Everyone has seen one and everyone has heard one. What are movie(s) that never should have been remade and what are original song(s) that never should have been covered by another musician or band?

Give this CD a listen sometime and you’ll have the answer to the music portion of the question.

btw, I have a copy I’m selling if anyone wants to buy it

Oh and movies, I don’t even think I need to see Michael Bay’s version of Friday the 13th to know it has a good shot at the title.

The worst song I heard re-made was that one that went “Lovin you, is easy cause your beautiful…....” then had “na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na na na na na na na,” then a shrill shreek “Ohhh Ohhh Ohh oh Oh Oh.” Most irritating son I ever heard.

Bringing Up Baby
The Graduate
The Godfather I & II (III wasn’t necessary in the first place)
Die Hard series
Indiana Jones (see above re: Indy 4)
Star Wars (IV-VI)
and many more.

The Hitcher No one can replace Rutger Hauer.

@eponymoushipster: So far as I’m aware, none of the movies you listed has had a remake.

@cwilbur hrm. perhaps i misread the question. ohwell.

never remake those movies, world!

<bows><runs away>

Movies:

The Wicker Man
Planet of the Apes
The Stepford Wives
Rollerball
When a Stranger Calls
The Pink Panther
Poseidon

The Grinch who stole Christmas
The Cat in the Hat

The Pink Panther.
Remaking that, and casting Steve Martin as Inspector Cluoseau is sacrilege. Clouseau died when Peter Sellers did.

Oh yeah Chuck- That was terrible.

The Wizard of Oz (the Wiz)

OZ with Michael Jackson didn’t go over quite as well as the original
edit:darn, got beat out, (you @dog)! and it was Wiz?

That remade Psycho was a complete waste of time and resources. It really was.

That recent cover of “Give a Little Bit” by Supertramp

Paul Anka’s Rock Swings is so bad it’s brilliant.

@AstroChuck you do know they’re making a sequel? it’s coming out i think this month or next.

The Bad News Bears and The Omen

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-
Never thought that Depp could impersonate Michael Jackson

@Dog: lurve… wish I could give you two *s for that one

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! For real, was that necessary???

As far as I’m concerned no movie should ever be remade. If it was great the first time around why mess with it? If it was horrible why bother?

I don’t have a problem with cover songs though. I love every single version Heard it Through the Grapevine (Gladys Knight, Creedence, and Marvin Gaye). While Twist and Shout was fabulous by The Isley Brothers, The Beatles’ version is at least as good. The worst cover song ever has got to be Limp Bizket doing Behind Blue Eyes. He even added his own verse, his whole version is just awful. Another stinker that comes to mind is You Really Got Me covered by Van Halen.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis remaking Cruisin by D’Angelo for some movie called Duets… they seem to play it a lot in the grocery store and it’s not really representative of the original…

no bueno…

There’s gonna be a new Bonnie and Clyde.

Starring Hillary Duff.

I see no reason why a movie shouldn’t be remade. Plays are staged again and again with different casts. Sometimes it is interesting to see a new interpretation. I want to see new material far more often than remakes, but the occasional remake is fine with me.

That being said, it is certainly true that you are biting off a lot if you try to do a new version of a classic. It’s hard to imagine another cast in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ or ‘Roman Holiday’ or ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ or ‘Casablanca.’ Most filmmakers wisely leave these alone and look for other vehicles.

One of these “untouchable” classics was ‘Sabrina’ with Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. Sydney Pollack made a pretty good updated version with Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford in 1995. I’ve watched it several times, but if I could only watch one version, I’d choose the original.

Grace Jones never should have done a cover of “What I Did For Love”!!!

All By Myself by Celine Dion. Faith by Limp Bizkit. Locomotion by Kylie Minogue.

You know what? I don’t think there are any. Of course there are many cases when I hated the remakes, but generally I think that they offer a different perspective on the original song/movie. Even if they are far inferior, they still show us how hard it is to get something right. And in most cases they are just a different product, aimed at a different audience. I spent ages hating Madonna’s version of “american pie”, but then I realised it’s a Madonna song, so who cares? The people who listen to that would probably never get to hear the Don McLean version, so as far as Madonna songs go, it’s a good one. And it might even initiate someone into “proper” music.

@funkdaddy: you do mean “Cruisin’ by D’Angelo” which was actually itself a remake of the original by the legendary Smokey Robinson right?!

@sndfreQ – I did not know that… thank you. Anything Smokey can do about the grocery store? I don’t mind writing letters ;)

the original is excellent by the way… imo

Songs: OOOH I forget his name but some guy remade Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris”
And the Dixie Chicks remade “Landslide” from Stevie Nick and I really like the Dixie Chicks version also, but my mom (who is a die hard Stevie Nicks Fan) doesn’t allow me to like it. She is probably just kidding, but I wish it never came out in the first place haha.

@tabbycat—Plays being staged again and again is not the same as a movie being remade. The play still has the same original source material – its script. That doesn’t change. When movies are remade, the first movie becomes the source material.

My thoughts on some of the films mentioned so far:

- The original version of The Wicker Man shouldn’t even have been made, let alone the stupid remake.

- The Stepford Wives remake was more a reimagining. The source material was a horror/satire novel. The 1975 film focused on the horror. The 2004 version focused on the satire. It would have been brilliant if not for the production issues and plot holes. :(

- I actually preferred the remake of When a Stranger Calls to the original. The original had crappy dialogue, an overbearing soundtrack, no characters that I cared about, and was utterly without suspense. The remake is more suspenseful and the focus is on the girl being terrorized instead of the weird (and, in the original, boring) stranger. And the stranger is scarier because he isn’t seen at all until the end and there’s no insight into his psyche.

- Psycho should not have been remade, especially the way it was. You can’t improve upon Hitchcock, which the filmmakers obviously knew, since they just reproduced it shot-for-shot in color with different actors.

- The Gene Wilder film was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The Depp movie was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They’re separate adaptations of the book. The newer one is not a remake of the older one.

And a few waste-of-time remakes off the top of my head that haven’t been mentioned yet: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Scarface, King Kong (seriously, I love PJ, but when a remake is twice as long as the original, something has gone terribly wrong), The Hills Have Eyes, The Fog, Romero’s zombie flicks, The Hills Have Eyes, Les diaboliques… Just about every Asian horror film ever…

normally when people cover nirvana songs it doesnt work… sorry if Im being (something i dont know the word for)
I dont know but it doesnt seem to have the same emotion or something.
But having said that Seether do very very good ones =D
the can create lots of the same raw emotion stuff…

Oh wow this is a good question!!! Movies that shouldn’t have been remade. hmmmm…....land of the lost? charlie and the chocolate factory? I LOVED the WIZ by the way!! Great movie!!! there are alot of other movies but I cant think right now! Songs…...Korns cover of Cameos WORD UP!!!! haha

@Ashalah i love korn’s cover of word up! =P But i guess i might just love it because i love so much of their other awesome stuff

I used to be a HUGE KoRn fan. Then I realized that all Jonathan Davis did was sing about the same stuff over and over on every album. The last album I actually Enjoyed was follow the leader. Also once Head “FOUND GOD” and left. They have been terrible since!

@Ashalah – the Unplugged album is what killed the appeal of Korn for me.

that too

yeah the ‘finding god’ thing and leaving is not so good
but i kinda like what is being repeatedly sung about (?)
normally what makes me stop liking stuff is getting bad associations/ memories with it after a bit but what the hell….