Remakes

What is a remake?
A remake is simply a newer version of a previously released film, which bases itself on the film, not the source material. There has been made many films which are similar to each other because they are based upon the same source material, but these are not really remakes. Usually there are some differences between original movies and remakes, such as changes in characters, plot, or cinematography (different angles, order of events). Remakes are also known to have an inferior quality to earlier version by both critics and movie audience in general, although there are exceptions to this.

The reason for remakes
The remaking of movies have been practiced in Hollywood for ages, but in the last couple of decades it has escalated into a crazy circus, mainly because of the desire for instant success. In earlier years it was considered a sacrilege to remake certain movies and still is today by a lot of people, but today it is totally acceptable by the business itself to do so, despite the fact that most remakes receive poor critics and are box office disasters. Even so, remakes manage to earn just enough for executives to smile and continue the trend. The reason why movies are being remade is more likely because the movie executives think they can either make some money by doing a remake of a successful movie that no Americans have never even heard of, or they assume that people forget the original movies.

Different types of remakes
Remakes can be split up into two different categories, regular remakes and americanized remakes of foreign movies. A few examples of regular remakes include “Get Carter”, “Dawn of The Dead”, “The Hills Have Eyes”, “The Night of The Living Dead”, “The Planet of The Apes”, “The Fog”, “Assault on Precinct 13”, “The Amityville Horror”, “The Italian Job”, “The Jackal”, “Psycho”, “The Omen”, “12 Angry Men”, “King Kong”, and “Poseidon”. Note that there are many horror movies in the list, but the common factor is that they have all been remade with mediocre-to-crappy results.

In the latter category we can find French movies such as “Point of No Return” (original title “Nikita”), “Taxi” (“Taxi”), and “Twelve Monkeys” (“La Jetee”), where the first two remakes are utter crap and the originals are great, while “Twelve Monkeys” is incomparable really, as it is based upon a short-film.

Japanese remakes should be well known after the last few years. A few examples include “The Ring” (“Ringu”), “The Grudge” (“Ju-on: The Grudge”), “Dark Water” (“Dark Water”), and “Pulse” (“Kairo”), where all remakes range from mediocre to crappy quality, while only a couple of the original movies have such quality.

The only Russian remake I am aware of is “Solaris” (original: “Solyaris”), which was remade into a mainstream movie starring “George Clooney” with disastrous results.

The Spanish movie “Abre Los Ojos” was remade into the americanized version “Vanilla Sky”. “Penelope Cruz” even plays the same character in both movies. The remake is more or less of the same quality as the original, but “Noriega” is more convincing than “Cruise”.

Good remakes, do they exist?
There are extremely few remakes which live up to the original movie, or actually surpass it, but here are the few ones which comes to my mind:

“Man on Fire” (2004) is a remake of the movie with the same name from 1987. While the original is actually mediocre, the remake is great.

“Red Dragon” (2002) is a remake of “Manhunter” from 1986, which has almost been remade shot-by-shot. In this case the remake and the original are of the same quality.

“Insomnia” (1997) was remade in 2002 and has the same title. This is an americanized remake so the only difference is the names and places really. Still, the remake has the same quality as the original.

“Scarface” (1932) was remade and rewritten into the same and much more famous title in 1983 starring “Al Pacino”. While I have yet to watch the original movie, the remake is certainly a great film not to be missed.

“The Departed” (2006) is an americanized version of the Hong-Kong movie “Infernal Affairs” (2002). The original movie is great, but I suspect that the remake will be too. Especially since the remake is on such a good premise, being directed by “Martin Scorsese” and starring “Leonardo DiCaprio”, “Matt Damon”, “Jack Nicholson”, and more.

Conclusion
I think you should be able to draw your own conclusion after reading this article. The constant trend of crappy remakes, with very few exceptions, is the primary reason why Hollywood finds itself in such a rapidly deteriorating condition. Remakes are the spawn of satan and the unimaginative works of hacks whose sole purpose is to make money, spit on creative or artistical licenses, and not create something new and original.