Remakes

[Minimalist]

Oh, and Americans should stop making Godzilla movies.  We suck at it.

[ignoramus]

Some are harmless enough.  Some, like The Day The Earth Stood Still, are nothing short of shitty.

Is the Michael Rennie the original or the remake?
I quite liked it.

[Minimalist]

Rennie died in 1971.  I'm glad he never had to see the remake.

[paulpablo]

Oh, and Americans should stop making Godzilla movies.  We suck at it.

I've not actually seen the film so I can't truly judge it, but I've heard the worst American remake is of the wicked man.
And that's another one I think where they changed the gender of some of the characters to being female.
I really liked the original, I've got no plans to ever waste time watching the remake.

[Ravenshire]

I have no problems with the idea of remakes or re-imaginings, nor do I have any problem with gender/ethnicity changes*. My problem with these films is in execution. As Alex has already stated, making Starbuck a woman was brilliant. Of course, that whole remake was brilliant, barring the weak ending to the show.

*One exception. Ongoing stories (cough Harry Potter cough) should maintain gender/ethnicity identity. Making Hermoine Granger black in the latest production is ludicrous. Much the same as making Lee Jordan Caucasian or the Patil sisters Chinese would be.

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]
*One exception. Ongoing stories (cough Harry Potter cough) should maintain gender/ethnicity identity. Making Hermoine Granger black in the latest production is ludicrous. Much the same as making Lee Jordan Caucasian or the Patil sisters Chinese would be.

Why? What does the stage play have to do with the movies? They're not the same "canon". There must be numerous theatrical adaptations of Harry Potter around the globe - guess what - some of them are in countries where most people are black or some other "inappropriate" race. Should all of those productions be looking for white actors, because JK Rowling is still writing books? Or perhaps they're not allowed to run? That's ridiculous. Not to mention that most of the stage actors are waaaaay older than the characters even in the latest movies. So what do you care about one actor in one play?

I seriously can't explain the motivation behind this exception of yours... Well - not in any particularly flattering way...

[c172]

What do you all think about remakes of fictional stories in various art forms, or even remakes of characters.
Additionally what do you think about the changing of genders or races in characters?

I got thinking about this topic after seeing the trailer for ghostbusters the film they've made with just women as the main characters.

Plus recently they were talking about using a black actor to play James Bond.

Personally I'm against most remakes anyway, I heard Russell brand wanted to do a remake of drop dead Fred and that annoyed me.
And as for changing the race or gender or main characters I just don't see the point.
If I really like a character I find it really distracting if that character just becomes female or turns black or vice versa, if a woman turns into a man or black person turns white.

I don't like the idea of remakes, really, but to change anything to make it more PC is a big no-no for me. If the black Annie had come about say two years after the original, which I loved as a kid, I'd be traumatized. Maybe the same with Ghostbusters. In both cases, facepalms really did happen.

[ignoramus]

Speaking of the new Ben hur?
Sure. It looks blingy but still tired old story.
What next? Cleopatra!

[chimp3]

Some films were so good you could never remake them . "Night at the Opera" . Marx Brothers. One of a kind. Some are too eclectic and bizarre. "Eraserhead" by David Lynch. If you get it right the first time there is need to fix it.

[Fake Messiah]

I now really hate remakes. Like for instance new remake of "The Magnificent Seven" looks lazy. Some can argue that previous "The Magnificent Seven" was remake of "7 Samurai" and although "M7" was inferior to it's Japanese original it added something new. It set the story to the wild west and explored it. Like "A Fistful of Dollars" which did the same with movie "Yojimbo" or, in other cases, like "Scarface" which moved the story in that present time and really re-made the original.

These current re-makes are none of that. They don't add nothing new. They don't take "The Magnificent Seven" and set it let's say in outer space (although that has been done). "Ghostbusters" what new did it add? Women? That's not enough. Plus the movie is awful. I tried to watch it and it's not even a movie. It has no construction, nothing but forcing of lame jokes one after another. You know like Melissa McCarthy's character being obsessed with food - because, you know, fat people are obsessed with food.

I mean why don't they just make something new? Why re-make Star Trek? If you want to make a movie about star ships it doesn't have to be automatically Star Trek. Or it doesn't have to be Star Wars because you feel like the story of Star Wars will never have an end, so you even ask yourself why even something bother with something endless?