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Which is more annoying, remake or re-edit? (1 Viewer)

Gordon Moore

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So JoBlo.com is reporting that due to the success of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-make...Michael Bay is focusing his sites on the Amityville horror....why????

What was wrong with the original? There's nothing new to bring to the story other than updated fx's.

:thumbsdown:
 

TommyT

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Yep, I agree. Remakes are more annoying. Sometimes you have to wonder, why do it in the 1st place?

What you also have to wonder about is why the hell they always pick the most godawful flicks to remake? I watched the orig Chainsaw Massacre recently & I found it pretty boring. It's just as bad as trolling the 70s looking for animated shows to make movies out of.
 

Seth--L

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It's one of those movies that's more interesting to talk about (academics love it) than actually watch.
 

Matt Stone

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What's to wonder? It's all about money.
All films are about money. It may not always the the primary motivating factor, but it's always a factor. I don't see a problem with remakes of good films, or bad ones. The remake doesn't change the fact that I can always watch the original...and you never know when someone will make a great film (see John Carpenter's The Thing).
 

ChuckSolo

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I agree, re-makes are getting to be really ludicrous, especially when they remake a movie that is less than say 25 years old. I just shook my head in disgust when someone on this forum reported that a "The Fly" remake was in the works. I just had to ask why. True, there are some great remakes, ala the already mentioned "The Thing." Someone also mentioned that "War of the Worlds" was in for a remake, now that one would be interesting since the TV series of a few years back was pretty lousy.
 

Nick Graham

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Amityville is such a horrible movie, especially compared to the book that kept me from being able to sleep in the sixth grade. If done faithfully to the book, it would seem like an entirely different movie.
I would be all for a remake. Some of the most unnerving stuff in the (admittedly hokey) book was made into hilariously bad unintentional comedy in the movie. Jodie the demon-pig, made flesh using two orange Christmas lights, anyone?

It's certainly not a horror classic like Psycho, so why the fuss?
 

Ken Seeber

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I have to say that re-edits are more annoying.

When a movie is remade, you still have the original in its unaltered form. I've never seen the remake of "Psycho" and don't intend to. The original remains as great as it has ever been.

But with re-edits you run the risk of directors disavowing the original versions we love and even removing them from distribution forever. See the "Star Wars" trilogy and "Apocalypse Now" as examples.
 

Robert Anthony

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Weird--the title of this thread has almost nothing to do with the question you're asking in the post.

Anyway, as far as Bay tackling Amityville Horror--I'm all for it. The first movie was garbage. The book was well written (fake as hell, as was proven later, but still a very entertaining read) and there's plenty to take from the book that you could craft into a much more entertaining movie than that waste of celluloid starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder.

As a matter of fact, the only problem with remakes is that people try to remake movies that are ALREADY great. Wouldn't it be easier to find an old movie with a great premise and horrible execution, look at it, find out what the mistakes are, and then go from THERE to finally do justice to the premise? Why don't more people try to make bad movies from the past as opposed to making good movies less good by "re-interpreting" them?

That's not to say I don't think they shouldn't be allowed to try. You never do know, and I'm always open to the idea that someone maybe actually DID something with already great material to make it just as enjoyable. But more often than not, tackling a classic and trying to "update" it ends up making the new product cloying and false feeling.

But I like to take it on a film by film basis, and if the film we're talking about is Amityville horror, then by all means, give him the greenlight. It can't hurt the turd the original is.
 

Steve Christou

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Wondering which remake is the closest in years to the original, not counting remakes of foreign language films. Red Dragon (2002) might win the prize, it was made just 16 years after the original, Manhunter (1986).

Winner of 'most pointless remake of all time' has to be Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998), a shot for shot copy of Hitchcock's still scary classic, at least if he had put his own stamp on it added a few ingenious tweaks to the story it might have been worthwile, but no, even the script was exactly the same.
 

Todd Phillips

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Robin Hood seems to be one of the most filmed stories, and it was filmed lots of times in the twenties and thirties. Just do an IMDB search on "Robin Hood". I think it is still done once every 15 or 20 years.
 

Dick

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And, of course, the entire Amityville business turned out to be a H-O-A-X. But, hey, I think it's great Michael Bay is concentrating on this sort of project...it's where he belongs, at the bottom of the barrel, instead of clobbering us with another vacuous and pretentious epic.
 

Gordon Moore

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Yup, someone should change the title to include "Amityville remake".
Nope, the title doesn't need any "re-editing" ;)

re-editing ala Star Wars doesn't bother me so much, however that said... I agree that they can mess with a classic (colourize, edit, whatever...) so long as the original un-altered version is still made available, even still, who is it for me to say what a particular director should do with his movie? MY opinion of course.

It's interesting to hear some director/producers like John Lasseter comment that movies are like children that go out to the world and are embraced by the people make it part of their own personal experience. That once it's released, you don't really own that movie any more. I'm paraphrasing but that was his take on his movies and I speculate that he isn't part of revisionism.

Remakes are annoying lately because they haven't been done very well. I guess your right that very few remakes take a really bad movie and do it right or different (in a good way).

As for Amityville, when did you guys see it? When I saw it in around around 1979 maybe early 80's I remember it being pretty scary, uneasy, a guilty pleasure...it's no exorcist mind you (little is), but pretty good in it's own right. It certainly spawned some crappy sequels :D

In it's day it was pretty scary movie, performances were over the top at times but it was a pretty decent little haunted house story (even if it wasn't a true story since the Lutz's (sp) recanted in the 80's, the house still had a fairly brutal past re. murders).
 

Kevin Porter

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Re-edit. If you don't want to see the remake you don't have to. But in the case of Star Wars, you're stuck with it. I suppose in some cases they are equally annoying though.
 

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