Film remakes: threat or menace?

[madbaker]

So, I read on Sluggy the other day that the Sci-Fi channel is doing a remake of Battlestar Galactica.

After the shudder fit stopped, I formed a postulate:

Remakes are a bad thing.

No, seriously. I can only think of a couple that have not been a waste of celluloid and money: The Maltese Falcon with Bogart, and The House of Wax with Vincent Price (which was a remake of the 1933 film Mystery of the Wax Museum).

Comments welcome. Since it's my postulate, I'm setting the ground rules to allow valid comparisons:

1. The remake must be substantially the same as the original.

Kevin Costner's Prince of Feebs doesn't count because they made huge changes. (Costner made Robin a crusader, among many others.)

2. The remake must be done in the same language.

A U.S. film that is a reworking of a French film doesn't qualify. (Although, again, I have yet to see one that even lives up to the original. Sommersby, a remake of The Return of Martin Guerre, violates both these rules as it went from French to English, and changed the setting from the Middle Ages to the Civil War.)

3. The remake must be a film of a film.

Remakes of TV series don't count. (Although they don't invalidate the theory - I mean, Scooby Doo, Charlie's Angels, and The Brady Bunch aren't exactly masterworks.)

I'm aware that if you include TV movies, the record is slightly better -- Patrick Stewart's remakes of Moby Dick and A Christmas Carol are pretty good. So I'm sticking with my original rules.

Comments

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

Oh, other than that.... Origninals are generally better than the copies. I thought that was one of those general rules everyone knows about.

Martin Guerre was *SO* much better than that Jodie Foster thing. (Most films with G. Depardieu are decent. Exeption: My Father the Hero which sucked)

I wonder.... how does Carrotblanca (with Bugs Bunny) rate in your mind?

Violating rule #2 (same language requirement)... How do you compare The Magnificent Seven with The Seven Samaurai(aka Shichinin no samurai)?

[seamoose.livejournal.com]

If you are going to mention the Mag Seven/Seven Samurai, you also need to look at the Eastwood spaghetti Westerns. Most of them are reworks of other Japanese movies, Yojimbo/The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for example.

Indeed...

[farmount.livejournal.com]

I thought Yojimbo correlated with Fist Full of Dollars. Perhaps my memory is faulty.

*many happy memories of back-to-back comparisons of samurai movies and spaghetti westerns with my stepdad*

Anyone seen "Ringu", "The Ring" and "Fear dot com"? I've heard that the first is in Japanese, the second in German and the last in English. Apparently the premise is the same for each.

Re: Indeed...

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

Hey, anyone remember the movie where the hero falls in love with a girl, and then loses her, only to find her again?

There's a secondary story where he has to go on a journey to find something of value (I don't remember if it is wisdom or something magical, or what...), and undergoes some sort of personal trial with obsticles to overcome.

If I remember correctly, he gets some sort of guidance from an older mentor who trains him, and that mentor steps aside to let him have his own day in the sun, coming into his own.

I forget -- was that a US, Japanese, or Russian film. It might even have been Italian or French.

And is it available on DVD, yet?

Anyone? Anyone? Beuler?

Re: Indeed...

[seamoose.livejournal.com]

Caught out in a mistake. Okay, I specified GB&U as the remake of Yojimbo, I should have said that the whole trilogy is a copy of the Yojimbo (plural) movies. Nightshade is correct in that Fistfull of Dollars is the direct remake.

As to Rungu, etc., I have been told that the German one is the best of them.