The day the earth stood still

[TNGTony]

"The Thing from Another World" had NOTHING for special effects. It was all story! The story carried the entire movie. The remake (The Thing) tried to replace the acting ability and suspense mechanisms with special effects. Though it was not awful, the remake fell flat in comparison.

I can't agree to disagree. On this. Let me take another tactic: Please name for ANY remake of ANY movie or TV show that was better BECAUSE of the special effects.

BSG? Was it the special effects that made it better to some or was it the story line? They are NOT intertwined! The original BSG was a POS IMHO due to poor acting and writing. Personally I despised the new BSG due to the untra-dark (mood, not lighting), depressing, oppressive tone. Watching the new series made me want to shoot myself in the head! But I can see how people liked the show due to the story line, NOT the effects.

I personally cannot name a remake of a classic movie that is actually BETTER because its newer. Can you?

See ya
Tony

 

[jayn_j]

I personally cannot name a remake of a classic movie that is actually BETTER because its newer. Can you?

I agree in general, but can't resist a challange.

How about the 1959 vs 1927 version of Ben Hur? Not only were the special effects more convincing (not to mention technicolor and cinemascope), but they had learned how to make a story flow and especially how to end it smoothly. Films from the '20s end very abruptly at the point of resolution.

 

[TNGTony]

Okay. I should have qualified that, but okay. This movie was remade by the same person who made the original BTW. That rarely happens. The line "I've killed more people than Cecil B. DeMill" comes to mind here.

So how about any talkies?

See ya
Tony

 

[snathanb]

I personally cannot name a remake of a classic movie that is actually BETTER because its newer. Can you?

I thought "I am Legend" was better than "The Omega Man".
I also thought the modern version of "The Fly" was better than the original, as it was much more believable.

 

[jayn_j]

Okay. I should have qualified that, but okay. This movie was remade by the same person who made the original BTW. That rarely happens. The line "I've killed more people than Cecil B. DeMill" comes to mind here.

So how about any talkies?

See ya
Tony

OK, mayby The Front Page (1931 version) vs His Girl Friday. Same plot and virtually the same script, but Cary Grant/Roz Russel were a better pairing than the original.

On the record, I am NOT defending the horrible 1974 remake, nor the worse '80s version called Switching Channels.

 

[mdonnelly]

Even with Mel Brooks directing both, 1968 "The Producers" was much better than the remake.

 

[snathanb]

Even with Mel Brooks directing both, 1968 "The Producers" was much better than the remake.

:up +1

 

[Van]

The fly, Dracula, Frankenstien, BSG, King Kong, Batman Begins,

You like the originals and thats fine, most would have come from your youth I suspect wich tends to fall into the same ideal that you listen to the same music all your life that you grew up with.

Lets do it this way, you like what you like and I like what I like, you dont like change while I do, point is your set in your ways and I in mine and we wont see eye to eye on this in any way shape or form.

 

[TNGTony]

The Fly? With Jeff Goldblum? Really? Better? I guess it's your opinion. It was well made, but it just lacked any feeling.

Each version of "Dracula" I see is worse than the last. This is not to say there aren't good modern vampire movies. From Dusk til Dawn, Van Helsing and others ROCK. But all the "retellings" of Deacula pail EVEN to "Nosferatu" (1922)

I already discussed BSG in a previous post

King Kong...you mean the 1977 "updated", modern, relevant, piece of crap; or the more recent "period" remake? The newest remake of King Kong was a decent movie, but it still pales in comparison to the original in storytelling. Jack Black was horrendous!

Both Omega Man and "I am Legend" were horrendously bad movies! We can remake "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" and it HAS to be better than the original. But the entire point of this exercise is to recognize that some movies were made well before and really should be left in their own time. The new King Kong wasn't a disaster because they left the story in the same era as the original. That is the only way some of these stories can hold up!

I do listen to new music. And I am not any different that you young whipper-snappers will be. It's not nostalgia. It's just the story was already told. It was told well. If a movie is considered an Icon, leave it alone! Don't try to cash in on a name that you know will draw people to you. That is cheating!

The other problem is if you are going to remake a movie, STICK TO THE STORY. If you are going to rewrite the story to make it more current to the times and lose everything that made the original the hit that it was, call the movie something else!

I guess I am most angry about the lack of creativity for NEW stories. Come up with a freaking original idea once in a while rather than rooting through classics and trying to retell them!

See ya
Tony

 

[Bobby]

I am so glad that someone out there appreciates how great a film Nosferatu was. Of course this first film telling of the Dracula story was a silent film. The Bela Lugosi version (1931) was the first telling with spoken word. It was a reworking of a stageplay that Bela also starred in and it was done very well, IMHO. I agree with you on all the rest, mindless drivel.

The 1998 retelling of Psycho was a lesson in futility. Gus Van Sant shot it in exactly the same scene by scene that Hitchcock did before him. The only difference between the two films was that the newer one was in color and it had different actors. There is/was no reason to remake this classic in that vain. The first one was supurb and the second doesn't hold a candle to it.

The Fly? With Jeff Goldblum? Really? Better? I guess it's your opinion. It was well made, but it just lacked any feeling.

Each version of "Dracula" I see is worse than the last. This is not to say there aren't good modern vampire movies. From Dusk til Dawn, Van Helsing and others ROCK. But all the "retellings" of Deacula pail EVEN to "Nosferatu" (1922)

I already discussed BSG in a previous post

King Kong...you mean the 1977 "updated", modern, relevant, piece of crap; or the more recent "period" remake? The newest remake of King Kong was a decent movie, but it still pales in comparison to the original in storytelling. Jack Black was horrendous!

Both Omega Man and "I am Legend" were horrendously bad movies! We can remake "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" and it HAS to be better than the original. But the entire point of this exercise is to recognize that some movies were made well before and really should be left in their own time. The new King Kong wasn't a disaster because they left the story in the same era as the original. That is the only way some of these stories can hold up!

I do listen to new music. And I am not any different that you young whipper-snappers will be. It's not nostalgia. It's just the story was already told. It was told well. If a movie is considered an Icon, leave it alone! Don't try to cash in on a name that you know will draw people to you. That is cheating!

The other problem is if you are going to remake a movie, STICK TO THE STORY. If you are going to rewrite the story to make it more current to the times and lose everything that made the original the hit that it was, call the movie something else!

I guess I am most angry about the lack of creativity for NEW stories. Come up with a freaking original idea once in a while rather than rooting through classics and trying to retell them!

See ya
Tony

 

[snathanb]

Both Omega Man and "I am Legend" were horrendously bad movies!

And obviously, this is your opinion, clearly not held by everyone.

For example, "I am Legend" was nominated for 16 awards, and won 6.

It also had a domestic gross of $256 million and a worldwide gross of $584 million dollars. Obviously, high box office totals do not equal a great movie, but by the same token, "horrendously bad movies" don't take in over half a billion dollars in ticket sales.

 

[Sammy033]

A remake that I think is just as good... better in some respects but not in others.... is A Fistful of Dollars. I love both that one and Yojimbo. Perhaps not a remake in the traditional sense. But the same story.

Oceans Eleven, The Thing, Dawn of the Dead, Casino Royale, and BSG (TV show but the pilot qualifies I suppose).

All personal preference of course and my criteria does not include special effects in any way.

 

[navychop]

The last version of "Casino Royale" was good. It really was almost a different story entirely, though.

 

[Van]

It's a naturual process to retell stories over the years and the stories change as theyr retold sometimes minimaly and sometimes greatly, just look a the bible and how many times its been translated over the centuries and with each translation it's been changed and books have been removed from it.

 

[navychop]

Careful. "Some" will come after you for introducing facts, -er, doubt.

 

[TNGTony]

The "original" Casino Royale and the new one only share the name. Nothing else is the same. The story was completely different. The original one was a spoof of the James Bond genre. The current one was a movie of the original James Bond book. It was not a remake.

See ya
Tony

 

[Van]

And your point is?

A story experienced first hand is original, retold its a copy and on down the line it changes over time wether a little or alot it depends on the memory or the teller and of the listener. A story may be drab to one that hears it and he later embellishes on it taking something that was as enjoyable as economics 101 and turning it into the parting of the red sea. For all we know the parting of the Red Sea could have actually been nothing more than the crossing of the Red Sea by a handful of people on rickety rafts made of reeds but as the stories have been retold and translated and rewritten over the centuries its changed.

I'll finish my activity in this thread with this.

I was for a very long time in my life from the age of 9 till 27 a heavy reader, I read a great deal and had my eyes in a book more than I did anywhere else including tv. I've always loved reading because of the story, it didnt matter to me if I read something that was similiar to another story I still read it because it differed and was not the same. I've always loved movies and spent part of my late teens working at several movie houses and to this day can resite the comedy track to Good Morning Vietnam, every single audience participation song and line to Rocky Horror Picture Show, and most of the dialogue to Heavy Metal. I've seen all the blobs, all of the various dracula flicks including the very original of silent film days, and Ive seen many others and even though there have been one remake I didnt like it wasnt because it was a remake it was because of the director cowtowing to a time frame and cutting the latter quater of the film short.

One last thing, enterpritation.

 

[TNGTony]

The interpretation of the composer of a symphony is usually the best. This is not to say no one else can play that symphony, but any conductor that thinks their interpretation captures the music better than the composer is either egoistic or stupid! Same holds true for movies. There is a rare exception.

BTW, I'm surprised no one used the horrid "Lord of the Rings" 1980 vs latest the Peter Jackson trilogy vision. I had a whole paragraph on how Jackson didn't remake anything!

See ya
Tony

 

[Van]

Are you talking about the animated version of LOTR? It has its place but I agrea it wasnt the best animated show.

I've tried a couple times to read it as it was written but its one of those aquired tastes I guess much like Walt Witmon or Charles Baudelaire' both of whom I have read and enjoyed but has left others shaking their heads.

 

[Derwin0]

1980 would have been the Rankin-Bass "Return of the King". Horrendous piece of crap.

The 1978 animated "Lord of the Rings" was actually fairly good. It followed the first two books rather closely.