The Longest Yard comes out today. It's a remake of the classic Burt Reynolds flick from back in the day. I heard two coworkers talking about it briefly this morning. One stated that they had read reviews saying that it may be as good or better than the original. This was the young guy. THe older gentleman's response, unsurprisingly, was 'Why would they remake that movie? It was a classic.' Herein lies our discussion.
Point 1. Movies are remade to update them for the current movie generation. If my 12 year old nephew watched the 70's version of this movie he would be bored out of his little hormonal skull. Show him a movie with people he knows ie Sandler, Rock, Nellie, the chick with the new boobs from Friends and he is entertained.
Point 2. If the movie was such a classic, shouldn't someone else take a stab at it. At worst, the movie flops and the original classic remains at the top of the hill.
Point 3. I think older generations dislike seeing remakes because they have become so attached to the original version. If the remake turns out to be as good as or, movie heavens forbid, better than the original then the original loses some of it's shine. The loss of shine causes the older generation to realize just how much older and possibly disconnected they are becoming with the changing of the times.
Okay, tired of talking about this now.....
3 comments:
X,
I do this all the time to my kids.
I say...Oh, this is just a remake of the one way back when.
Sometimes the remake is good...very good, but I am a fan of old movies.
They rarely will watch one with me, and then kicking and complaining. Their loss!!! lol
Jan
There is nothing wrong with making a remake as long as enough time has passed, and it's not a cookie cutter remake like Gus Van Sant's Psycho.
I don't mind remakes or updates or whatever on principle. But I do mind when they totally bland something down for the clean PC audience.
That said, I am hoping this is decent. I enjoyed the Brit remake (Mean Machine starring Vinnie Jones from Snatch) immensly.
And if it does suck, I'll just go home and pop in the real deal to get the memory outa my head.
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