Best and Worst Remakes?

[dangus]

Oz (1939)! I knew there was a “classic” I was missing.

[Nevadan]

re: Worst: Stepford Wives

I don’t know if I would call it the worst. It was somewhat entertaining at least. And anything with Christopher Walken has got to be good. However, they totally changed the tone of the film from a chilling suspense film to a comedy.

[CatherineofAragon]

Worst remakes: Psycho, The Shining

Best remakes: Dawn of the Dead, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 12 Angry Men

[Atticus]

The remake of the Bad News Bears with Billy Bob Thornton is one of the WORST remakes. That movie also spawned two really bad sequels.

[Fiji Hill]

Great movies people forgot are remakes:

Ben Hur
the 10 Commandments
The Lord of the Rings
Titanic (not great by my book, but people love it)
Ocean’s 11
Casino Royale

The Wizard of Oz also belongs on this list.

I don't consider Casino Royale a great movie--when I saw it in the theater in 1967, I thought it was the worst movie ever. But I did like the 1954 original, which I saw at a screening at the University of Southern California.

I've seen all of the originals except Ocean's 11 and The Lord of the Rings.

[norwaypinesavage]

"I never saw "Pearl Harbor," but they did have real airplanes in that movie."

'Pearl Harbor' did, indeed use some real airplanes. In fact, I believe they even had at least one real Zero, while 'Tora Tora Tora' used painted Corsairs. However, 'Pearl Harbor' used completely unrealistic computer animations of dog fights and other acrobatics that, in my view, made the entire flying scenes seem phony.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I have to admit that “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” rates as a truly memorable, if outlandish, movie.

And somebody noted that you have to enjoy the irony of Charlton Heston being at the beginning of the world in narrating Genesis, as Moses, in the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus, in some of the critical junctures in history, in the collapse of civilization in Soylent Green, as almost the last man on Earth in The Omega Man, finally going to post-apocalyptic Earth to destroy it in its entirety.

Only he could have detonated the bomb, since ironically it too was labeled “Alpha and Omega”.

[Defiant]

1. Any 60s cartoon favorite made into a movie in the last 20 years (e.g., Flintstones, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Jetsons);
2. Arthur;
3. Red Dawn.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

It was a remake of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.

But I agree, wonderfully stylish, magnificent in so many ways, including architecture, costumes, even in its first use of entirely electronic music was eight years before the invention of the Moog synthesizer.

However, a totally different but astoundingly beautiful version of The Tempest, is the Sir John Gielgud version called Prospero’s Books. It has been described as a moving oil painting, depicting unusual people as spirits invisible to all but Prospero, carrying out repetitive and arcane tasks, with the human characters just a small part of the overall image. A large amount of non-sexual nudity, which does not take away from the movie.

Unfortunately the DVD is expensive, at about $50 on Amazon.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I have Taste the Blood of Dracula on my list of movies that could be remade far better than the original, because its plot was spot on, and somewhat universal.

Corrupt, perverted, decadent idle rich, who are so jaded to find new entertainments that one of them pays for a vial of Dracula’s blood. In trying to resurrect Dracula, though, they chicken out, so Dracula decides to punish them and their families.

There are several good variations on this theme, and it is easy to imagine corrupt, perverted and decadent rich people, you know, like George Soros, getting their comeuppance.

[Conservative4Ever]

Yes, I know. Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, I believe.

[Conservative4Ever]

I have seen both...just like the remake better. The musical score in the remake is wonderful. I thought greg kinnear was great too.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Now, the all-time “highest number of remakes” has to go to the Three Musketeers series:

From Google:

The Three Musketeers, a 1903 French production about which very little is known
The Three Musketeers: Part 1 and Part 2, 1911 silent film shorts from Edison Studios starring Sydney Booth as D’Artagnan
The Three Musketeers, a 1914 American film directed by Charles V. Henkel and starring Earl Talbot
The Three Musketeers, a 1916 Hollywood feature directed by Charles Swickard, supervised by Thomas H. Ince and including in its cast Louise Glaum as Milady de Winter and Dorothy Dalton as Queen Anne
Les Trois Mousquetaires, a 1921 French silent film version featuring Aimé Simon-Girard and Claude Mérelle. A blockbuster of its day, it spawned a number of sequels (an adaptation of Twenty Years After was released the following year).
The Three Musketeers (1921 film), a 1921 silent film version starring Douglas Fairbanks
Les Trois Mousquetaires (1933 film), a French talkie remake of the 1921 French film, with the same director (Henri Diamant-Berger) and much of the same cast
The Three Musketeers (1933 serial), a Mascot Studios serial featuring John Wayne, updated and set in North Africa, with the Musketeers replaced by French Foreign Legionnaires
The Three Musketeers (1935 film), a black and white RKO version featuring Walter Abel
The Three Musketeers (1939 film), a comedic version starring Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers
Los Tres Mosqueteros (1942), a Mexican movie directed by Miguel M. Delgado and starring famous comedian Cantinflas as D’Artagnan
Los Tres Mosqueteros (1945), an Argentinian/Uruguayan movie directed by Julio Saraceni, starring Armando Bo, César Fiaschi, Enrique Roldán, Francisco Pablo Donadio, Miguel Moya and Roberto Airaldi
The Three Musketeers (1948 film), an MGM production starring Gene Kelly, Van Heflin, Lana Turner, and June Allyson
The Three Musketeers (1953 film), director André Hunebelle, featuring Georges Marchal and Bourvil
Los tres mosqueteros y medio (1957 film), Mexican comedic version starring Tin-Tan.
The Three Musketeers (1961 film), a double-feature adaptation directed by Bernard Borderie, with Gérard Barray, Mylène Demongeot, Guy Delorme and Jean Carmet
The Three Musketeers (1969 film), a television movie starring Kenneth Welsh and featuring Christopher Walken
The Three Musketeers (1973 film), and The Four Musketeers (film) (1974), a two-film adaptation starring Michael York, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, Richard Chamberlain, and Spike Milligan
d’Artagnan and Three Musketeers (1978), a popular Soviet musical featuring Mikhail Boyarsky
The Three Musketeers (1993 film), a Disney production starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O’Donnell, Oliver Platt, and Tim Curry
The Musketeer (2001), a very loose adaptation, in a style imitating Asian action movies
D’Artagnan et les trois mousquetaires (2005), starring Vincent Elbaz
The Three Musketeers (2011 film), a 3D version of the film directed by Paul W.S. Anderson starring Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Christoph Waltz, Mads Mikkelsen, Orlando Bloom, Milla Jovovich and Matthew Macfadyen.
3 Musketeers (film), a direct-to-video modern action adaptation produced by The Asylum.

My wife and I rented every Three Musketeer movie in historical sequence from Netflicks. The differences between plot, each attitudes and actions, every swordfight, and even every “listen through the loophole, wall, roof, window, door ...etc” were fun to contrast every time.

[Jim Noble]

Ghostbusters II was pretty bad...

[csvset]

Re the Flintstones. Rosie the pig as Betty Rubble?

[catnipman]

“No matter how good it is, I won’t watch anything with Matt Damon in it.”

I won’t anymore.

[dfwgator]

worst remake Scarface...1983

Oh come on, it's worth it just for the line, "I kill a communist for fun, but for a green card, I gonna carve him up real nice."

[Peet]

Horrible, vomitous remakes:

Vanishing Point

Rollerball

[piroque]

worst Remakes - "True Grit" with Jeff bridges

Flight of the Phoenix

[hearthwench]

“The Thing (from Outer Space)” is based on the short story by John W. Campbell, Jr. The original story was named “Who Goes There.” Carpenter’s version is closer to the original story, though I prefer the 1951 version on (lack) of gore factor.

“The Day the Earth Stood Still” was based on the short story- “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates. Though the first version is great, both are political statements of the era’s dogma (war/the bomb or enviro-crud). The original story has not been done at all. There is Klaatu, Gnut instead of Gort, and all the rest is completely different. The original story is very good.

Find “They Came from Outer Space” edited by Jim Wynorski and a great intro by Ray Bradbury. It was published in 1980. Great collection of 12 classic science fiction tales made into movies. They even includes some photos from the movies.

Debbi