Name the Worst Hollywood Remakes of Good Movies

[JohnnyTheFox]

I refuse to watch The Equalizer. TV series. No way. Such an obvious example of virtue signaling.

Denzel was great in the Equalizer movies.

Agreed 100%. Watched a little bit of the series when it came out but could not stand it. Horrible.

 

[ESisback]

I refuse to watch The Equalizer. TV series. No way. Such an obvious example of virtue signaling.

Denzel was great in the Equalizer movies.

Me too. Hard to believe Queen Latifah, World renown assassin.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

Total Recall just didn't have the umph of the original.

 

[LonnieElam]

. M. Night Shyamalan screwed it just like his earlier FIRST R-rated movie, The Happening, so badly that I wrote off all his movies from that point on.

M. Night Shamalamadingdong is the worst. I don't know how he's able to keep making movies. The 6th Sense was his only decent film. After that, I watched The Village, which was so dumb, I never watched another one of his movies again.

 

[Roadtrip635]

I do not think I have ever seen a "good" movie rebooted years later with a movie that was better or even as good as the original.

I have seen bad movies that were rebooted that were better than the original (ex: Batman - The Dark Night trilogy was way better than those older Batman movies) and I have also seen sequel movies that were better than the original.

What Hollywood fails to realize is that many of the older good and great movies had a lot more factors going for them than any rebooted movie has.

We live in a world now where there is so many entertainment options vying for our time that even a great movie will struggle to garner more than a short-term passing compliment.

There are countless movies and TV shows I loved growing up that I never go back and watch now because they can never bring back the feeling and experience they provided when I first saw them back then.

These days, movies, TV shows, etc. have to stand on their own merits even if they are reboots.

If they really want to reboot movies from the past, they should take the concepts, settings, characters, etc. from those movies and simply write new stories for them rather than simply recreating a higher production quality of the same story.

I guess it's the difference between a remake and a reboot, it dependent on each individual property. Keaton's Batman was pretty good, but the subsequent sequels grew increasingly worse. You can reboot a character like Batman or most TV series and write new stories for and still keep within the concept of the original idea, but sometimes you can't really write a new story because venturing too far away will ruin the idea.

With remakes, you can tell the same story, but sometimes they need to be modernized, tweaked, or just a new interpretation (ex. Scarface, The Italian Job, True Grit, All Quiet On The Western Front)
You are right that whether remake or reboot it has to be able to stand on it's on merit, the problem is capturing the essence that people enjoyed about it.

 

[Creeper]

I did a quick scan and saw Total Recall, Ben-Hur, Carrie and Conan The Barbarian were already posted but I will add:

Fantastic Four
Ghost in the Shell
Planet of the Apes
The Amityville Horror
The Day The Earth Stood Still
The Manchurian Candidate
The Omen
War of the Worlds

The Last Airbender is actually a remake of the superb American television anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender. M. Night Shyamalan screwed it just like his earlier FIRST R-rated movie, The Happening, so badly that I wrote off all his movies from that point on.

This is a good list but I admit I did not see some of the originals.

Planet of the Apes remake was awful. All the sequels were even more awful. Not that watching Charlton Heston overact was much better but it was delightfully cheesy. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a classic. The remake was more than stupid. Why would an aliens race travel millions of light years to tell us not to pollute our atmosphere?
War of the Worlds, with Tom Cruise was hard to watch. The TV series started out okay but got lost in itself. The final season and ending lost me completely.

Never liked the Omen of movies like it. If there is a Satan, there must be a God, right? So if God banished Satan, as a fallen angel, from heaven why would he let Satan screw around with us? There have been some good Satan movies where it balances the power of God and Satan.

 

[Creeper]

Worst Movie and TV Re-Makes, either way, that I have even bothered to see:

• War Of The Worlds (Movie and Cable Show)
• Wild Wild West
• Hawaii 5-0
• Batman (The Original Movie Re-boot)
• Maverick
• The Flintstones
• The Beverly Hillbillies
• Bewitched
• The Green Hornet
• Lost In Space
• The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
• Planet of the Apes (2001 Tim Burton film)
• Twilight Zone: The Movie
• The Shining (TV Movie)
• Dennis The Menace
• Shaft (S. L. Jackson)
• Fahrenheit 451

That said, I was kid for most of the 60's, and I consider the 1960's The Golden Age of Television for kids.

In the category of the Best Re-Makes:
The Thing
Zero Hour
The Fugitive

I liked Wild Wild West with Will Smith. I thought it was fun. I liked Lost in Space, the Netflix series, better than the original TV series, which was too corny to watch.

Fahrenheit 451 was a typical updated for our times remake that just does not do justice to the book.

The original Man From UNCLE was a great show with great characters. The movie was just stupid.

 

[ESisback]

I liked Wild Wild West with Will Smith. I thought it was fun. I liked Lost in Space, the Netflix series, better than the original TV series, which was too corny to watch.

Fahrenheit 451 was a typical updated for our times remake that just does not do justice to the book.

The original Man From UNCLE was a great show with great characters. The movie was just stupid.

I liked Henry Cavill in it. Hope he’s the next Bond.

 

[Creeper]

I did a quick scan and saw Total Recall, Ben-Hur, Carrie and Conan The Barbarian were already posted but I will add:

Fantastic Four
Ghost in the Shell
Planet of the Apes
The Amityville Horror
The Day The Earth Stood Still
The Manchurian Candidate
The Omen
War of the Worlds

The Last Airbender is actually a remake of the superb American television anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender. M. Night Shyamalan screwed it just like his earlier FIRST R-rated movie, The Happening, so badly that I wrote off all his movies from that point on.

I thought the Happening was the worst movie ever made when I first watched it, but year later my wife told me is it supposed to be kind of tongue-in-cheek. It is supposed to be stupidly humorous. The next time I watch it I kind of saw that too. If you look at The Happening like that it changes everything about the movie. Although I guess one could argue that Shyamalan does comedy poorly too.

 

[Tabascocat]

Guess I’m one of the few who liked Cruses’ War of the Worlds

 

[DallasEast]

I liked Lost in Space, the Netflix series, better than the original TV series, which was too corny to watch.

It is scary just how much better Netfilix's Lost in Space is in originality alone over its predecessor in my opinion. The remake replaced the original's use of situational farce-like comedy with a combination of well-timed observational sarcastic comedy within the drama.

I though Parker Posey re-did Dr. Smith so well that I forgot Jonathan Harris' performance altogether. The kids, especially Will, are not portrayed as idiots. The adult mission specialists and engineer are confront and contemplate every obstacle in a sound analytical fashion. And the Robot? That character was reimagined to a degree that is beyond awesome.

The only thing the original and remake share is that both are set in a really good family-like environments. Still not certain why the series did not extend beyond three seasons.

 

[ESisback]

It is scary just how much better Netfilix's Lost in Space is in originality alone over its predecessor in my opinion. The remake replaced the original's use of situational farce-like comedy with a combination of well-timed observational sarcastic comedy within the drama.

I though Parker Posey re-did Dr. Smith so well that I forgot Jonathan Harris' performance altogether. The kids, especially Will, are not portrayed as idiots. The adult mission specialists and engineer are confront and contemplate every obstacle in a sound analytical fashion. And the Robot? That character was reimagined to a degree that is beyond awesome.

The only thing the original and remake share is that both are set in a really good family-like environments. Still not certain why the series did not extend beyond three seasons.

The Netflix version was outstanding!

The original series was corny, but the first few episodes of year one were actually very well done for their time.

 

[DallasEast]

I liked Henry Cavill in it. Hope he’s the next Bond.

Daniel Craig will be hard to follow in my book but I can get behind Cavill or Ibris Elba as the next 007.

 

[DallasEast]

Guess I’m one of the few who liked Cruses’ War of the Worlds

I can sympathize. I mutter the same thing to myself every time someone posts not appreciating Man of Steel.

 

[triplets_93]

My gripe is changing a character to appease certain militant groups in the pc, “all inclusive” sort of way—gay Superman, female Bond, etc., etc.

George Takei, who played Sulu in ST:TOS, was adamant that his character not be re-written/updated as a gay character. He said the original character he played was a straight male, and that any re-boot should remain faithful to the original character.

 

[triplets_93]

Daniel Craig will be hard to follow in my book but I can get behind Cavill or Ibris Elba as the next 007.

I vote for Ibris as the next "Bond." He can pull it off!

 

[Streifenkarl]

I can sympathize. I mutter the same thing to myself every time someone posts not appreciating Man of Steel.

Haha yeah me too. It was such a good movie imo. Don't understand the hate. And I'm not even into the whole Superman lore.

War of the worlds was ok. Not good, but not really bad either.

What do you guys think of Superbad? When I first watched it in my early 20s, I laughed my arse off and for a time it was the best movie I knew. Now, rewatched it twenties years later and hardly laughed at all. This is proof of me finally getting old.

Damn you time!

 

[joseephuss]

I vote for Ibris as the next "Bond." He can pull it off!

My only negative about Ibris is he already 50. I'd still enjoy seeing him as Bond, but I'd prefer a younger person that can put together at least a 3 movie arc.

 

[dsturgeon]

Haha yeah me too. It was such a good movie imo. Don't understand the hate. And I'm not even into the whole Superman lore.

War of the worlds was ok. Not good, but not really bad either.

What do you guys think of Superbad? When I first watched it in my early 20s, I laughed my arse off and for a time it was the best movie I knew. Now, rewatched it twenties years later and hardly laughed at all. This is proof of me finally getting old.

Damn you time!

I think superbad falls in line with all the crew that sprang from freaks and geeks, it is all the same type of humor. I would guess you were of the same type of humor at that time. I am still suprised that jonah hill is one of my favorite actors

"it would be nice to see"

 

[alicetooljam]

Im surprised Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp) hasnt been mentioned yet.