h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Title says it all really. They remade "Get Carter" with Sly Stallone in the Michael Caine role. Pointless, stupid, WHY?

In an ideal world, certain films would have an injunction placed upon them preventing directors from mangling the memory of them by remaking them with a new cast and wacky new special effects and stunt teams. My own initial, off the top of my head list of films which not only deserve, but probably actually NEED such protection (I'd bet anything you like that nobody will ever remake Toy Story, and if someone does a remake of a BAD film, who cares?), are as follows:

- Blade Runner
- Casablanca
- Leon ("The Professional" in the US)
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Forbidden Planet
- The Godfather
- Planet of the Apes

Damn. Too late with the last one. Never mind.

Any ideas for other films that should be put in the column marked "NEVER ATTEMPT TO REMAKE THIS!"?

On the flipside, what's crying out for a remake? What could actually benefit from modern effects and stunt technology, or even just a new cast? I for one would love to see "War of the Worlds" done *properly*.
Any ideas?

H.

Tho not for the reasons you cited, 'Tron' should be quietly buried without honours
Tho' I believe it's being remade...

Ring. We don't need several international attempts.

I was furious when I heard they were gonna redo Solaris, but when I found out Soderberg is directing, it kinda won me round...

Day of the Triffid's, some classic sci-fi, needs new outing. The last version commited the cardinal sins of being critically unfaithful to the book and changed the ending to give a "pseudo-christian-'we-the-lucky-few-who-survived'-ending". Not that strict book adaptions are the key - they aren't - but a little more fidelity than that please.

Ditto 1984.

Don't even ask me about The Bruce Willis hijack of "Day of the Jackal"

"Tinker not - perfection achieved" injunctions awarded to:

Godfather
Citizen Kane (they could Bill Gates or more likely Muroch & News Int. for the reference to the Hearst empire - it could happen, let's hope not.)

Up -and -coming remakes:

Manhunter (Silence of the Lambs pre-novel) might be interesting but
I also see that Rollerball is coming out soon. My expectations are low and I don't hold out much hope for the Time Machine being much cop either.

Something else that has me concerned if only for the sanctity of my childhood - is this trend to make movies of treasured Saturday morning cartoons - the up-a-coming Scooby Doo movie springs to mind. Rocky and Bulwinkle, Toim and Jerry a while ack I seem to remember was givien the 'talkie' treatment.

However something that might bear more promise provided they don't screw it up totally is this new view to adapting comic book characters to the big screen: the recent success of x-men (and gods willing x-men 2 ) oh and spiderman seems to be doign well. Hulk is out next year and shots of Ben Affleck in the Dare Devil are floating about the net.

Oh man, how bad was that Tom and Jerry film?

As I remember, the dialogue went something like this:

'Oh Tom, we have to help that girl!'
'Jerry, I didn't know you could talk!'
'You never asked!'

I rest my case.

I think that was an attempt at irony before Wes Craven made scream. On that note they should definately should not have killed Randy and 3 was a bad idea from start to finish.

Tom and Jerry: eurgh, I know I caught it on some chanel one and it was horrible. There is a trend though don't you agree for resurrecting treasured items and making them into films. I think The Avengers was definately a victim of this process. Any more you can think of?

Oooh, where do I start??

Have you seen the Italian ripoff of the Exorcist? It's so bad, you can't even laugh at it. Seriously.

I nominate War and Peace as a film that shouldn't be remade. The '50s version (starring Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn) is regarded by some as a classic, but that's not the reason *I* think it shouldn't be remade. I've never been able to watch this film because I've read and loved the book and the casting, IMHO, was completely wrong. Setting that aside, the reason I think this film shouldn't be remade is that the book is too darned long to fit comfortably into a film. OK, so you can lose chunks where Tolstoy gets philosophical, but the book as a whole is as long as Lord of the Rings, and they are currently devoting *three* films to getting that right.

Other than that: Once Upon a Time in the West and the 'Dollars' trilogy are, IMHO, classic westerns and shouldn't be remade. And there are some stories that have been done to death, with varying degrees of success. The Man in the Iron Mask is one where you can't do a decent adaptation of the book (although the Leo DeCaprio version wasn't too bad), and they should stop trying. The Count of Monte Cristo is another book that is too long to fit comfortably into one film, although I understand that the mini-series starring Gerard Depardieu was very good. But then, they had about 8 hours to tell a story that is normally crammed into 2 hours.

Can't say i have. This may be a good thing.

On a related theme - films that shoudln't have been sequelised:

Jurassic Park
Jaws

I worry what will become of Terminator 3 without Cameron at the helm and sans Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong.

Nothing - that's what will become of it. They should have left it well alone...

Films they should never remake:

Star Wars
Withnail and I
2001
Jason and the Argonauts
Schindler's List
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

on the flipside, two films that should be remade:

Highlander - I liked the original film, but there's a *much* better film in that concept

Tron - ah, c'mon

Leave Tron alone!

another Kubrick not to be touched:

Dr Strangelove (or how I learned to sop worrying and love the bomb)


- Mein furher! I haf a plan! "we-e-e-l meet again...."

Cheerful Dragon, "A fistful of dollars" is a remake anyway, of Kurosawa's samauri classic "Yojimbo" from three years earlier. As was Bruce Willis's "Last man standing". At least "Last man standing" credited the original...

According to IMDB it's been remade again as "Coyote Moon"... I haven't seen that one yet.

(http://us.imdb.com/Mlinks?0055630)

On the subject of "The Avengers", lets hope they don't ever do the same thing to "The Prisoner".

On the other hand The Fugitive worked rather well.

Two classics that should never be touched:

Hellzapoppin'
Airplane!

No-one csan touch the abrahms and zucker & zucker productions.

Airplane and the naked guns are classics.

A re-make that should NOT have been made:

Gone in 60 seconds. - Nicholas Cage is rubbish and the bad guy has a wood fetish. Need I say more?

Clive, have you ever seen "Hellzapoppin'"? It's a black-and-white musical, made about 1941, and many of the jokes used in Z,A & Z productions started out there... It was a movie of an Olsen and Johnson stage show which was too whacky to film...

You can often see copies of it on sale in bargain bookshops for £4.99 or less - highly recommended!

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0033704