Remake it with George and Brad

isn't there always?

I agree with John Huston - well, that sounds SO important, now. No, sorry, I don't play in that league.

But if you are going to remake something you should have a plan to really improve on the original. Unless there is general consensus that George and Brad are far superior to Newman and Redford as actors, forget it.

I've heard people say that movie xyz needs to be remade because today's kids wouldn't understand why the characters don't just reach for their cell phones rather than looking for a public phone. Right, and for the same kids we will remake Ben Hur with modern race cars - come to think of it, haven't they? Just under different names? Okay, forget the thought ...

In addition to the cases where a good story was butchered in a first attempt and a remake is needed to bring out the value of the plot there may be a few other cases where I would consider a remake valid.

These are primarily situations where the original version suffered from a lack of technology - this could be FX or presentation technology. Or issues relating to censorship?

Let me give examples to illustrate - some fictitious.

FX - Was it George Lucas who said that films 1 - 3 of the Start Wars series had to wait decades before the animation technology was available to make them look like what he had envisaged? Okay, so he didn't make the imperfect originals, he just waited until he had the right technology.

Presentation - imagine for a moment that "Dances With Wolves" had been made with the means available in the 1930s - it would be justified to redo the buffalo hunt scenes in wide screen and much higher resolution - the way they were done when the movie as we know it was actually made. Again, I suggest an imperfect original that never was. But you get the idea. And, in fact, that is - more or less - the story of King Kong. Or it could have been if the newer attempts had really been an improvement.

Censorship - this seems to be a moot point today, because, if anything, we have relapsed almost back to the fifties here. But there were times - maybe around the seventies - where we could see plots being developed with a much more liberal approach than before, simply because societal trends, such as sexual relations, could be presented in a more liberal fashion than before (or, as it turns out, after.) Today, as in the past, there are those that claim that "just hinting" was much more subtle, artful and thus "erotic" than just "bluntly showing it." - Well, here and there, maybe. But often "just hinting" proved to be clumsy or stuffy and a less restrained approach worked much better, at least in my opinion. Today, on some occasions, we have the "Director's cut" - occasionally unrated - to give us the story as, in the view of the artist, it should be told, while the "theatrical version" caters to those who prefer the restrained approach.

So, it is four in the morning now and I am watching a rerun of "The Sting" that just started. So, for now, this is it from me; I need to concentrate now. And, George and Brad - forget it!

Remakes are absurdly out of control today. THE STING was perfect as is, and won "Best Picture". Why in the world must it be re-made? The story takes place in the 1930s, so in this regard it's a timeless capsule piece.

Remaking this might, in fact, be the worst idea that anyone has had about anything.
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