I just found out there remaking The Wizard of Oz! Some films should be sacred this is one of them. What do you guys think any remakes you like hate?
Re-makes are like Beatles covers. You can’t improve on perfection. You can either make it interesting or royally frak it up.
Yesterday while watching the Yogi Bear trailer, they showed a behind-the-scenes highlighting who will be the voices of Yogi and Boo Boo (Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake, respectively). As I listened to each of their performances I thot, “They don’t sound anything like the characters.” My wife tapped me and said the same thing.
Then they showed the actual scenes from the movie and I realized, “They did a bunch of post-production on that voice-work.” My wife leaned over and asked, “Why would they even hire them if they weren’t even going to use their voices?”
I said, “They are using their names to sell the film, not their voice work.”
Her response, “Ooooooohhhhhh.”
Same thing here. Place Taylor Swift as Dorothy, Justin Timberlake as the Scarecrow, Steve Carell as the Tin Man, and Johnny Depp as the Cowardly Lion. 300 million, easy.
Oh god your right I hadn’t even thought about which celebrity of the minute would play Dorothy. I think there going to Frak it up hard.
I’m expecting it to crash and burn for precisely the reasons you and Talos have pointed out. Sometimes these things backfire, and with a film as beloved as The Wizard of Oz, which transcends its source material (yeah, you could say it’s not a remake but a new adaptation of the Baum novel, but nobody sees it that way), people tend to stay away.
I mean, does anyone remember the SEQUEL to The Wizard of Oz. Return to Oz?
All I remember about Return to Oz is the lady who took her head off and that it gave me the creeps.
I do…kinda. And, I remember reading a review which pointed out Dorothy didn’t smile the whole movie until the end.
Anyone else watched Tinman on Scifi?
I feel rather sceptical about a remake, in theory if you do something right the first time why do you need to do it again… but they’ll make a tidy profit on a new version so it’s kind of inevitable.
Having said that, I did enjoy Tinman, but that is in some part due to my Zooey-crush.
I have to agree Tinman was interesting but I wouldn’t have watched it in the first place if Zooey hadn’t been in it.
Let’s not forget Tinman was a sequel not a remake.
Remakes I did not appreciate
Rollerball…( take a social commentary story and remove the social commentary)
Planet of the Apes…( 'nough said)
Poseidon Adventure…
just to start…
two remakes I did like…
Heaven can wait…( remake of here comes mister jordon)
the Jazz singer…
I think ‘The Wizard of OZ’ is like ‘The Ten Commandments’ they are both Icons of American Movie History, and they both hold up amazingly well despite how frakking ancient they are. They are timeless and a part of our pop-culture, why anyone would want to mess with it is beyond me.
But then again some nitwit did a remake of the one movie I thought no one would ever dream of doing… ‘Psycho’. Does anyone even remember the remake??? I remember reading about the film being made and thought, “WHY? You must be the single most arrogant prick in the universe if you honestly think you can out do Hitchcock! How do you improve on perfection??”
I dunno, maybe some bean-counter saw how much money had been made off of the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ re-imagining and thought let’s do another classic children’s book!
I don’t think you can get the same kind of magical synergy that the original gathered together, the cast, music and dream like visuals. There have already been I believe two animated movie sequels, a live action sequel and a blacksploitation musical. Leave it be…
That’s weird thing about it. They filmed it shot-for-shot like the original. I mean, Huh? That’s like some weird homage. I don’t get it.
Special Editions, Never before seen footage, Colorize…not for me. Well, never-before-seen I can deal with as DVD extras. Even Director’s Cuts are a bit to be desired. I only like those if the studio frakked with the film and the director wanted to release it corrected.
To add to the good remake list Cape Fear, War of the Worlds and 3:10 to Yuma.
I know and that was Gus Van Sant that remade Psycho hes better then that I mean Milk, Good Will Hunting My Own Private Idaho!
A few more good remakes:
The Fly
The Italian Job
Ocean’s Eleven
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
The Birdcage (from La Cage aux Folles)
To Be Or Not To Be
Twelve Monkeys (from La jetée)
And a couple I personally despise:
Godzilla
City of Angels (from Wings of Desire)