Why does Hollywood take a perfectly good book/idea/old movie and ruin it?

[Rac80]

I have several pet peeves about hollywood's treatment of classic lit and movies. Sometime remakes are actually pretty good... Father of the Bride (steve martin) to name one. That caught the spirit of the orignal with Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy very well. Then there is the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds - 'nuff said. Take Asimov's I, Robot - great short story! then look at that horrendous mishmash that Will Smith turned it into!:puke: We have discussed the Planet of the Apes remake ad nauseum at times. vewry underwhelming. Luckily the Star Trek 2009 was pretty good (IMHO) but it wasn't a "remake" rather a reimagining. As for the two BSG's...I prefer the first, but the second was not entirely unwatchable. Another remake I despised was Sabrina...sorry Julia Ormond is lovely but she is no Audrey Hepburn.

 

[Tripler]

The Day The Earth Stood Still is another Hollyweird failure and utterly horrible remake of an otherwise epic movie of it's day. The original version was just so good and wonderful to watch . The new version didn't do a thing for me .
I am sure we all have one remake that stick's out more than other's and are just so painful to watch . I myself prefer the original classics !!!

 

[Graybrew1]

I quite liked the Clash of the Titans, but I bet people are gonna want to bite my head off of that one. Sorry, I thought it was an entertaining movie.

 

[shavedape]

The Day The Earth Stood Still is another Hollyweird failure and utterly horrible remake of an otherwise epic movie of it's day. The original version was just so good and wonderful to watch . The new version didn't do a thing for me .
I am sure we all have one remake that stick's out more than other's and are just so painful to watch . I myself prefer the original classics !!!

Oh you're so right! The Keanu Reeves movie was incredibly horrible. It was just pure dreck!

 

[shavedape]

I quite liked the Clash of the Titans, but I bet people are gonna want to bite my head off of that one. Sorry, I thought it was an entertaining movie.

You mean the latest Sam Worthington version? Yeah, I thought it was okay too. I had heard such bad reviews about it that I went in expecting it to be downright horrible but it actually wasn't that bad. I thought it was just a fun action/adventure movie and saw no need to nitpick it to death. Some movies are simply meant to be enjoyed and not treated like scared works of art, at least that's how I see it.

 

[Graybrew1]

You mean the latest Sam Worthington version? Yeah, I thought it was okay too. I had heard such bad reviews about it that I went in expecting it to be downright horrible but it actually wasn't that bad. I thought it was just a fun action/adventure movie and saw no need to nitpick it to death. Some movies are simply meant to be enjoyed and not treated like scared works of art, at least that's how I see it.

Bully for you! That is what I thought, I enjoyed the movie. I went into it with low expectations too.

 

[Overmind One]

I dont get this either...

I have several pet peeves about hollywood's treatment of classic lit and movies. Sometime remakes are actually pretty good... Father of the Bride (steve martin) to name one. That caught the spirit of the orignal with Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy very well. Then there is the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds - 'nuff said. Take Asimov's I, Robot - great short story! then look at that horrendous mishmash that Will Smith turned it into!:puke: We have discussed the Planet of the Apes remake ad nauseum at times. vewry underwhelming. Luckily the Star Trek 2009 was pretty good (IMHO) but it wasn't a "remake" rather a reimagining. As for the two BSG's...I prefer the first, but the second was not entirely unwatchable. Another remake I despised was Sabrina...sorry Julia Ormond is lovely but she is no Audrey Hepburn.

I totally agree, Rac...why have they taken stuff that worked so well for US and then tried to re-heat it? What happened to the CREATIVITY? Has it been completely replaced by IMITATION?

There are yet more rehashes/reheating/regurgitated offerings on the horizon, including "When Worlds Collide", yet another Planet of the Apes movie and more. And that Sabrina movie...:puke:. Still the most offensive of the remakes to me is Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes movie. That movie was PotA only in name and NOTHING ELSE. And they had the nerve to have Charlton Heston in the movie as an APE? It was ridiculous. Where was the story of the causality loop? How did those apes build a human-like community on a moon (or wherever they were)? How did that pod he was in get to earth in 5 minutes? WHO CARES? BSG 2.0 was okay at first, but it became a soap after season 1.5 and never came back. V was a decent remake, but the audience was just not there . Where is the NEW stuff? Transformers, Avatar, Terminator...how many legs do they think that stuff has before it is stumbling over itself?

 

[Gatefan1976]

I totally agree, Rac...why have they taken stuff that worked so well for US and then tried to re-heat it? What happened to the CREATIVITY? Has it been completely replaced by IMITATION?

There are yet more rehashes/reheating/regurgitated offerings on the horizon, including "When Worlds Collide", yet another Planet of the Apes movie and more. And that Sabrina movie...:puke:. Still the mose offensive of the remakes to me is Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes movie. That movie was PotA only in name and NOTHING ELSE. And they had the nerve to have Charlton Heston in the movie as an APE? It was ridiculous. Where was the story of the cusality loop? How did those apes build a human-like community on a moon (or wherever they were)? How did that pod he was in get to earth in 5 minutes? WHO CARES? BSG 2.0 was okay at first, but it became a soap after season 1.5 and never came back. V was a decent remake, but the audience was just not there . Where is the NEW stuff? Transformers, Avatar, Terminator...how many legs do they think that stuff has before it is stumbling over itself?

Simple
We are now going through the "dark age of hollywood" No one can really afford to make a mistake with the money involved and the less than stable US economy, so products that people "assume" will work get redone, reworked and rehashed. What some of us may call pathetic drivel, the masses suck up in droves because it happens to fit some pre-determined criteria or some other such foolish edifice. Companies simply aren't (for the most part) in a position to sink thier money into a risky venture. The other reason (imo) is the importation onto movies the TV idea of franchises (which goes back to trust of course). Gone or dying are the days of the "one off" movie, if someone sniffs the merest hint of more money to be made, you can bet your next dollar it will be exploited to all but ruination, and then within 5 years they will try to reboot and capture the magic of the first movie. Sad, but thats the way the sytem operates.

 

[Joelist]

I totally agree, Rac...why have they taken stuff that worked so well for US and then tried to re-heat it? What happened to the CREATIVITY? Has it been completely replaced by IMITATION?

There are yet more rehashes/reheating/regurgitated offerings on the horizon, including "When Worlds Collide", yet another Planet of the Apes movie and more. And that Sabrina movie...:puke:. Still the most offensive of the remakes to me is Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes movie. That movie was PotA only in name and NOTHING ELSE. And they had the nerve to have Charlton Heston in the movie as an APE? It was ridiculous. Where was the story of the causality loop? How did those apes build a human-like community on a moon (or wherever they were)? How did that pod he was in get to earth in 5 minutes? WHO CARES? BSG 2.0 was okay at first, but it became a soap after season 1.5 and never came back. V was a decent remake, but the audience was just not there . Where is the NEW stuff? Transformers, Avatar, Terminator...how many legs do they think that stuff has before it is stumbling over itself?

You mean you didn't like "Planet of the Lip Gloss?" (it's a sarcastic reference to Burton's Planet of the Apes).

Burton is strange. The same person who made a great Batman movie (Michael Keaton) makes a horrid PotA film. And please don't sat they're remaking "When World's Collide" - the original is very good and no doubt in today's Hollywood a remake will strip out all the Biblical references George Pal deliberately worked in and the film will wind up losing its whole allegorical basis.

 

[Rac80]

I quite liked the Clash of the Titans, but I bet people are gonna want to bite my head off of that one. Sorry, I thought it was an entertaining movie.

the original (1981) was horrible so maybe that remake worked!

 

[Gatefan1976]

the original (1981) was horrible so maybe that remake worked!

What was wrong with the original CotT?

 

[Rac80]

What was wrong with the original CotT?

First who told Harry hamlin he can act?
Second the special effects (even for the time!) were horrible!
Third- despite having some great actors (Olivier, Maggie Smith,) the acting and script was HORRIBLE as well.
this was one I saw in the theaters, mainly because I had taken a mythology course the previous semester.

 

[shavedape]

You mean you didn't like "Planet of the Lip Gloss?" (it's a sarcastic reference to Burton's Planet of the Apes).

Burton is strange. The same person who made a great Batman movie (Michael Keaton) makes a horrid PotA film. And please don't sat they're remaking "When World's Collide" - the original is very good and no doubt in today's Hollywood a remake will strip out all the Biblical references George Pal deliberately worked in and the film will wind up losing its whole allegorical basis.

I know this sounds cynical but would most of today's audience get any allegorical references?

 

[Overmind One]

I know this sounds cynical but would most of today's audience get any allegorical references?

I think not!

 

[Red Mage]

I know this sounds cynical but would most of today's audience get any allegorical references?

No. Probably not. People who look for allegorical references in media usually read books instead of watching movies with the exception of serious film buffs.

I'm still watiing for Hollywood to make a film adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and have the film about actually a guy turning into a bug completely glossing over all the metaphorical and allegory details of the novella. Probably would end up like a cheap rip off of The Fly. They've already made a film adapation of War of the Worlds that's actually about alien invaders and neglects all the anti-colonial and imperialism metaphors of the novel.

edit -Just noticed POST #400!

 

[Joelist]

Part of the issue is Hollywood needs to just stop with the remakes. Make ORIGINAL things. That would also help them because then they don't get measured against the (usually superior ) original.

Also, stop hiring activists as writers / producers/ directors. They are totally unqualified to create anything of quality and cannot resist injecting current day politics (always from one side) into their work.

 

[Joelist]

Kathleen Kennedy is strange that she is still employed as under her direction the Star Wars franchise has imploded to the point where the only place you see it is in streaming shows - because under her tutelage the movies collapsed.