These days, a movie being remade from a previous work is almost required, but once upon a time, creators were a bit more subtle. My Disney sci-fi fave-rave ‘The Black Hole’ is a loose retelling of ‘20,000 Leagues Under The Sea’; the original Pixar ‘Cars’ is really just a well-done remake ‘Doc Hollywood’ without Michael J. Fox; ‘Forbidden Planet’ is Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, with more Robby The Robot (and everything is better with more Robby.) Whether it’s ‘RIPD’ (‘Men In Black’ only dead) or Mel Gibson just redoing ‘Braveheart’ in the America Revolution and calling it ‘The Patriot’, faux remakes are nearly as plentiful as the regular deal, leading us to today’s recycled-from-a-2015-MS-QOTD query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is also fascinated by the multiple versions of ‘Titanic’ and Jeff Goldblum making hay out of a Vincent Price horror flick from 1958, asking: What well-done remake (or quasi-remake) makes for the best viewing/reading/bobsledding experience?
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Altered Carbon. Underneath the cyberpunk sheen of neon and rain it is a faithful reconsruction of a classic noir thriller.
One of the best is definitely Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood. Its McBeth in different setting with fantastic performance by the best samurai film actor of all time, Toshiro Mifune.
I’m a fan of the the other way around, when they take an established IP and do something different with it. When it works, it’s amazing.
The Battlestar Galactica remake (Which, if you want to feel old, you may realize the initial miniseries aired 15 years ago,) is probably my favorite of that category.
His Girl Friday takes the original play and movie adaptation, pulls a gender swap, and elevates cinema with overlapping dialog and improv. But I am a sucker for this tale. I’ll even watch Switching Channels.
One of my all time favorite is “Billy Jack Goes to Washington”, which takes a select few elements of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” combined with the usual Billy Jack flair. It is very much a product of it’s time and may seem pretty ridiculous to the kids these days, but I love it.