Movies they shouldn't remake

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Too many people are blinded by nostalgia. Not that I won't also fall victim, but I try to stay conscious of it.

I think nostalgia is an incredibly easy and lazy trap to fall into.
 
Ehhhh, I don't know. I loved and grew up on Flight of the Navigator, but a remake may not necessarily suck. I could see Will Smith's son playing the role of the kid.
 
Let the Right One In

Seriously, I just watched it and it's amazing. Surprisingly tender, too.

Then, I watched the trailer for the American remake. And honest to God, they lifted scenes directly from it almost entirely. NOTHING about it looks original.

I just want to say: Fuck North American audiences and their inability to enjoy a film with a foreign language. Not everyone, of course. Just the vast majority.
 
J

Joe Johnson

Let the Right One In

Seriously, I just watched it and it's amazing. Surprisingly tender, too.

Then, I watched the trailer for the American remake. And honest to God, they lifted scenes directly from it almost entirely. NOTHING about it looks original.

I just want to say: Fuck North American audiences and their inability to enjoy a film with a foreign language. Not everyone, of course. Just the vast majority.
If it makes you feel any better, I've never heard of the original OR the remake.
 
While watching Batman on tv this weekend, I realized that I have no sense of Nostalgia with this stuff. I appreciated it while I was young, but can recognize where it is campy now. As such, I don't care what they remake. It doesn't remove or detract from the original, so the worst case is that someone makes something forgettable that I can ignore, and the best case is that something awesome comes from it. Unlikely, but possible.
 

fade

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While watching Batman on tv this weekend, I realized that I have no sense of Nostalgia with this stuff. I appreciated it while I was young, but can recognize where it is campy now. As such, I don't care what they remake. It doesn't remove or detract from the original, so the worst case is that someone makes something forgettable that I can ignore, and the best case is that something awesome comes from it. Unlikely, but possible.
The 1989 film? Yeah, I saw that again recently. It does not hold up. I'm glad it opened doors, but on its own merits, it has not aged well. Even the FX are bad. You can see the matte lines when the camera pans from the miniature city to the alley sets, for example.
 
Also on Batman (1989) the big distraction for me, was the cars. My internal monologue screamed "BRUCE WAYNE DOES NOT DRIVE A 12 YEAR OLD CHEVY NOVA!"
 

fade

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Call me contrarian as usual, but I never much cared for his Joker. He's got good character, but he doesn't have the energy. Partly because, frankly, he's too old, even in 89. It almost feels like he doesn't really want to be there.
 
J

Jiarn

I couldn't disagree with you more on this sixpackshaker. Fat, Bald, Joker that wears pristine clothes and barely laughs at all? Yeah not even close to the gleeful mass-killer.
 
I couldn't disagree with you more on this sixpackshaker. Fat, Bald, Joker that wears pristine clothes and barely laughs at all? Yeah not even close to the gleeful mass-killer.
It is funny to look at clips of the two together, where Joker is 3 inches taller and 50 lbs heavier.
 


Okay then, here's that clip of him at the parade. You almost don't want Batman to stop them because everybody seems to be having such a good time.
 
J

Jiarn

I agree the character is alot of fun played by Jack, the point I was arguing against was that it was the style and feel of the same Joker that beat Robin to death with a crowbar. It isn't.
 
That clip just reminded me how very un-comic-joker he was.
Yeah, Joker totally wouldn't murder an entire museum full of people for the purpose of defacing the art inside with his visage. That TOTALLY doesn't sound like something he'd have done in the last 80 years.


I agree the character is alot of fun played by Jack, the point I was arguing against was that it was the style and feel of the same Joker that beat Robin to death with a crowbar. It isn't.
And THAT Joker doesn't sound like the same Joker that existed from 1940 all the way through till the 80's. It isn't the same God damn Joker. It's a different media entirely. It's a different take.
 
Wait, are you guys arguing over which Joker was a better movie-Joker, or which was was faithful to the comic? Not really the same thing.
 
J

Jiarn

I finally agree with Chuck. It IS a different type of Joker, however just because the media changes, the core character feel doesn't. Hence why Ledger's Joker was so well recieved by the community.
 
How much whining would there have been if Ledger had just played a carbon copy of Nicholson's Joker, anyway?

I liked the Dark Knight's Joker. For me, he got across that fear that he was unhinged and unpredictable. If you knew anything about him, it was only because he decided to tell you. And even then, he was probably lying!

And to contribute to the thread minorly: I'd heard a rumor that Tim Burton was slated to direct a remake of 1984. I haven't found any news of it since then, but that is one thing that should never ever come to pass. -shudder-
 
I liked both, I'm also glad they were both different. 1989 Batman was a different animal than 2008 Dark Knight.
 

fade

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I know I've said it a million times now, but I wasn't a fan of Ledger as the Joker. He made a great movie villain. But he was more like a Die Hard villain than the Joker. There was no joke.
 
D

Disconnected

I'm not a fan of the purple suit flair madness joker. He never feels sadistic just carnivalistic/crazy which, to me, lessens the power of its psychopathy.
This is from someone that watched cesar romero's Joker. Ugh.
 


I can see how a kid would like Cesar Romero's Joker, bit I don't think I could stand watching it for two and a half hours straight if he was in the Dark Knight.
 
Cesar Romero does a really good job of acting (and looking) more like Dalí than like the traditional comic book villain. It's not a bad take on the character, in my opinion. Dalí was known for being unpredictable, odd, doing crazy things, etc.

I feel like Heath Ledger's Joker* played less like a crazy clown character and more like a representation of the card itself. In cards, the Joker has no value of its own. Instead, it is wild and unknowable, and can assume whatever value it wishes by being treated as any other card. However, whatever value it holds is not due to the fact that it is the Joker, rather that it is a substitute for whatever card is declared. Ledger's Joker, then, is a cipher. Nobody knows what he is capable of doing...because he is capable of anything.

--Patrick
*Disclaimer: I haven't seen Dark Knight yet, so I'm going on reputation, here.
 
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