Entertainment For Lively Minds
Has there ever been a "better" Hollywood remake?
Posted by Humphrey Plugg on 29 July 2009 - 2:05pm.
There are lots of passing references to how Hollywood manages to make a complete mess of remakes - for example The Ladykillers and The Taking of Pelham 123 in recent days. But are there any examples of a remake actually being better than the original? I'm struggling to think of one, although I'm told that the recent Ocean's Eleven is better than the Frank Sinatra original (I haven't seen the remake so don't know if that's true)
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First that springs to mind is
'The Thing'.
I'd say the new Star Trek too but i'm sure i'm in the minority there.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The original version was 10 years earlier, and not as good, apparently (but when was the last time it got shown?).
The Front Page/His Girl Friday
In a similar vein...His Girl Friday (1940 and stunning); a remake of the 1931 Front Page (ok) which was itself remade in the 70s with lemmon/matthau (not bad) and then remade again with burt reynolds in the 80s (terrible). have sadly seen them all.
The front page
is really good though!
Thomas Crown Affair
Original: all style no substance
Remake: much more fun and used Nina Simone's Sinnerman so well
David Cronenberg's "The Fly"
Took a 50's B-picture concept (admittedly a fun one - "Half Man! Half lnsect!") and turned it into a gothic drama with brilliant results.
James Cameron's "True Lies" is strictly a remake, but as hardly anyone saw the very ordinary French original, it doesn't really count...
I disagree
As good as the remake is I still prefer the original. Thanks for reminding me though, I fancy seeing it again now.
I think
Seven Samurai and the Magnificent Seven is a tie as they both great in their own ways.
Disagree
I know the purists will want to kill me for this, but I prefer the Magnificent Seven. Maybe it's to do with coming from a Western culture, but I just found all the characterisations and the action more entertaining.
they are just different
and great in their own ways. I would say the Mag7 is favourite film and has the best music. But Kirosawa builds the tension in the rain soaked ending of his film also he based it on his love of hollywood westerns!
HEAT counts
i guess as it was a remake of a tv movie that had *already been on uk telly* to the surprise/ alarm of the small % of the population who'd watched it, about 10 minutes into the film.
Oceans
Having seen both 11s I'd have to agree newer was better in the sense of more fun-some of it due to modern expectations of pacing though-the look of the older is still to die for.
Bit like the new and old Thomas Crown in that respect-though I think they went out of their way to make the robberies less violent in that remake.
We're struggling, aren't we
Which makes me wonder why anyone in the film industry ever thinks it's a good idea to remake a film. After all, in an age when "everything" is available, why would you want to watch Sly Stallone in Get Carter when you can easily get hold of the Michael Caine classic?
Because everything is concept not execution
I can imagine the pitch on "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three". Great plot, slightly forgotten original, Travolta/Washington/Scott, $100m budget: easy. Why bother searching high and low for original scripts for your summer blockbusters when you can mine the old classics which those between 18-26 have never heard of?
But there are only 7 stories
.
that still makes 5
that Homer didn't tell ;-)
For fun ?
Both Oceans 11 and Crown had that magic extra ingredient-they just wanted to do it themselves ?
better and shorter
soderbergh's remake of tarkovsky's 'solaris'. Very good performance from george clooney(ladies he gets his arsecheeks out) and it's also shorter(comes in at 100 mins)and better
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
I prefer the [Donald Sutherland] remake to the original, not least for the remake's ending (which is brilliant), compared to the original's ending (which is rubbish, at least in the version I saw).
[SPOILER!] The original-original ending...
... was the main character (played by Kevin McCarthy) staggering across a busy highway trying in vain to warn all the passing drivers, "You're next! You're next!" The studio thought this was a bit of a downer, so insisted on bookending the film with McCarthy telling his story to some doctors, who at the end inform the FBI.
Aha!
When I saw it, I was suspicious it was an ending that a studio might have bolted on. It's really not in keeping with the rest of the film.
that ending sounds great
The Wicker Man
Kidding!