me as much entertainment as that one did. I saw it again in a theater maybe 10 or 12 years ago and it still is a delight.

(I’m aware Disney made a sequel, but I have no interest in seeing it. It can only disappoint.)

All That Jazz – not that there is going to be any chance of Hollywood rushing to remake a musical about our inevitable date with mortality. This is another movie that totally wowed me the first time I saw it – so much so that I stayed glued to my seat to watch the very next showing in the theater, something I have rarely done. This movie was so directly personal to Bob Fosse (even to the point of casting Ann Reinking, Mr. Fosse’s real life lover, as the lover of the Bob Fosse character in the movie – but first, making her audition for the part because that’s the kind of SOB he was) that no one could ever replicate the energy and creativity he brought to that film.

Any Fred Astaire movie. Sure they could probably make the technical aspects of those films better given the technology movie makers now have, but they would also have to think they could improve upon the scenes in which Mr. Astaire dances. And they would be very, very wrong!

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55

Well, yeah, the joke is they all either happened or are in production.

Well, yeah, the joke was both have been remade at least three times.

Man, I gotta work on my delivery!

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56

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). This movie is fine (in its way) as it is. Any effort to “fix” Plan 9 or turn it into an intentional comedy would destroy it. I heard a rumor someone was actually trying to do this. I wept.

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57

This would only have a prayer of working out if Leslie Nielsen were still around, and the Zucker Bros. could step in to give it the Zero Hour/Airplane treatment.

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58

I would be curious to see a competently-made version shot verbatim from the script, with no attempts at modification or improvement other than in the acting and cinematography. It would be in interesting chance to evaluate the source material on its own merits apart from the execution. I suspect, given Ed’s “flair” for dialogue, it would still be awful.

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59

They did that with Psycho. It wasn’t good.

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60

Indeed. I only think Plan 9 might turn out differently because you aren’t starting with a genuinely good first version. But in all likelyhood nothing would rescue this film, and its only the unquenchable appetite for nostalgia and “more of the same” that would drive people to attempt this remake in the first place. (Well, that and dollar signs.)

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61

I like to headcanon that The Dead Don’t Die takes place in the same universe as Plan 9. Maybe more of that rather than a straight retelling?

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62

Awfully amazing!

A collaboration between Ed Wood and the Coen Bros would’ve been epic.

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