Why recreate perfection????

Thanks darling...

I dislike the new age Mini with a passion! Why cannot the car industry just bloody well leave the body work alone and rebuild the technical stuff around it? Assigoni’s masterwork never needed changing...

Hah... every remake the Americans have done of good French movies have been bloody awful in any case ‘Three men and a baby’ and Nikita come to mind straightaway.

On the other hand... I’d like to see modern versions of some classic using all the modern techniques. Zulu for example... another Caine movie?

But could you imagine Casablanca being remade? Quelle horreur!

So parroting Polly is ‘Singing in the rain’ 🌧☔️🌈

I generally avoid these. "Red Dawn" was terrible, and I couldn't bear to check out "The Longest Yard" or "Rollerball". I'm sure there are ones made well, but none come to mind at the moment.

Hi Grace, absolutely, often times remakes are not near as good as the original.  One that comes to mind is Starbuck, a French Canadian film about a sperm donor dad who fathers 533 children.  A terrific movie.  One of the remakes was called Delivery Man, out of Hollywood, just not anywhere near as good as the original.  I have to wonder why they even bother with some remakes????

Another of course is Psycho.  Why mess around with the Alfred Hitchcock classic?

Third and final is Total Recall with Arnold.  IMO, Colin Farrell just didn't match up. Just leave well enough alone.

There are so many others.  I'm sure someone will mention A Christmas Carol or a Miracle on 34th Street or King Kong. But heck, sometimes if there are a lot of remakes, perhaps the second or third version turns out to be the best????  Sometimes, as in the case of A Christmas Carol, what we think was the original movie actually wasn't.  The original Christmas Carol was in 1901, remade in 1935, 1938, 1951, 1970, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2009.  Which was the best????  Thanks for the topic Grace, always interesting.  Hugs, Krista.

Polly....

Play it again Sam... irresistible!!...

Make it again Sam...someone will have to die, horribly!!!

Thanks Krista....looking at those dates....the new " A Christmas Carol" must be in the pipeline !!!

Keep thinking Miss T.

there must be one !!!

As a rule I dislike remakes. They rarely excel the original, tend to have poor production values, tend to use cheap cinematographic trickery and they show a lack of imagination and creativity and an over-emphasis on the bottom line.

Araminta.

Ok, I did think of one, Last Of The Mohicans 1992

I don’t know if this counts as a remake but fir me the worst one was when some genius decided Steve Martin should star in a Pink Panther movie. Peter sellers owned that role and they should have left it alone.

omg yes Jeannie 100%.... Sellers WAS Clouseau !!!!

According to Wikipedia, the 1951 (and best!) Version of A Christmas Carol was the 13th remake...

Just goes to show, sometimes they need a few goes to reach perfection.

Alastair Sim is just wonderful as Scrooge - no-one has come close, IMO.

Talking of Sim, that's a great segue to a remake that shouldn't have happened - The Belles of St. Trinians, featuring Sim, cross dressed as the headmistress, and also the headmistresses' brother!

A wonderful, wonderful film, full of the twin faces of post-war England - the suave and genteel surface with the much darker underbelly. Joyce Grenfell is perfect, as ever. The remake was just embarrassing. Wild Child is better.

Sim was just as excellent in School for Scoundrels - and the atrocious remake is well worth ignoring, being just as awful as the original is dazzling in its wit and social savvy.

Love Laura

Not quite on topic here, Polly, but apparently the original choice to play Rick Blaine was... Ronald Reagan.  No comment; bullet dodged...  Here's looking at you, kid... Ilsa Krasivaya...

Hi Grace:  another interesting one...  Off the top of my head I could come up with The Day The Earth Stood Still and The Wickerman; perfect examples of why remakes are almost never anything other than terrible.  (By the way - the original - Edward Woodward - Wickerman was a documentary; the finest and most accurate depiction of everyday Scottish life ever filmed......  Now wait for the [well deserved] barrage from our sisters north of Hadrian's Wall...)  Not quite the subject, but would you consider the (superb) Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series in this as a sequel to the (terrible) film?  Perhaps the only time a follow on has outshone the original (with the possible exception of Joe Cocker's version of "A Little Help From My Friends"......)

Hurry up and arrive, Summer......  Downbeat Inga.

Oh, Yes, Grace. I have yet to see a re-issue that could hold a candle to the original. In addition to those you mentioned: True Grit, with Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne role; Sabrina, with Julia Ormand and Harrison Ford in the Audrey Hepburn / Humphrey Bogart roles. Or how about Eddie Murphy reprising Rex Harrison as Dr Dolittle? And (slightly OT) there is only
one 007: the late Sean Connery! I would have added Cheaper by the Dozen with Steve Martin, but other than the title and number of children, it had nothing in common with the original (which was one of my all-time favorite movies and books).

Hugs,

Bettylou