Remakes Lazy Film-making?

[big screen satellite]

what d'you reckon...lazy film making....lack of ideas...??

do we need the remakes / re-imaginations of films...

how many are actually any good...?

The Fog...why remake it...?
Amytiville...why remake it...?
Texas Chainsaw Massacre...
Psycho...
POTA...
The Italian Job..


the list is undoubtable endless...but almost all remakes are poorer versions of the original...and even if they are better, King Kong may live up to that, come Xmas...people will still compare it to the original...made 80 odd years ago...this is not fair for either movie - because you cannot compare - its a completely different time...

just wondered what you guys think...are remakes worthy in cinema or just plain lazy film making...in an a age of little ideas

[b.miller]

it's money, dude. all about the money. they're safe bets in the studios' eyes

[//\/\/]

definitely a paucity of imagination and adventure - you can hear studios thinking "worked 40 years ago, should work again... ...at least everybody's heard of it..."

[gambit]

Depends on the movie in question, I suppose. I can't think of a good remake, but then again, I don't watch a lot of Hollywood films anyway.

[kagenaki koe]

well then there's also the americanimationization films: take a foreign film and make a US version (like japanese movies) which is even lamer since these arent "old" films that are being remade.

[b.miller]

well then there's also the americanimationization films: take a foreign film and make a US version (like japanese movies) which is even lamer since these arent "old" films that are being remade.

i would say that the pinnacle of this was The Grudge, where the same director remade the same movie in the US a year after he made it in Japan. did he want a do-over?

[//\/\/]

maybe lucas could have another go at star wars 1 and 2?!

[grady]

As bad as most remakes are and as much a simple pursuit of money as they are, there is something about them that lends itself to watching a remake just to see what in the hell happen, and what was different.

Granted, I haven't seen some more recent fairs like Amityville Horror and Texas Chainsaw Massacre because of the simple fact of not caring, but Psycho I revisited about a year or so ago when I was going through a Gus Van Sant kick of watching all of his old films. Yes it's a shot for shot remake and a very interesting experiment that I enjoyed a great deal more than on my initial viewing in 1998.

All that aside, I have the aspiration that if I were ever given the opportunity to remake a film I would do it with a certain film, but it would'nt necessarily be a remake. More of a new interpretation of an older film. The older film being a jumping off point.

Ever since I saw Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd about seven years ago, I've always wanted to do something in the spirit of it and even borrowing some elements of the film. To do a really short synopsis, it's about the rise of a small town yokel played brilliantly by Andy Griffith, to a country TV star. But the man is really not as innocent as he seems and really is a monster. It's a wonderful study of celebrity and fame. What made the film so great for me was the way Kazan used Griffith playing against his type and precieved celebrity at the time of the Andy Griffith show and being the nice sheriff of Mayberry. Here Griffith is an asshole and excells at it. (Think the dark side of Mayberry)

Immediately while watching the film for the first time I thought it would be great to do something in this type of vein, but take someone like Tom Hanks or Kevin Costner and have him play against his/her precieved type. Most actors tend to do this from time to time as we've seen Tom Cruise go from sensitive man in Jerry McGuire to a mysoginist asshole in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia.

It doesn't seem like there have been many films like A Face in the Crowd in a whole long time and I really like the ideas it plays with regarding the audience perception of the actors/actresses.

With reality television saturating the culture there needs to be some good satire pieces about the frivilous nature of it all. There was that film Series 7 a few years back that did this with the contestants hunting each other down and murdering each other, but we need something more than that now.

I've kind of digressed from my point of remakes. But yeah, they seem to be motivated more often than not by purely greed and nothing more. The studio takes a sure fire dollar for dollar investment that will produce X-amount of return in sales.

wash. rinse and repeat.

Also, A Face in the Crowd just came out about a month ago on DVD. I urge everyone to check it out. I should probably have made a seperate thread about the film. Maybe later.

link 1 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050371/)

link 2 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007TKNHO/qid=1120524147/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-9554355-3379266?v=glance&s=dvd)

[Raz]

The poll's a bit confusing given the thread title is "Remakes lazy film-making?". Anyway, the general consensus for Ocean's 11 was a good rehash of an old film... That's the only one I can think of atm. Oh, and WOTW.

[Bargo]

I don't really mind remakes, if the people doing the remake are approaching the material from a different, interesting perspective. The Fly, The Thing and Dawn of the Dead were the first examples I thought of; all great films (the former two easily surpassing the originals) that took the source material in a different direction.

On the whole, though, I agree with what some people are saying. A lot of times it is definitely an easy money-making exercise.

[b.miller]

...The Fly, The Thing and Dawn of the Dead were the first examples I thought of; all great films (the former two easily surpassing the originals)


aww... I guess I'm the only one here who has love for the original The Thing From Another World? granted Carpenter made a great movie and yeah it's probably better even though Wilford Brimley's in it, but the original still has some class. It's one of the classic 50s scientists vs. common sense movies... Giant plant-alien-creature hell bent on killing us all? save it! for science!!!

[big screen satellite]

On the whole, though, I agree with what some people are saying. A lot of times it is definitely an easy money-making exercise.

yes it easy money making - and hence lazy...in my book

its the same with music and taking a twenty year old sample and adding a beat and rereleasing it - its all about money, but its very lazy...and unimaginative...

you can appreciate a good original movie, without having to go and remake it...

a crap movie then should remain a crap movie and not be revisited...

there are plenty of decent new movies being made without the call for more crappy remakes...

what was the last decent remake that you saw....

[grady]

what was the last decent remake that you saw....

in no particular order

Psycho
Ocean's 11
Dawn of the Dead

There might be one or two i'm forgetting

[big screen satellite]

in no particular order

Psycho
Ocean's 11
Dawn of the Dead

There might be one or two i'm forgetting

pyscho - you sure...

[grady]

pyscho - you sure...

Yes I am very sure.

[big screen satellite]

Yes I am very sure.


:D



ok...i thought it was very poor

[grady]

:D


ok...i thought it was very poor

Well, that just like, your opinion man.

Yeah, most people do seem to consider the remake to be utter shite, and it is not something that was really necessary, but I didn't mind it so much.

I think my liking of the film stems more from the experiment Gus Van Sant was attempting with the film.

Oh, and renowned drunkard and amazing Cinematographer Christopher Doyle shot the film too.

[GforGroove]

what d'you reckon...lazy film making....lack of ideas...??

do we need the remakes / re-imaginations of films...



Remakes besides being a matter of money as B.miller said, are about "re-interpretration". And i want to think that is totally possible to have one story with many interpretations.

Like Solaris.. The original and the remake were both amazing. I guess i a matter of the power of the story too, like Psycho.

The examples given (Texas Chainsaw Massacre...!) about remaking aren't the strongest ones to judge if "remakes" are lazy filmaking or not i think.

[grady]

Remakes besides being a matter of money as B.miller said, are about "re-interpretration". And i want to think that is totally possible to have one story with many interpretations.

Like Solaris.. The original and the remake were both amazing. I guess i a matter of the power of the story too, like Psycho.



ooooooo, I completley forgot about Solaris. And another fine example Gforgroove. That one ties directly into the "re-interpretation" category as Steven Soderbergh went back to the source material of Stanislaw Lem's novel and made a new adaptation.

[b.miller]

a friend of mine (who doesn't mind remakes at all since he hates old movies... but he also loved Armageddon) always brings up the argument that a remade movie is just like a remix of a song. I do think that makes for a good comparison to decide if a movie remake is good or not, but in most cases the metaphor doesn't quite hold. The Longest Yard for example, would be akin to adding a hi-hat and calling it a remix. The Thing on the other hand, would be like Basement Jaxx's remix of Technologic, where it definitely sounds like the Jaxx but also has that original spine in there. It's changed to the point where it can stand on its own as a track. I think the reason why all remakes always get compared to the originals is because so many of them cannot stand on their own. Since reading your guys' War of the Worlds responses, I've been thinking about why i really didn't mind the characters and how the aliens die... and i think it's because I was familiar with the story already. The characters certainly aren't the same but they're like the remix element... trying the story with treated vocals instead of the originals... so I was really coming at it like that and not as a stand-alone film. I mean, that's not necessarily bad because I ended up liking it for the most part, but it's definitely a different angle to look at it from.

I don't know though, because even a great remix, when compared to a great original song, kind of pales for me. I would much rather have a new story than an old one told differently.

just rambling :)

[Animal Boything]

I think it's a weird sign of the times that you and your friend think "remix" before "cover" since the latter is a lot more appropriate, but I digress...

I don't mind remakes at all. In the case of anything that was based on other source material to begin with, it's not even an issue. Filmmakers have every right to re-adapt. (War of the Worlds is an example.) Even if it's just a movie based on a movie, I don't mind. If it turns out shitty, so what? The original still exists. There are a few movies I wouldn't mind remaking myself, given the opportunity.

I voted "sometimes" because obviously some remakes do suck. But there's nothing wrong with them as an idea.

A lot of people come at me with the "waste of money" angle, but that's stupid, there are much worse wastes of money in the world, plus it's not like there aren't plenty of bad original movies coming out every week. A remake has about the same chances of being good as anything else.