Movie Remakes that shouldn't have been

[Kesh]

Remakes are a mixed bag. There are times where you want to stick to the original, to really make the movie work. And there are times where you want to break the formula, use the original concept but twist it into something new and better.

Very rarely are those two techniques applied appropriately. Often, the opposite one is used from what would have worked.

I'm looking forward to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory precisely because it's going to be closer to the book, and because it has two names I adore: Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.

On the flip side, I loathe the idea of ever seeing the new The Longest Yard. From the trailer, it looks like they took the good parts out of the story to replace them with the inane wit of Adam Sandler. The man can turn out good humor sometimes... but this doesn't look like one of them.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

And Yojimbo was an uncredited rip-off of Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest. Bruce Willis later remade it as Last Man Standing. However, aside from getting the period correct, it had even less to do with the novel than Yojimbo.

I thought Last Man Standing was a remake of A Fistful of Dollars, a Clint Eastwood movie. A Fistful of Dollars was the remake of Yojimbo.

 

[Villano]

I thought Last Man Standing was a remake of A Fistful of Dollars, a Clint Eastwood movie. A Fistful of Dollars was the remake of Yojimbo.

Well, it's all based on the same thing.

Actually, Last Man Standing uses several characters from the original novel, even though they changed them in some strange ways. For example, Christopher Walken's character was Max "Whisper" Thaler, except that wasn't his name. In the film, he was called "Hickey Dewey". Hickey is only mentioned at the beginning of the novel:

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation.

So, why they renamed Walkens character after someone only mentioned in passing is beyond me. What's funny is they gave him red hair like Hickey, and a whispering voice like Thaler.

 

[DonTadow]

As long as someone sing "The Candy Man" in Johnny Depp's film, I'm in.

That and the beat-box rap version of "Oompa Loompa" (hopefully NOT performed by Eminem).

The old one was good but was very loosely based on the book which is more dark. This new one is going to be faithful to the book and with Johnny it's got to be dark.

 

[ShadowX]

I thought Last Man Standing was a remake of A Fistful of Dollars, a Clint Eastwood movie. A Fistful of Dollars was the remake of Yojimbo.

Last Man Standing is a remake of Yojimbo. A Fistful of Dollars is a remake of another Kurosawa film; I believe it is Seven Samurai.

To me, a good movie is a good movie and a bad movie is a bad movie. Whether it is a remake matters little. Though, I must admit, the Psycho remake sounds completely retarded.

 

[takyris]

I thought that Fistful of Dollars was a remake of Fistful of (appropriate currency -- Yen?), and Magificent Seven was a remake of Seven Samurai. In fact, I'm quite certain at least about the latter...

 

[Heretic Apostate]

I only own seven Kurosawa DVDs, so here goes. (Apologies for any mispellings. I'm not reading what I'm typing, since it's late, and I'm not wearing my glasses.)

Yojimbo blurb text:
The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Kurosawa's visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo (The Bodyguard). In order to rid a village of corruption, a masterless samurai turns a range war between two evil calns to his own advantage. Remade both as A Fistful of Dollars and, more recently, as Last Man Standing, this exhilirating gangster-Western remains one of the most influential and entertaining genre-twisters ever produced.

Then there's Sanjuro, about a jaded samurai helping an idealistic group of young warriors to weed out t heir clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a "proper" samurai on its ear.

The Hidden Fortress obviously is the basis for Star Wars episode 4.

Ran is a remake of Shakespeare's King Lear. Similarly, Throne of Bood is a remake of Macbeth.

And Rashamon is an exercise in the testimony of eyewitnesses, showing the same scene in the eyes of four different people.

 

[Ranger REG]

I thought that Fistful of Dollars was a remake of Fistful of (appropriate currency -- Yen?), and Magificent Seven was a remake of Seven Samurai. In fact, I'm quite certain at least about the latter...

Well, it's a good Western remake, but I'm hoping for a Bollywood-style Indian remake.

 

[DonTadow]

I liked some remakes. Ocean 11 was awesome because during the first one, the rat pack was drunk during most of the shoot and it showed in the movie.

I don't mind the remakes, what i hate is all these horrible television to movie things. I can't believed they did that to the honeymooners.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Bad remakes, Lordy, so many to choose from...

The Ladykillers... Why? Alec Guinness was so good in the original, Peter Sellers was downright sinister. And while Tom Hanks was not bad in the remake the rest of the cast... was not good.

Bedazzled... is it just me, or did they completely miss the 7 deadly sins in the remake?

Godzilla... both times. (The original Japanese version has little to do with the first American release... I count the American version as a remake in this case, they even changed stars.)

Dracula, how many bad movie remakes can one great book spawn?

The Inlaws... Peter Falk and Allen Akin's version was so much better...

A Miracle on 34th Street - Even Macy's refused to have anything to do with it.

King Kong...deLaurentis manages to make the stop motion Kong look more believable than his giant animatronic beasty. And giving it a sequel where Kong gets an artificial heart?!!!

Good remakes are rarer. Cape Fear - the origial is better in some ways, but the remake is not bad. The Thomas Crown Affair, in some ways was better, in some ways wose.

Remake that I am looking forward to - King Kong by Peter Jackson...

The Auld Grump