Kevin's Watch

With the soon to be [or already done] release of the re-made Danny Kaye classic The secret Life of Walter Mitty starring Ben Stiller, I confess, on hearing that it was to be done I thought 'why would anybody do that'. On reflection however I find myself a little less opposed to the idea: Stiller is a fine comic actor [in the right film] and the story of the imaginatively liberated Mitty is one where it can be imagined that the stunning effects that modern filming tecniques have brought us could be put to good use. I will keep an open mind and go and see this film.

Talking the other day with a workmate about the issue of Hollywoods re-making of old classics, I came up with the film I thought most 'up' for being re-made in the light of modern filming advances - this was The Incredible Shrinking Man. Anybody else got any ideas of films they would like to see being given the modern treatment - or indeed any comment on the whole area of re-makes at all?

Most remakes are terrible. Off the top of my head, the only good remake ever made was John Carpenter's The Thing (and by "good" I mean "excellent").

Given that awful ratio, I'd rather not see any more remakes.

Just spun down wikipedia's list of remakes and yes, it makes for pretty dismal reading. One possible addition to The Thing might be Scorsese's Cape Fear remake, but it's true, beyond that I struggled to come up with much of note. Some films stretch the idea a bit by doing 'prequels' [as has been done again with The Thing in the last year or two. Some franchises do stand a bit of reworking however - I was ok with the last Planet of the Apes outing and am somewhat looking forward to the follow up next year.

I actually have seen a few good remakes that were an improvement from the original.

The Bird Cage
Man on Fire
Scent of a Woman
Scarface
Hairspray

I heard they're remaking 12 monkeys which I think is good the way it is.

Starship Troupers and Dune should definitely be remade.

Now Dune I go along with but Starship Troopers? The original was fantastic fun [for me at least] in the cinema and I don't see it being bettered any time soon. Dune I enjoyed as well, but yes, can see that advances in film-making technology could really bring this movie up to speed. Like Hashi I do not want to keep seeing rehashes of old stuff at the expense of new inovation - but do think that there is a place for remakes in some instances where the technological advances can make a real impact. And Lorin has indeed come up with some remakes there that I could not argue with - especially Man on Fire,

The only one on Lorin's list I can kind of agree with is Man on Fire, but it's still not a great movie.

Starship Troopers was brilliant and shouldn't be touched, people just need to accept that Dune is unfilmable.

Cail wrote:The only one on Lorin's list I can kind of agree with is Man on Fire, but it's still not a great movie.

Dakota Fanning gets on my every nerve.

You didn't like Birdcage?

lorin wrote:

Cail wrote:The only one on Lorin's list I can kind of agree with is Man on Fire, but it's still not a great movie.

Dakota Fanning gets on my every nerve.

You didn't like Birdcage?

I did, but no way it's better than La Cage aux Folles.

Cail wrote:

lorin wrote:

Cail wrote:The only one on Lorin's list I can kind of agree with is Man on Fire, but it's still not a great movie.

Dakota Fanning gets on my every nerve.

You didn't like Birdcage?

I did, but no way it's better than La Cage aux Folles.

True, La Cage was very good. Guess I'm just a sucker for Nathan Lane ever since I saw him in Guys and Dolls.

I liked the Secret Life of Walter Mitty... but I haven't seen the "original", though...

It'd be nice to see Starship Troopers as it originally was intended: a pro-military story.

Although I prefer the original 1956 version the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was quite good. All other remakes of the story are crap.
The same goes for The Thing From Another World. John Carpenter's The Thing was incredible.
The remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still is atomic crap.
Any ideas about remaking Forbidden Planet should be outlawed with severe and cruel penalties.
Although I understood and enjoyed Starship Troopers I was a bit disappointed that the film took a different take than the book and would like to see the original story developed into a new film however I'm pretty sick of remakes in general.

aTOMiC wrote:Although I prefer the original 1956 version the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was quite good.

Depending on what day I'm asked, I could prefer either of those films over the other. The '78 version is spectacular, and has a truly amazing ending.

I'll also toss Heston's Omega Man ahead of Price's The Last Man on Earth.

But where technical advances in film making mean a given story can be much better realised than in the original version [The Incredible Shrinking Man being a case in point] surely they are justified?

Also - there must be badly made films out there that deserve to be remade in the hands of a more competant director. The first attempt at TLOTR was a mess - it needed to be redone and have someone like Jackson step up to the plate. The to date badness of the majority of remakes does not preclude the possibility of good ones being done in the future - or indeed remove the need for some to be done on the grounds above.

You don't need technology to tell a compelling story. In most cases, superior technology makes for less competent storytelling.

I hear you Cail but to eschew it altogether on such grounds would be folly.

peter wrote:I hear you Cail but to eschew it altogether on such grounds would be folly.

Not on those grounds, but on the fact that after decades of remakes (and a veritable slew of them the last 4 or 5 years), we can only come up with a handful of good ones, and one or two that exceed the original.

Cail wrote:

peter wrote:I hear you Cail but to eschew it altogether on such grounds would be folly.

Not on those grounds, but on the fact that after decades of remakes (and a veritable slew of them the last 4 or 5 years), we can only come up with a handful of good ones, and one or two that exceed the original.

Most people seem to be lazy. Studios want to make the most money out of the least cost...result? Mr. Peabody comes out next year.

Orlion wrote:

Cail wrote:

peter wrote:I hear you Cail but to eschew it altogether on such grounds would be folly.

Not on those grounds, but on the fact that after decades of remakes (and a veritable slew of them the last 4 or 5 years), we can only come up with a handful of good ones, and one or two that exceed the original.

Most people seem to be lazy. Studios want to make the most money out of the least cost...result? Mr. Peabody comes out next year.

Dear God.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see some decent remakes.

I'd love book-faithful adaptations of The Shining and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but any further films would be compared to the prior ones (which I thought were.....not so good). I'd love to see a good remake of Westworld and Capricorn One....Not because the originals were bad, but because both worked so well allegorically and would do well transplanted in the modern era (as IotBS did so well in the '70s).

The problem is that there are so few good movies made anymore. Everything has become formulaic, and panders to the lowest-common denominator. For all the ribbing the 1970s took, that decade produced the greatest movies ever made...If for no other reason than the endings weren't so damn predictable. Rocky lost. Vito Corleone died. Billy got shot in the face and Wyatt got run over. Kowalski killed himself.

That stuff just doesn't happen in movies any more because no one wants to see it.