Best remakes

[Siddon]

Mutiny on the Bounty ain't so good looking to make up for how boring it is. And is that movie a remake of the previous one, or just a new version of Muntiny on the Bounty?

I know they've made a few different versions of The Last of the Mohicans. I've seen a number of them, but the ones I've seen didn't really seem like the Mann version was a remake of any of them.

Is Mad Love a remake of Hands of Orlac, or are they just two movies based on the same book? It seems like you're just naming stuff based on the same source material more than actually naming remakes.

Well I don't agree with that, I don't think the existence of a source material precludes later adaptions as being original works, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Then again you can't even seem to maintain that line of thinking if you consider Batman and The Thing to be remakes as they are also just stuff based on the same source material.



Where does the line begin or end? Well I know the line and begins and end with your whims but their are other interpretations.

[simbob4000]

Well I don't agree with that, I don't think the existence of a source material precludes later adaptions as being original works, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Then again you can't even seem to maintain that line of thinking if you consider Batman and The Thing to be remakes as they are also just stuff based on the same source material.



Where does the line begin or end? Well I know the line and begins and end with your whims but their are other interpretations.

I mean, if you want to say I'm saying something I've never said, then sure. I think I've made it kind of clear already that The Dark Kight takes a number of different scenes and element for the 1989 Batman movie. What I'm asking you about the movies you're calling remakes are do they do the same? Does Mad Love take a number of scenes from The Hands of Orlac, or are they merely both based on the same book? You seem to be calling the Mann version of The Last of the Mohicans a remake, but which one is it a remake of? I've seen like three versions of that story from the '60s and the '50s one, and none of them seems to have strong similarities.

[Mr.Majestic]

Peter Jackson's King Kong isn't as good as the original, but it's leagues better than the 1976 version.

Ermmm... Do you remember the sequence on the boat in PJ's KK? That was one of the most superfluous self-indulgent sequences I've ever seen in a major motion picture. It makes Avengers 2's farm sequence appear reasonable.

Let Me In is a better movie than Let The Right One In. This isn't some great feat, as Let The Right One In isn't itself good. There's this bit in Let Me In were Richard Jenkins is trapped in the back of a car, and just everything is going wrong for him, and the tension is just so god damn fucking good there...there's nothing that good in Let The Right One In. Other than that they basically share all the same weak points, although Let Me In doesn't have this annoying unintentionally funny insistence on starkness as horror like Let The Right One In does. Yes, we get it Let The Right One In, it's all oh so very stark there, but could you please trying and be horrifying, no, another stark shot of a stark apartment blocks, ok then.

I'd like to disagree there. You see Let Me In is a horror movie whereas Let The Right One In is not. It's much more of a coming of age movie with a fantastical element.

This reminds me I haven't seen Internal Affairs yet even though The Departed is one of my favorite movies. I need to get on that.

Infernal Affairs is terrific but I prefer Election 1 & 2.

[font=georgia]I guess it would be more of a reboot but I just bought me a Dredd and while it's kind of video gamey plot wise, I loved it, glad I bought it and I don't purchase many blu-ray's at all. I guess I'm part of the camp that skipped it because in part the burn of the Stallone 'film' from 20+ years ago was still there.

I relly like Stallone's Dredd. I kept thinking of it as an unofficial sequel to the far superior Demolition Man. He should've just made an official sequel to DM.

Well I don't agree with that, I don't think the existence of a source material precludes later adaptions as being original works, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Then again you can't even seem to maintain that line of thinking if you consider Batman and The Thing to be remakes as they are also just stuff based on the same source material.



Where does the line begin or end? Well I know the line and begins and end with your whims but their are other interpretations.

Nice rebuttal Siddon.

[simbob4000]

That's before you even factor in what Kurt Russell has said.

Yeah, it's kind of funny how he talks about ignoring the first movie and dated '50s movie tropes when he starts his movie with the exact same "Thing" font from the original and a '50s looking UFO. His movie very much starts by recalling the original movie and '50s sci-fi movies in general.

[simbob4000]

I'd like to disagree there. You see Let Me In is a horror movie whereas Let The Right One In is not. It's much more of a coming of age movie with a fantastical element.

They're both horror movies. Neither is really good, or interesting, it's just Let Me In at least has a moment that works, where Let The Right One In doesn't even have that. The ideas in play in the story are very much horror things, the idea that the kid we're following will likely become just like the pathetic older man killing for this perpetually young vampire he's in love with, that's a horror idea, it's just never expanded upon in any interesting way. The atmosphere of Let The Right One In is very much meant to cultivate an atmosphere of horror, but I just found it tedious, boring, and after a while unintentionally humorous at how hard it was trying. In the end Let The Right One In just felt like the stately studious verson of Twilight, and made me wonder why the vampire movie movie sites wouldn't shut up about at that time wasn't Thirst. Maybe I'm being to hard since there are a few very short moments that are nice, or at least look nice, (it's not a bad looking movie, and it's a very well acted movie) although nothing as good as that scene of Richard Jenkins having everything go wrong for him in that car.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I love Let the Right One In. I think it's very effective as horror, because although the character looks like a little girl, she is really a metaphor for a child predator who is grooming the little boy to be a victim and then a predator himself, just as her previous servant was.

I think that Batman and Dark Knight Returns are mostly similar because they're both about Batman and the Joker and draw on obvious themes and elements from the source material.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Yeah, it's kind of funny how he talks about ignoring the first movie and dated '50s movie tropes when he starts his movie with the exact same "Thing" font from the original and a '50s looking UFO. His movie very much starts by recalling the original movie and '50s sci-fi movies in general.

Isn't that more of a cute reference than something that makes it a remake, though?

Oh, here's a good one. Tobe Hooper's Invaders From Mars. Very weird, very much worth checking out.

[Panic]

Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is better than Hong Kong set thriller City on Fire (1987)

[numberthirty]

Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is better than Hong Kong set thriller City on Fire (1987)

Perfect example.

While you are saying "remake", the director does not believe that to be the case. If anything, he has said that The Thing is where the real lifts are from.

[Cyke]

Well I don't agree with that, I don't think the existence of a source material precludes later adaptions as being original works, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Lately I'd been thinking about the relation between TV/Film and theater; like, I try to imagine what it would be like to be one of, say, the crew watching filming straight up, and the stage quality of it. Everything is a fake of course, but you can still get immersed, just in a different light. Sitcoms like Fraiser tend to seem have a great stage quality to them.

I bring that up because whenever someone produces a play or musical for the stage, they're never thought of as 'remakes' or 'reboots,' but versions in their own right. It's not the 200th remake of Hamlet or Death of a Salesman, for example, those are their own productions, using the source material and then adding in whatever touches they want. Clearly it's different, but coming form the same place.

In a nerdy kind of way, it's how I've been approaching, say, comic book movies like the various Spider-Man or Batman movies. To me they're not remakes or reboots, but a different staging. Yeah, there'll be inherent differences (i.e. What if Hamlet was contemporary? Or what if all the roles were genderbent? etc. etc.), and half the time for the stage, that's usually enough justification to begin the production. The other half are largely faithful tellings, but depending on who you ask, may or may not be a remake.

This is just me thinking outloud.

Ermmm... Do you remember the sequence on the boat in PJ's KK? That was one of the most superfluous self-indulgent sequences I've ever seen in a major motion picture. It makes Avengers 2's farm sequence appear reasonable.

Sure, but I'd still take it over Kong '76.

[simbob4000]

I love Let the Right One In. I think it's very effective as horror, because although the character looks like a little girl, she is really a metaphor for a child predator who is grooming the little boy to be a victim and then a predator himself, just as her previous servant was.

I think that Batman and Dark Knight Returns are mostly similar because they're both about Batman and the Joker and draw on obvious themes and elements from the source material.

That metaphor is nowhere in the actual movie, it's something you need to be informed about through the book. When they show she has no genitalia in the movie, I just assumed that was them playing on another vampire thing, like when the movie shows you why a vampire must be invited in. That they cast a girl in the roll only further get in the way of what that shoot was seemingly trying to convey.

The Dark Knight is clearly playing with things right out of the '89 Batman movie. The Joker standing in the street shooting at Batman while Batman charges him in a vehicle is from the Burton movie, the Joker crashing a meeting of mobsters and just killing one in some outlandish way is right out of the Burton movie. When you've got two of the bigger Joker moments in the movie taken from Burton Batman, and then other things also work out as (less obvious) things that could also be said to be reworked versions of stuff from Burton Batman, it seems to bit weird to say it's probably not a remake. What makes more sense, that they reworked Batman '89, while added a couple things from two Batman comics and fleshed out the themes in a better way; or that they just happened to draw on all the exact same Batman/Joker comics as the '89 movie. They even used stuff from a comic written by one of the '89 screenwriters in Batman Begins, they clearly seemed to like Sam Hamm's Batman stuff

[Shawn Hopkins]

That metaphor is nowhere in the actual movie, it's something you need to be informed about through the book. When they show she has no genitalia in the movie, I just assumed that was them playing on another vampire thing, like when the movie shows you why a vampire must be invited in. That they cast a girl in the roll only further get in the way of what that shoot was seemingly trying to convey.

The Dark Knight is clearly playing with things right out of the '89 Batman movie. The Joker standing in the street shooting at Batman while Batman charges him in a vehicle is from the Burton movie, the Joker crashing a meeting of mobsters and just killing one in some outlandish way is right out of the Burton movie. When you've got two of the bigger Joker moments in the movie taken from Burton Batman, and then other things also work out as (less obvious) things that could also be said to be reworked versions of stuff from Burton Batman, it seems to bit weird to say it's probably not a remake. What makes more sense, that they reworked Batman '89, while added a couple things from two Batman comics and fleshed out the themes in a better way; or that they just happened to draw on all the exact same Batman/Joker comics as the '89 movie. They even used stuff from a comic written by one of the '89 screenwriters in Batman Begins, they clearly seemed to like Sam Hamm's Batman stuff

I picked up on it and I haven't read the book. I didn't know there was a book.

[simbob4000]

I picked up on it and I haven't read the book. I didn't know there was a book.

You picked up on the character being portrayed as a girl who's played by a girl actually being a boy that was violently attacked and castrated, even though the movie never actually tells you that? You say a girl playing a girl, and when the movie showed you this supernatural vampire girl had no genitalia the thing your mind jumped to was that she (the character played by a girl) was actually a boy that had his dick ripped off by a vampire?

Never mind, looking at your post again I see you're not also talking about Eli's past history. What bit you're talking about is there, it even something I brought up. But the movie doesn't really do anything with it.

[Shawn Hopkins]

You picked up on the character being portrayed as a girl who's played by a girl actually being a boy that was violently attacked and castrated, even though the movie never actually tells you that? You say a girl playing a girl, and when the movie showed you this supernatural vampire girl had no genitalia the thing your mind jumped to was that she (the character played by a girl) was actually a boy that had his dick ripped off by a vampire?

Never mind, looking at your post again I see you're not also talking about Eli's past history. What bit you're talking about is there, it even something I brought up. But the movie doesn't really do anything with it.

Eli says "I'm not a girl" and you see the scar. Of course there's no backstory about a vampire aristocrat, but it's clear he's a boy whose genitals have been mutilated.

[numberthirty]

From the "Remake...?" files...

Does Miller's Crossing fall into "Remake" territory?