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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be sick of lazy movie remakes! (90s classic film gets a 2021 British makeover).

53 replies

SoniaFouler · 14/11/2021 09:23

Who even asked for this? Who thought this was a good idea? The reviews have been overwhelmingly negative from what I’ve seen.

I saw the main character in JoJo Rabbit and he was good in that. But this just looks plain awful though.

Thoughts?

OP posts:
DrHildegardeLanstrom · 14/11/2021 12:54

@the80sweregreat

West side story was advertised at the pictures the other day : why do a remake of this ? I don't understand why they can't come out with new ideas instead of rehashing old movies !
Shakespeare's fans thought the same
the80sweregreat · 14/11/2021 13:09

Yes, west side story was Romeo and Juliet 'remade ' of course !
My cynical side thinks Spielberg is involved in this remake because La la land was so successful!!

Icebreaker99 · 14/11/2021 13:39

The tag line "holiday classics were meant to be broken" says it all really!

So bizarre, it's bringing nothing fresh or different to the original story by the looks of it, apart from the burglars seem a lot less menacing.

SoniaFouler · 14/11/2021 14:48

Oh my god.

So out of interest I decided to look at upcoming remakes coming out next year and went on IMDb and I am horrified at how many there are. I’m just including the main ones/films I’ve seen but the full list is even longer than this:

An American werewolf in London
Dirty Dancing (ANOTHER one)
Drop Dead Fred (a slap in the face to Rik Mayall, quite frankly)
The Birds
Little Shop Of Horrors
My Fair Lady
Scarface
The Bodyguard
Gremlins
Hellraiser
Wicked (technically not a remake)
A Nightmare on Elm Street
I know what you did last Summer
Sister Act
The Sword in the Stone
The Fly

WTAF??

OP posts:
SoniaFouler · 14/11/2021 14:50

Whose idea is it to make all of these?? Who is asking for them, really? Especially when the new versions are always so much crappier

OP posts:
Werehamster · 14/11/2021 14:52

The original Gremlins was perfect. I imagine a remake will be all CGI and crap.

It's a shame because there must be some really amazing, original scripts out there which never get made because it's all remakes and action films.

SoniaFouler · 14/11/2021 14:53

@Werehamster

The original Gremlins was perfect. I imagine a remake will be all CGI and crap.

It's a shame because there must be some really amazing, original scripts out there which never get made because it's all remakes and action films.

Same with Little Shop of Horrors, I imagine
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Werehamster · 14/11/2021 14:56

I love Little Shop of Horrors!! Rick Moranis and Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist. A remake just feels wrong!

OhWhyNot · 14/11/2021 14:57

Some films absolutely do not need to be remade

Others can and be good as a modern version of the film

Home Alone 1 & 2 (haven’t seen others) are fine as they are (maybe they wanted to erase the Trump scene)

Rhannion · 14/11/2021 14:57

@MrsSkylerWhite

The remake of Dune has excellent reviews. The previous version was dire.
I walked out of the Dune remake which is something I’ve never done before. It was absolutely bloody dire , I went to the pub and finished a book as I couldn’t stand other minute.
starrynight21 · 14/11/2021 14:58

Movie studios are businesses - they need to make a profit in order to survive. Making movies is hellishly expensive, so remaking a movie which was popular the first time around, makes sense for the studios since the audiences are more predictable than for something original . I hate remakes but I can see why the studios do it.

OhWhyNot · 14/11/2021 14:58

The Birds was great because of the director Hmm

Who will be able to create such suspense

Rhannion · 14/11/2021 15:00

I think producers are running out of ideas, why on earth would anyone what to remake great films like My Fair Lady or Sister Act? Ridiculous

user1471517095 · 14/11/2021 15:04

An American Werewolf in London could not be remade any better. That transformation scene was brilliant. All it would be is CGI. And the amazing soundtrack too...

bossyboo · 14/11/2021 15:04

I watched this last night - not my choice - and I found it quite good to be honest. Nice and easy to watch and couldn't really be offended by it! Although did wonder about the mums accent Grin

Cardboardeaux · 14/11/2021 15:10

@Rhannion

I think producers are running out of ideas, why on earth would anyone what to remake great films like My Fair Lady or Sister Act? Ridiculous
My Fair Lady is based on the play, "Pygmalion". As is Pretty Woman, and plenty of others I'm sure Grin
SoniaFouler · 14/11/2021 18:22

@Werehamster

I love Little Shop of Horrors!! Rick Moranis and Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist. A remake just feels wrong!
They will probably have Ariana Grande as Audrey , I’ve seen her singing Suddenly Seymour a few times with James Corden on Car Karaoke Hmm (and if he is playing Seymour I will fly to America and XRebellion myself with glue to the floor of whatever movie studio is doing it). Especially because Rick Moranis doesn’t really act any more.

Half of the films are not even old and are still played on TV these days, I can’t fathom why anybody would attempt to make them. I understand what a PP said about studios wanting to be safe, but all the reviews always say “nowhere near as good as the original” so what’s the point!

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SoniaFouler · 14/11/2021 18:32

And regarding Dirty Dancing they only did a new version about three years ago and it was absolutely awful and nobody liked it, so to think “that was a really unpopular decision with audiences three years ago, so I have an idea: let’s do it again” Confused

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MrsToddsShortcut · 15/11/2021 01:20

American Werewolf in London is an absolutely classic, perfect film. So much of it is technically brilliant, and it also has a nostalgic charm that comes from the period it was made. The cigarette machine on the tube platform, the old porn cinema (not that either of those are good things, but neither exist any more either so it was a snapshot of the London I grew up in), the cast - I can't imagine a slaughtered lamb without Brian Glover and Rik Mayall in it.

It has such fantastically composed shots, music, atmosphere. I genuinely don't see how it could be improved upon, or why bother remaking it. Three words spring to mind: The Wicker Man (taps nose portentously)

GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat · 15/11/2021 01:49

Ugh how depressing.

I also get sick of the amount of comic book films, it's just so lazy. Yes there's an audience for them but half of them are crap. They'd be as well doing 30% fewer (which would still be loads) and focusing on quality!

I'm currently enjoying 80s/90s films all over again Smile

Werehamster · 15/11/2021 02:00

Apparently, the Little Shop of Horrors remake was to star Taron Egerton, ScarJo, and Chris Evans, with Billy Porter voicing Audrey II. I think it's been put on the back-burner though due to COVID.

LobsterNapkin · 15/11/2021 02:07

It does suck. I don't necessarily think remakes are weong, or new interpretations of source material. But man, if it's going to be worse than the original, just don't.

But, Hollywood is incredibly and increasingly risk adverse. The only new films that really get made for the theater are heavy action films with lots of CGI, potential for a series, appeals to a broad age range. Things some people might prefer to see on the big screen rather than at home so lots of loud sounds and snazzy effects. So Marvel, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.

But there is some call for a few other kinds of films, holiday films, maybe films you see with younger kids, something that will appeal to people who don't really want to see yet another superhero film.

So a remake of something popular, that's bound to work!

They also do this because they think the films will be improved by CGI. Which occasionally happens but mostly doesn't.

The other thing I would say is that a large number of young people are pretty much completely locked in their own time period. When I was growing up it was pretty common to see teenagers watch movies that weren't current. I remember at one point I decided to watch every Marlon Brando film, most of which had come out before I was born. That seems less common now, they have to much content to watch on tictok.

Kokeshi123 · 15/11/2021 02:43

twitter.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1460047571422892037

Very interesting discussion. Re music not films, but same kind of idea. Stuff really is getting less innovative.

LobsterNapkin · 15/11/2021 02:56

@RedHelenB

Just watched the 2020 remake of A secret Garden. Changed the period to WW2 for no apparent reason, messed around with the plot for no obvious reason and introduced a dog. Noooo!
This seems the tendency with remakes recently.

It's not like with Sherlock where they were purposfully playing with the setting in a creative way (though that ended up a right mess too.)

There seems to be no real reason for the changes. They don't make the story more compelling. The time periods don't always make sense.

They often seem to want to change the sex or ethnicity of characters but not really for any sensible reason and sometimes it doesn't really make sense.

They seem weird, random, and overly didactic. It reminds me of some films in the first half of the 20th century that took perfectly good classic books and tried to make them into morality tales.

Kokeshi123 · 15/11/2021 04:15

Making the SAME OLD films and randomly changing ethnicity of characters annoys me so much esp in British historical contexts, . It amounts to lying about the past--people in 19th century London were not colorblind and would have commented on non white people when they saw them. How are we supposed to understand the importance of modern day civil rights movements etc. if we all just pretend that actually things were just fine already in 1850?

If there is a desire to create more roles for non white actors and actresses, then think outside the box and create some creative content!

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