When are the remakes better?

[blkrider]

I don't think it's just the subtitles with a lot of these foreign films though--in many cases the Asian films just ask a lot from a Western audience, and I think a lot is lost in translation--I'm sure there are cultural undertones to a lot of these films that are probably lost on Western audiences.   The Japanese films in particular just have a different approach to storytelling and to pacing--they're just too different to ever be a huge success in the US.   I freely admit it, I prefer the RING remake to the original, and I saw the original years before anyone was even talking about remaking it.

[DaveMunger]

I was thinking more of European stuff. Come to think of it, what really bugs me is when they remake British sitcoms. Some of them are only funny in the first place because of the way they talk. Arse, hahaha!

[Fearless Freep]

I've commented on it before but one reason I think Americans frind British humour funny in the first place is simply the juxtaposition between expectation and result.  I mean, to an American, Brits have a certain stereotypical persona and a lot of the humour violates that persona.  I mean, John Cleese as Basil Fawlty running around in hysterics and beating the crap out of Manuel and shoving him in a burning kitchen just really does not fit what we Americans think of as British behavior, reserved and conservative.  So, to us, it's really funny not just that t's being done, but that a Brit is doing it

[Writer]

I don't know as how American appreciation of British humor is all about unexpected behavior. In some cases, the humor comes from the British being themselves to the hilt. For example, I remember one scene from a Fish Called Wanda in which a lawyer takes back all the mean things he said about the guy who's holding him at gunpoint in very scholarly lawyer jargon. The apology was funny not only for the way he said it, but for how he was able to keep this manner of speech up for several minutes.

Another example I recall is from one of the Muppets movies when Kermit and Miss Piggy turn up in the closet of some British guy's house. When he notices them there, he asks them very politely whether he can help them with anything. Kermit decides to play along and make as graceful an exit as he can, so he asks the man whether he can recommend a good restaurant. The British man politely recommends a place, and the Muppets depart.

The joke in both cases is about how the British are supposedly capable of maintaining polite composure and decorum in some of the strangest situations where most Americans would react quite differently. (As Stephen King once remarked, "The Brits could make an ad for ribbed condoms sound dignified.") In fact, this fabled politeness has begun to fade in Britain according to some news articles I've seen, but still, it's funny stuff.

One joke the British probably didn't get from one of their own films that American audiences did, on the other hand, was from "Love, Actually," which had a fellow heading out to the States, convinced that his British accent will make him very charming to the women here. At one point, he mentions that he's going to "that magical place they call... Wisconsin!" That line really cracked my whole family up.

The way I see it, British films don't really need remakes for an American audience, since they're already in a language we understand, and though the culture's different, it's not that hard for us to comprehend each other. In return for British humor, we give them things like "An American Werewolf In London" which had, among other things, an American being very funny by being himself in Britain.

[Fearless Freep]

Well, Iironically, I think both sides come home in the same place.  The reason that American remakes of British humour don't really work is because it is the Britishness of it that we like; either because it *is* so stereotypical, or because it's so against stereotype

[Writer]

Yes, that's probably what it is.