Remakes: The Line Must Be Drawn Here!

[LadyStarblade]

(with apologies to Patrick Stewart)

I think I just had a waking nightmare...an entertainment headline on Yahoo!News this morning read "Return of an 80s cartoon" yadda yadda...but it was the picture by the headline that made my blood run cold, so I had to click...

And yeah, they want to remake one of my favorite movies from childhood, "The Secret of Nimh."

You know sometimes, a movie/fandom/whathaveyou can benefit from an update/sequel/remake...but this is not one of them. Leave my childhood alone, you %$(*)#$!

Any other proposed remakes of your faves out there that make you want to cry? What should be remade? What should never be touched?

Opinions? Thoughts? Bueller?

[StarOpal]

Well they already did Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Karate Kid and The Birds are coming down the pipe. And, gee, how many other titles can I think of....

I have two thoughts:

1) Why go and remake a good, or at least beloved, movie? I mean The Maltese Falcon that we remember today (as in the Humphrey Bogart one) was the third go at Dashiell Hammett's story. One of the previous two is boring and the other is just terrible. In my opinion the only remakes should be of movies that had good ideas, but couldn't pull them off for whatever reason, or adaptations that were awful the first go around.

2) Call it a remake. "Reboot," "reimagining," etc., you're not fooling anyone. Indeed it's more of an admission of guilt, because if you didn't think what you were doing is a stoopid idea, you'd own up to it proper.

[BlackCatWhiteCat]

I hear there's supposed to be a remake coming of Flight of the Navigator.

Now, granted, that is not a masterful movie in any sense of the word, but it was fun, imaginative, charming, and it worked. I don't see any reason to remake it. I see it as just another way for someone to show off a big special effects budget.

[PoolMan]

Jul 29, 2009 7:57:17 GMT -5 StarOpal said:

1) Why go and remake a good, or at least beloved, movie?

You're kidding, right? I mean, by going with a beloved movie, you're practically guaranteeing a built in audience. People who loved the original and want more, or people who loved the original and are curious about what the filmmaker is going to do to it. You'll probably still pull in a sizeable chunk of the outraged crowd, too. It's like printing money.

I think the real point is the "artistic why" (which is actually what I think you were getting at, Opal). If you remake something relatively unknown, your best case scenario is that you could end up with a hit that came with very little expectation.

But if you remake something everybody loves, the best you can possibly do is come close to equalling the original appeal (and almost never will you exceed the original). If it's beloved in the first place, you probably aren't going to do much to it that's better than what made it cool in the first place.

Did any of that make sense?

[StarOpal]

Jul 30, 2009 16:45:44 GMT -5 PoolMan said:

I think the real point is the "artistic why" (which is actually what I think you were getting at, Opal).

Yes, that's what I was going for exactly. It was more "Whyyyyyy?! Whhhh-ha-eye?!" why.

I understand the monetary angle. A built in audience is the same reason they buy rights to the title of a book and then completely through away the story (Don't even get me started).

A piece of my soul dies with every unnecessary remake. Add to that my other soul killing pet peeve, the movie with a good idea that doesn't reach its full potential, that -heaven forbid!- you know will never get remade right. AND when you consider I've been watching movies since, blinking, I stepped into the sun... Well that's an awful lot of dead soul.

Maybe I should store the rest in hidden places, including a little bespectacled English boy?

[aargmematey]

Jul 29, 2009 14:00:36 GMT -5 BlackCatWhiteCat said:

I hear there's supposed to be a remake coming of Flight of the Navigator.

See, here's my thoughts about this one. I'd actually prefer that they remake movies that simply "worked," rather than ones that people went crazy about, because at least then you can understand how there's room for improvement. I would actually be really interested in seeing a Flight of the Navigator remake.

But when it comes to something classic like The Karate Kid, or The Birds? I think that's just kind of ridiculous (come on! How can you beat Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi? You can't! You really, really can't!).