There are so many movies that are being remade today from the ones that were popular when I was younger. Are truly good movies with good story lines and characters that hard to come by? Ghost Busters was a bust. The Longest Yard was good but not as good as the first one. I could go on and on, and on. Even Disney's Beauty and the Beast left me wanting. Is it just me?

Generally speaking I don't like watching any remakes if I've already seen the original. I guess Hollywood will continue to this as long as they keep making money. Looking at the success of the recent IT remake, I can see this stopping anytime soon.

 

@DC did a really good article in support of them for COW, it's worth a read: Repeat Reboot: The Sequel

No, it is not just you! I have watched many of the re-makes and was not impressed. If they don't make it something special, what is the point? Are they really out of scripts to choose from?

I enjoyed the live action Beauty and the Beast, but I went into it trying not to compare it to the animated version. That one will always have a special place in my heart.

 

I tend to prefer revisits over remakes. For instance, I saw the trailer for the new Jumangi, and I have to admit that I'm intrigued. It's the same idea of trying to get through a game that wants to kill you, but it's a video game and this time the characters go to the jungle.

 

I also heard about Disney announcing a remake to Hocus Pocus and that is something I will never watch. I don't understand remaking something that was perfect the first time.

I saw the trailer to Jumangi too Eudora and I liked what I saw. The first version was wonderful with Robin Williams. But of course I think Robin Williams is wonderful in anything he did. Do you know when the new version is supposed to come out? That may be one I have to go see.

I agree that they are remaking movies that were wonderful to start with. Money has a strange way of making people do unnatural things, even remaking movies. I enjoy the originals like Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. No one will ever do a better job!

No, it is not just you! I have watched many of the re-makes and was not impressed. If they don't make it something special, what is the point? Are they really out of scripts to choose from?

Remakes are almost as old as the movie business itself. Case in point; The Great Train Robbery, considered the first "proper" movie was released in 1903 and was essentially remade in 1904 as The Bold Bank Robbery.

 

As I've said many, many times (including the article Kam kindly mentioned), remakes are not automatically bad movies in the same way original films are not automatically good. A great film is a great film and a terrible film is a terrible film, regardless of whether it has been made before or not.

 

Also, if we had no remakes, there would be no Heat, no Bourne Identity with Matt Damon, no Man on Fire with Denzel Washington, no Cronenberg version of The Fly, no Heston version of Ben Hur. Really, you could go on and on with listing remakes that are on a par or better than the originals, while there are even more that are just good-to-great films in their own right.

I agree that they are remaking movies that were wonderful to start with. Money has a strange way of making people do unnatural things, even remaking movies. I enjoy the originals like Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. No one will ever do a better job!

The Wizard of Oz you're talking about is a remake. There was a live-action version in 1925 and an animated version in 1933 before Garland's film in 1939.

I agree, remakes aren't automatically bad films, but I do think that lately there are more misses than hits. I think that a lot of these either try too hard to merely recreate a film, rather than finding a way to make it a film on its own. For example, the most recent remake of Romeo and Juliet did nothing for me in comparison to Baz Luhrmann's reimagining. Changing the time period and sticking so close to the original material really made it pop in comparison to the many other films that centre on the play.