worst kind of remakes........

[ghouck]

My main problem is that if whites did a movie on Martin Luther King you would hear the black community practically asking for a hanging over "racism" for having a white guy play a black person

You say this, and claim you aren't prejudice? That is EXACTLY what you are doing, , you are PRE-JUDGING the black community for what they have not done yet. . .Prejudice = To Pre-Judge. . .

As for The Nutty Professor, , , If you consider that to be marketed to Black people only, , then you have a very strange sense of reality. I live in a small town of ~3400 or so people, with less than a dozen African Americans in it, and The Nutty Professor was one of the harder movies to get ahold of at the local vid store, , they were always already rented out. . . .

The fact is the the basic stories of movies these days are all re-makes or slight variations or existing movies.

The point is that many black actors are popular, , hard to put them in a roll OTHER than playing a black person. Will Smith was in Wild Wild West, , was that really a re-make? If so, how many people knew this? How many people cared? Did his being black ruin the movie? I don't think so, I thought the dialog between him and the spider-leg guy was funny as heck, , all the racist comments going one way, , teh cripple jokes going the other, , hard to do had it been Harrison Ford in his place. Walking Tall: Most people don't care abou tthe original, , The Rock was a popular item at the time, , so the put him in a movie to draw a buck out of his popularity.

For each of those half-dozen or so movies you mentioned, I could name (and others here probably moreso) many re-makes and original movies that suck, regardless of race. ..

[DodgingGrunge]

This thread focuses *way* too much on race.  99% of the time a movie is remade with the sole intention of deviating from the target audience of the original.  This extends to every conceivable demographic:  age, class, country (language), etcetera ad nauseam.  And chances are, if you enjoy the original film (as you were its target market), you'll dislike the remake.  Common sense, come on.  If they weren't going to change the target audience, everyone could simply rent the original.  :)

OK, with that off my chest, let me move on to my vote:  Foreign remakes.  Most of the time these lose out because the "culture" is Americanized while the story is kept the same and thus the context is utterly lost.  This seems to be particularly the case with translations of Asian and Indian dramas, wherein the repose and modesty of the characters needs to play a direct role in the evolution of the central conflict.  Shall We Dance comes to mind, though I'm sure if I gave it more thought I'd think of hundreds of other examples.  But I'll spare you having to read such a list.  Haha.  But seriously, how ghastly would it be if someone remade Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love?!?!

[Andrew]

This thread focuses *way* too much on race.  99% of the time a movie is remade with the sole intention of deviating from the target audience of the original.  This extends to every conceivable demographic:  age, class, country (language), etcetera ad nauseam.  And chances are, if you enjoy the original film (as you were its target market), you'll dislike the remake.  Common sense, come on.  If they weren't going to change the target audience, everyone could simply rent the original.  :)

OK, with that off my chest, let me move on to my vote:  Foreign remakes.  Most of the time these lose out because the "culture" is Americanized while the story is kept the same and thus the context is utterly lost. 

Those are some very fine points.  If you are going to change the demographic, you must adapt the story to speak to that demographic.  "Ran" did this rather successfully.

[Dennis]

Wow this topic is just totally beyond my understanding. I can't say I ever considered the term "black remake" or even saw a difference between that and a "white remake"...

I must agree, I don't find remakes, with a few exceptions, to be any better than the originals, and in most cases they're actually worse.
As far as the other black, white, brown, yellow, green whatever, aside from the cultural ones the only physical difference between us is that some of us have a little more pigment than others. That is not something that should matter to any of us.

[quabrot]

And what about all these Japanese horror movies being remade with white people... 

I get into this coversation too often with comic book fans.  In Daredevil, we had Michael Clark Duncan playing the originally white Kingpin.  I didn't mind it.  You know, it really depends on the character.  If the race plays an important part of who the character is, then you do mess things up when you change it. 

[DistantJ]

This topic is about as relevant as saying "Blonde remakes" or "Blue eyed remakes".

The only black/white gripe I ever had with hollywood and movies in general is the whole "he's black so that just automatically makes him dumber but cooler than the white folks in the film" thing. That just irritates me, I've always believed that we're no different no matter where we're from or what our genetic makeup is, perhaps because I live in the UK, I dunno, but I often find it irritating in movies where the white/black thing comes in and it's treated as if there's some kind of massive clear line between us.

[RCMerchant]

A good example of  race not making a difference are Romero's LIVING DEAD films...in all of them,the lead is black,but the part was written for a human being...not a sterotype.

[Flangepart]

When you get down to it, there is only one race, all else is just variation on a theme.

The human race, in all it variaty, is still driven by the same range of emotions and motives.
Cultural differances are matters of method and style, with the core drives being the same.

Whe i watched the Godzilla series, i wondered about the cultural differances, but caught the same drives i had. Hence, i could get into them. I liked the actors, and could follow the stories. Same with the Samauri pictures. People are people. But boy, can they confuse each other!

[Raffine]

A good example of  race not making a difference are Romero's LIVING DEAD films...in all of them,the lead is black,but the part was written for a human being...not a sterotype.

Yep, and it's never mentioned anywhere in the original film (can't recall about the others) that the character is black, even in the heated arguments with Cooper. It's simply a non-issue.

[DistantJ]

A good example of  race not making a difference are Romero's LIVING DEAD films...in all of them,the lead is black,but the part was written for a human being...not a sterotype.

+ Karma. Perfectly put. Managed to say it all in basically a single sentance.

They really happened-those people were real people--and yet they decided to change these white people black.

Would you say the same if they decided to change a "real person" from brown hair to blonde hair? From Irish to Welsh?

[BlackAngel75]

Let me put my 2 cents in this.  Me personlly, a movie is a movie.  There is no ifs, ands, or buts, black, whites, or hispanics about it.  As far as black remakes are concerned, maybe the dude would feel better if Soul Plane was remade for the white community.  There is no way to compare a white remake of Malcom X or MLK to the Honeymooners or the Nutty Professor.  That's like comparing a real person to a TV show.  It's like this:  The movie RAY, for example, there is only ONE Ray Charles played by ONE type of actor: Black Men.  Where as Ralph Cramden, made famous by Jackie Gleason can only be played by ONE  type of actor: Fat Men.

[Menard]

It's like this:  The movie RAY, for example, there is only ONE Ray Charles played by ONE type of actor: Black Men.  Where as Ralph Cramden, made famous by Jackie Gleason can only be played by ONE  type of actor: Fat Men.

[StackAttack]

why are all these remakes being made anyway? did Hollywood forget how to write new movies? give me Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory over johnny depps michael jackson impression any day.