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Have any of your favourite films been re made…resulting in a major disappointment???…
Two of mine spring immediately to mind…..”The Italian Job”….Michael ” you’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off ” Caine was just wonderful…..
and the film “Arthur”….Dudley Moore was a genius at acting the drunk, and John Gielgud, the perfect butler.
Both movies were perfection, remakes were not needed….
Grace xx
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’ 🌧☔️🌈
Polly….
Play it again Sam… irresistible!!…
Make it again Sam…someone will have to die, horribly!!!
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…
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.
Keep thinking Miss T.
there must be one !!!
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.
Thanks Krista….looking at those dates….the new ” A Christmas Carol” must be in the pipeline !!!
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
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 !!!!
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.
Hi Inga,
I saw the original The Day the Earth Stood Still with my dad when I was a kid; and you are right: No comparison to the re-issue. And Kristy Swanson’s Buffy film was so bad that I almost skipped the TV series – but so glad that I didn’t. It, and the spin-off Angel were my favorite shows over that 10-year period.
Bettylou
Bettylou: both BTVS and Angel were great… until the last series of each, when it was obvious that the writers were beginning to just go through the motions. I’d love to see an update of Buffy now – she’d be the oldest slayer in the history of the world! Haven’t kept up with the comic book version – basically for the above reason; can it match up? And to finish… Klaatu Barada Nikto! (By the way – in Russian, that pretty much means “Klaatu – nobody has a beard.” Was this a 1951 message aimed at CDH?) The Truth Is Out There…… Inga.
Inga,
BtVS certainly went downhill toward the end, but Angel had a few really good (and humorous) episodes. I got a kick out of the one where Angel was a puppet. I took a look at the graphic novels, and decided to pass on them. There was an online fanzine which had a few really good stories, though. It seems to have made the vampire genre quite popular in films, though not so much on TV. Speaking of which, “Forever Knight” may have been my all-time favorite TV program.
And now I have a couple more words in Russian to add to my meager vocabulary. ‘Way back in my Army days, I could read Cyrillic and speak a little; but I have lost nearly all of it but for the rules of grammar and a few words. It’s heck to get old…but it does beat the alternative.Hugs,
Bettylou
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
Bettylou…
may i ask if you were a fan of Watership down…animated, but full of bunnies….yes or no????
Hi Grace,
I vaguely remember the film; but 1977-78 was an extremely disruptive time in my life, and I missed out on a lot of things. I must go back and revisit that film…thank you for reminding me.
Hugs,
Bettylou
Ghost busters the first one was good the second one was not as good but the last one with the all female cast what can i say, it’s not so much the cast if you have a sh#t story line?????
Dirty dancing 2, tremors 2’3’and 4,and that film with Kevin Bacon in the one where he goes to that town where they have banned dancing i can’t think what it’s called,
The best Christmas Carol film has to be the one with Alastair Sim in it, the one they did with Guy Piece in it was abbismal,
Hugs Rozalyne x
That film with Kevin Bacon was great but the remake wasn’t up to much x
It was called Footloose with Kevin Bacon they made another one a few years ago it was really bad xxxxx
I am usually not a fan of remakes, but I have watched some remakes and here are some that I did enjoy :
evil dead. The remake was more gore and violent.
star trek. the original was a snooze fest. the remake (jj abrams) was very entertaining, glitzy, and alot of fun to watch over and over again.
war of the worlds. Granted I never watched the original, but I did enjoy watching this one. Dakota fanning screaming when the wind blows in this movie was incredibly annoying though.
Some I didn’t :
robocop. I loved the original, ultra violent, “I’d buy that for a dollar”, schlock commercials, all good. The remake, let’s just say watching it once was enough. I enjoyed robocop 2, but 3 was too cartoony (robocop now has a jet pack ??? seriously ??)
ghost busters. Original concept and very entertaining. Poor story in the remake made is a forgettable experience.
Wendy…..hope you are well honey
War of the worlds remake was a screamfest…for all the wrong reasons!!!…but jeff waynes album… omg….i still play it regularly…
and Robocop…. you said it all…. Genevieve will be a happy girl!!!
Grace xx
Ghostbusters remake was a crime against man and God.
I tried to complain but….
Who ya gonna call ????
I worked for 25 years in the industry. You would not believe the hate most people had for it.
No, No, NO, NO, NOOOOOOO, Wendy!
Repeat after me …
New Star Trek, bad. Original Star Trek, Good!
While the Abrams film got the franchise some exposure the only good thing was the updated Enterprise!
Oh, and we found out that JT Kirk’s father was Thor, God of Thunder. Explains so much.Hugs from a Trekkie
Jillian
Already a lot of examples that I agree with.
Sometimes remakes are ok, or great even, but sometimes sadly mask what went before.
Tis dating me a bit, but I’m thinking of “Gaslight”. The first UK version (of a play) in 1940 and the US version in 1944. The second remake was better funded and had bigger stars (Boyer, Bergman, and even Angela Landsbury) and was great, but I still prefer the earlier version – far more menacing.
And, then there’s ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and ‘A Fistful of Dollars’, both brilliant westerns – but were total rip offs from two superb Japanese films (“The seven samurai” and “Yojimbo”)
Marti xxx
Now I’m really showing my age here, True Grit, the original with John Wayne was great, the remake, uh is there anything else on. Tabitha Tee, yeah roller ball and the longest yard, yes there’s three and a half hours of my life I’ll never get back. Let’s throw in Madd Maxx to that mix, snore fest my wife was definitely disappointed, nobody wears those leather pants like Mel.Definitely an originals lover.
Red Dawn.
Karate Kid
I’m an 80’s kid and that was a great decade of movies. There is absolutely no reason to redo any movies of my childhood!
Karate Kid… one of those movies you know is not that good – but you can’t resist and always have to watch when it comes on the television. Red Dawn – one of those movies you know is dreadful, should never have been made and should NEVER be watched if it comes on the television. The remakes – see comment about Red Dawn and multiply by ten… Barry Norman Inga (a reference only the UK ladies will follow……)
Thank you Celeste…
i must look that up…x
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