Unnecessary Remakes: Why Fix What Ain't Broken?

[heyalice]

What! I freakin' love Soapdish!! They're going to get it completely wrong. This generation of writers and filmakers have no appreciation for good camp. Look what they did to Poseidon Adventure.

[Coffeecakes]

That Karate Kid shit really irritates me since Kung Fu is Chinese and Karate is Japanese yet they're selling this as Karate Kid? There is a difference between China and Japan fuckers!

Also I'm seething over the Monster Squad remake. You can't improve on perfection dammit!

[kostgard]

The Karate Kid promos have been running non-stop lately, and I'd just like to thank Will Smith for "karate" kicking my childhood in the crotch.

And yes - It's a movie set in China with a Chinese man teaching an American boy Kung Fu, and yet they are calling it "The Karate Kid." Bite me, Will Smith.

And it looks like they completely missed the appeal of the first movie. In the first one, Daniel was a scrappy kid who really wasn't a highly trained master and you did fear that he could get his ass-kicked. But his advantage was the unique training that he got, and said scrappiness and the big infusion of confidence he got. This one looks like the kids are all doing back flips and slo-mo Matrix-style fighting. Boring as crap.

And Jackie Chan? You are not fit to lick Pat Morita's boots. Step off.

Seriously. And did you guys know that Morita was nominated for an Oscar for that role? Weird, but true. Though I have to say that the movie really does hold up pretty well.


As for why Hollywood is only going for remakes - it's because they are too scared to try anything new. If you write a script that is original and interesting, they will never make it. They want a sure bet. So they go for the "tried and true" figuring that those movies already have a built-in audience who loved the original.

[Deleted]

Jun 6, 2010 23:46:40 GMT -4 kostgard said:

The Karate Kid promos have been running non-stop lately, and I'd just like to thank Will Smith for "karate" kicking my childhood in the crotch.

And yes - It's a movie set in China with a Chinese man teaching an American boy Kung Fu, and yet they are calling it "The Karate Kid." Bite me, Will Smith.

From what I've read, the movie addresses this. Jaden's character doesn't know the difference between different martial arts. To him, it's all the same. In the trailer and ads, Jackie Chan's character says "I will teach you kung fu". I think the title is meant to be ironic, commenting on the kid's ignorance.

From a marketing perspective, they'd have been nuts not to call it "The Karate Kid". That title sells itself.

Edit: I think Jackie will do a good job. Lord knows, he can sell the idea of being a martial arts master, whereas Pat Morita didn't even know karate when he made his version. Morita was primarily a stand up comedian and sitcom bit player who delivered one really awesome movie performance. I think Jackie Chan's decades of movie work more than prepare him to take over the role.

The martial arts film genre has changed enough that I can see why they'd want to update The Karate Kid. Nothing about the rom-com genre has changed enough to warrant a "Soapdish" remake. That one's a head-scratcher.

[Deleted]

Jun 6, 2010 5:29:53 GMT -4 Strawberry said:

I was thinking about this the other day and about what all these remakes mean culturally. I was wondering if it had to do with nostalgia, but now I'm thinking it has something to do with some sort of relevance crisis. Times and technology are moving so quickly now that I wonder if being cutting edge or innovative seems near impossible. The minute you get the hottest thing on the market, it's already replaced with something better, we go through celebs quickly, hit songs and artists are on and off the market in a minute... I wonder if maybe now it's just a matter of falling back on something familiar and trying to update it, and because it's already irrelevant there's no harm, no foul?

I'd love to hear some thoughts from others. I know I'm definitely no expert and probably have it all wrong, and I'm curious as to what the deal is.

Is there any way to work out if the percentage of movies that are re-makes today is really higher than it ever was? I say this because Hollywood's lazy self has always done a ton of re-makes, so even though it seems to be at its peak now, it might not be. I watch a lot of old films and it feels like there was a new version of Little Women or Jane Eyre every couple of years. I think the most pointless re-make was turning Red Dust into Mogambo, even though I like both films. But when your lead actor is still OK to take the role again, not enough time has passed between films, dammit.

[Deleted]

You're right, Ronette, remakes are nothing new. When sound was first introduced to movies, a lot of silents were remade. Once a studio bought the rights to a property, they sometimes remade it over and over again, changing the title, changing the lead from male to female, setting it in a different country, etcetera. Recycling sometimes resulted in film classics. "Singing in the Rain", while not an out-and-out remake, was an excuse for MGM to re-use a bunch of songs it had in its catalog. Every single song in "Singing" had been performed in a previous MGM film (or films).

[smitten]

Yay for this thread!

I was thinking this weekend about movies that were re-made in old Hollywood, and it seems like most of that happened either when some major technology came about that could change the way the story was told (silent to sound, for example) or when the source material could allow for re-interpretation. Meaning movies are often remade when they come from stories or plays, like Little Women, Romeo and Juliet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, etc.

But I don't think we've ever seen so many movies being remade when the originals were conceived and written as movies in the first place, and are regarded as pretty classic in their own right. How can you re-interpret movies like The Karate Kid, Fame, and Footloose? I think it's laziness and greed, period.

Hollywood is out of ideas, and they think they can make a quick buck cashing in on a title that's already recognized. They could have easily made this Jaden Smith vanity project as an homage to the Karate Kid (like Clueless was to Emma) and called it something different. But they knew using that title would make more money.

And not all remakes based on books are a good idea either, Pride and Prejudice and Sherlock Holmes didn't bother me so much, but the rumor I heard last week about a re-make of Jaws starring Tracy Morgan makes my teeth hurt. Talk about trying to fix what isn't broken.

[Spinderella]

I'm sick of MTV making movies that are remakes when they really need to focus on bringing their platform to what it was in the 80s, playing music.

That being said, MTV is remaking TEEN WOLF. Shit. No one could ever be nearly as charming or charismatic as a young Michael J. Fox. Hell, Jason Bateman couldn't even do it for Teen Wolf Too!

Here's my list of 80s remakes they're doing or already in production that haven't been mentioned:

* The Never Ending Story
* Flight of the Navigator
* Teen Witch
* Footloose
* Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
* Adventures in Babysitting
* Red Dawn - (this just blows my mind. It's 2010, kids.)
* Weird Science *

* I had really hoped that John Hughes' projects wouldn't have been able to his movies remade like this. Please, give the man some dignity and don't ruin his genius.

I'm really glad that they remade FAME and it totally TANKED. I doubt the same will be said for The Karate Kid, since you've got beloved Jackie Chan in it and everyone loves a good "karate" movie.

ETA: I just read about a ton of new remakes that are in process via this blog and I'm floored.

Jonah Hill is rumored to take over the lead from Elisabeth Shue for "Adventures in Babysitting"? Are you shitting me?

More to the add to the list:
* Ferris Bueller's Day Off 2 (I'm leaving the planet now)
* DUNE!
* The Goonies
* Heathers

The list goes on.

My problem is that they'll either make these flicks ridiculously not funny or horribly and completely off the mark. When these movies were originally made, they were for a certain audience and generation. Trying to do them now is a joke. We're not dealing with the same kids anymore, Hollywood!

[smockery]

Jonah Hill is rumored to take over the lead from Elisabeth Shue for "Adventures in Babysitting"? Are you shitting me?

The thing that gets me about this one is that in the original, you could see why the parents would feel okay about leaving their kids with Elisabeth Shue. I don't think I would trust Jonah Hill to mow my lawn, much less watch my kids.

And Dune? They already remade that one once and it stunk badly.

[Deleted]

I don't really have much of a problem with the remakes of 80s movies. Most of those movies were not original ideas in the first place. The basic plot of Karate Kid's been remade zillions of times: Kid learns a sport from old master and triumphs over adversity. That plot has been around since the silent movie days.

What irks me is that they don't seem to bother to actually write these films. It's like they expect people to show up for the title alone. Fame, for example, is a remake that totally should have worked. Teens trying for stardom is the plot of practically every Disney channel show, there's a lot of drama inherent in the setting and characters, and enough has changed about showbiz and NYC since 1980 to make it interestingly different from the original. But they just couldn't even be bothered to try to write a story to go with the name, just stuck in a bunch of musical numbers and a couple of cliched lines to go in between them.

I really hope they don't remake Heathers, and not just because I think that movie sucked. The whole storyline is completely outdated in the post-Columbine era.