Cynical copyright-maintaining or quick-buck-making remakes are obviously not great. We can all agree on that. I’m talking about remakes/reboots done by people who are passionate about the project and who want to do the best they can with the material. I think, in a perfect world, we’d have a new Godfather II or Goodfellas every few years, made by directors and writers and actors who bring their own interpretation to the material. I want to see Quentin Tarantino’s version of The Exorcist. I want to see Martin Scorsese’s version of The Godfather. I want to see Ari Aster’s version of Spaceballs. I want to watch Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman playing Grumpy Old Men.
Shakespeare’s plays are done all over the world all the fucking time. You can’t get away from the cunt. His work is remade and remolded into different forms, like West Side Story or The Lion King. The themes and story beats are stolen and remixed and given different spins by pretty much everyone. No one says “no, I only like the FIRST recorded version of his plays, anything after that is shit by default” or “why are they re-recording Macbeth in 2025 when we already have the 1889 Talkie version??”
Recorded media should not be treated as a final, authoritative version of anything. It should exist and be respected and all that jazz, but Taxi Driver isn’t going anywhere just because they make a Muppets version in 2032 (god willing). Being sold as a commodity doesn’t bestow a story with finality and immutable perfection.
I love films and I love having them on Blu-ray. I would be even happier if I had 10 other interpretations of my favourite films made by film-makers I respect that I could also enjoy. I want people to treat recorded media the way they treat plays; that is, they are never “done”. Storytelling is an organic and squishy affair. I believe recorded media, for all the good it brings, also brings a weird sense that once something is printed on a DVD or played in a cinema, that the process of storytelling is completed and that’s that, forever. It’s really, really weird to me.
Most people are tolerant of, and in fact get very excited by, the idea of cover versions of songs they already love. Many of us have cover versions of songs we like better than the originals. Most of us take cover versions to be tributes to the original artists inasmuch as they’re unique interpretations. Why can’t we have the same attitude toward movies or TV shows? No cover version is “needed”. No cover version is expected to either surpass the original or die on the vine. But when a film remake is announced, the comments are always “what’s wrong with the OG?” or “the OG is only 10 years old!” or “this isn’t needed, I wish Hollywood would have original ideas for a change” etc.
Let’s lighten up a bit and be happy that we’re blessed with remakes at all. A world without the concept of remade movies would be a very bereft one, in my [unpopular] opinion.
Why? If the story, writing, production, casting, acting, etc, have already produced an excellent/“perfect” production, why do it again?
The problem with remakes is the hubris of someone thinking they can do it better, when something is already excellent.
What value would there be in remaking The Princess Bride? Big Trouble in Little China? The movies you mentioned, The Godfather or Goodfellas. What gap are you trying to fill?
Now the older a movie is, the more likely an argument can be made, as technology changes (so ability to shoot a scene the way the original director wanted), or cultural norms have shifted (e.g. It Happened One Night).
But 99.62% of the time, a remake is done just because the producer can’t be bothered to find a new story, e.g. Overboard, a movie that was made in the mid-80’s, with actors who were at the top of their game, so budget wasn’t much of a concern, yet some doofus decided to remake it, and turn things around, which just doesn’t make sense.
As for music covers, Robert Plant said this about other people playing Stairway to Heaven: “I want people to do covers, I want to hear their interpretation”. Music is different than film, as it’s about the myriad ways you can balance complexity against familiarity. The more complex a song is, the harder it will be to cover without losing nuance - Avant Garde jazz is a great example (think Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue). Cover one of those songs and you’ll be challenged to create something even as good as the original (let alone better), just different.
In closing: part of what makes these great movies so great is their watchability. I’ve probably watched both The Princess Bride and Big Trouble in Little China 100 times each over the 40 years they’ve been out, and even with the most recent watching I’ve picked up on some nuance I’ve never noticed before. Same with It Happened One Night, and most Shakespeare productions (and I’ve seen some I’ve walked out of).