Remakes

[Andrew]

The sequels thread made me get to thinking about films that are classics being remade.  All in all, I'd much rather the studios just leave them as they are.  Points of fact:

Rollerball.
I really like this film.  It seems to be looking for a plot most of the time, but what it does have is effective.  Caan's character and the violent world he trapped himself in had me mesmerized.  An old warrior, the best at his craft, and for some reason unable to stop playing the game.  A game he must know will someday kill him, just not today.

Planet of the Apes
The remake is probably going to have great atmosphere and look awesome.  It's also probably going to miss the very points that made the original so memorable.  The orangutan judges covering their ears, eyes, and mouth for instance.  Plus it will not have Roddy McDowall and he was Cornelius/Caesar to me.

Forbidden Planet
Please, oh please, do not remake this film.  It's amazing to see Leslie Nielsen as a stern spaceship commander - and it works!  Plus, Anne Francis was the perfect balance of naive sexuality while Walter Pidgeon excelled at looking down his nose at "lesser" people.  Who could forget the ID monster either?  The special effects are so primitive compared to CGI, but they were exactly right for this film and still are today.  

Andrew

[peter johnson]

I, too, love these originals.  The Apes remake, to be fair, doesn't look horrible, & I trust Tim Burton's bizarre sensibilities.
As someone who has never gotten Ayn Rand, except in a negative way, I still have to point out that the plot of Rollerball was at all times subjugated to its philosophical point of view:  The Individual is always paramount to the Group.  The reason the Corporation keeps upping the ante, ie., making more and more fatal behaviour in the Rollerball Game legal, is solely for the purpose of killing off Caan, because he is an Individual Star, which cannot be tolerated by the Corporation which values The Hive Menatality/groupthink.  How's that for a run-on sentence?
A remake of Forbidden Planet could only be horrible/bad/awful.  Why not just call it "The Tempest", and set it in outer space with Shakespeare's original script?

[Squishy]

I eagerly await the TV-movie remake of "Citizen Kane" starring Lee Majors.

[Steve.]

Remakes are a disgrace - witness "The Mummy" - It's nothing more than a peg to to hang SFX on. Also Baldwin's remake of Peckinpah's "The Getaway" - heresy! Damn Baldwin to the pits of hades.

[Flangepart]

I'm with Andrew...if its a classic, you don't need to touch it! Remakes are for films that fell short of  their potential. A second chance coulden't hurt. No, let well enough alone. Give us ORIGINAL Ideas...or give us second chances at incompleat stories.

[Chris K.]

I disagree as well. To be fair, I feel that the PLANET OF THE APES remake will be okay since Tim Burton is responsible for it. But I feel it will only be a one star on my rating list (and that is good because if I gave it a zero, that would mean the film would suck big time). Ramaking an original film is like rewriting an original novel. It has the same story and situation, but the new one does not carry the same impact as the original did.

We all know remakes of PSYCHO, THE HAUNTING, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, etc. will not have the originality and style as the first ones did. Take the remake of THE HAUNTING for instance. It was prased as the best film that Robert Wise has made and uses good acting, superb camerawork, lovely art direction, and very haunting atmosphere to make it a good film and not rely on special effects. But the 1999 remake has no acting, no good camerawork, and terrible special effects that makes the film laughable rather than scary or horrifying.

But think of how an American director could try to remake the works of Lucio Fulci. No director of the likes of Speilberg, Burton, Bay, etc. can rework a Lucio Fulci film at all.

[Chris K.]

I disagree as well. To be fair, I feel that the PLANET OF THE APES remake will be okay since Tim Burton is responsible for it. But I feel it will only be a one star on my rating list (and that is good because if I gave it a zero, that would mean the film would suck big time). Remaking an original film is like rewriting an original novel. It has the same story and situation, but the new one does not carry the same impact as the original did.

We all know remakes of PSYCHO, THE HAUNTING, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, etc. will not have the originality and style as the first ones did. Take the remake of THE HAUNTING for instance. It was prased as the best film that Robert Wise has made and uses good acting, superb camerawork, lovely art direction, and very haunting atmosphere to make it a good film and not rely on special effects. But the 1999 remake has no acting, no good camerawork, and terrible special effects that makes the film laughable rather than scary or horrifying.

But think of how an American director could try to remake the works of Lucio Fulci. No director of the likes of Speilberg, Burton, Bay, etc. can rework a Lucio Fulci film at all.

[mr Raffles]

I realize almost no one but myself who will read this has seen it, but I really think someone could get rich remaking the Shaw Bros "Black Magic" to me it's the definative 70's movie.  Like leave it to Beaver sort of defines the 50's.