Darth_Laudrup posted:I do not entirely agree with you. But i totally understand your arguement. I wasn't that disappointed by the Prequels, but I agree that they could have been much much better, and I feel that Lucas should really have found other directors to handle the movies. Like let's say Ridley Scott or Spielberg. I just wacthed an episode of the Clone Wars animated series, and it has been so dumped down that it sometimes feels insulting to grown ups. Yes I know that it is amímed at a younger audience, but sometimes I even begin to expect adverts for Star Wars Action Figures after the episode is over.
jedimasterbac posted:I guess what I mainly want to know is how a remake of the classic trilogy would damage the films.
Sanctuary_Moon posted:jedimasterbac posted:I guess what I mainly want to know is how a remake of the classic trilogy would damage the films. Goes back to r8hitman's original post really. Remaking the OT = doesn't hurt the original movies, if they are still available to enjoy. Tinkering with the OT = does hurt the originals, as they are buried under ever-increasing CG additions and silly changes that Lucas "always intended" to make but supposedly never had the time or money. To rub salt into the wound, the originals are then disavowed by Lucas and only released in an awful non-anamorphic format as "bonus material".
Merlin_Ambrosius69 posted:Remaking them does hurt the originals, because when they're played on TV and sold in video stores, audiences will come to accept these second-rate do-overs as the real deal.
jedimasterbac posted:Merlin_Ambrosius69 posted:Remaking them does hurt the originals, because when they're played on TV and sold in video stores, audiences will come to accept these second-rate do-overs as the real deal. Not necessarily. Unless something slipping my mind right now, I can't think of any remake where people have thought as the second version as "the real deal", even if the remake was good. More often than not, people will say something to the effect of "well the remake was good, but it certainly doesn't beat the original".
Merlin_Ambrosius69 posted:But this happens with inferior, or even passably adequate, remakes as well: Disney's Tarzan (1996). Vanilla Sky (2001). A Fistful of Dollars (196?). Ocean's Eleven (200?). The Manchurian Candidate (200?). The Ring (200?). Remakes of the OT films have a high probability of being a) inferior to the originals, and, worse, b) replacements in the public imagination over the superior originals -- simply because they would be newer, cast with hearththrobby young actors, and loaded down with fantabulous CGI effects.
Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted: Disney's Tarzan - No one I know of over the age of 12 doesn't realize that this, like nearly every other Disney feature, is simply Disney's take on a classic story that has been told and retold numerous times. In fact, look at the counter-example of Peter Pan: the live-action version did nothing to supplant the classic cartoon.
Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:Vanilla Sky/The Ring - Both were originally foreign films that had limited mainstream appeal due to the American chant of "I don't go to the movies to read [subtitles]!" In fact, I'd argue that more non-foreign-film-fans checked out Ringu due to its being the inspiration for The Ring than ever would have if the remake hadn't happened. The same goes for The Departed/Infernal Affairs.
Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:A Fistful of Dollars - This also falls under the heading of foreign original remade for American audiences (though produced in a foreign language and dubbed over in English - those Spaghetti Westerns had a crazy setup. I'd also argue that it's enough of a clever re-imagining that it gets to stand apart as something more than just a flat-out remake. Also, I'd counter-example with the Magnificent Seven, which basically re-did Seven Samurai the same way Dollars re-did Yojimbo - Seven Samurai's place in the annals of film has remained strong and perhaps even grown, while The Magnificent Seven has become more of a dated relic.
Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:Ocean's Eleven/Manchurian Candidate - Both of these films were advertised so heavily AS remakes ("Are Clooney, Pitt, and Damon the new Rat Pack?" "Where do we find Soviet-era levels of paranoia in today's world?") that anyone who missed the train on that probably also didn't realize that PJ's Kong was a remake.
Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:Merlin, I think you're confused about which option is going to make people forget what "Star Wars" really is or at least once was. If you remake Casablanca ten times, the original film is still going to be the same as it ever was. If instead of remaking Casablanca you make digital alterations to the image, sound and story to make it fit into a revamped continuity (or even to "fix" 66-year-old "errors"), you destroy the film and its place in history. With a remake, kids in the future can say "This is NEW Star Wars" and look back at the films that changed movie history and say "That's OLD Star Wars". Lucas, on the other hand, wants 'Star Wars' to be a singular, malleable catch-all and by saying "That's what it was supposed to be all along" he's attempting to destroy even the possibility to look at the very different versions of Star Wars ca. 1980 vs. 2008 and say "That's what Star Wars is now; this is what it was like THEN."
Merlin_Ambrosius69 posted:But kids under 12 will one day (quite soon!) be adults over 25.
Merlin_Ambrosius69 posted:Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:Vanilla Sky/The Ring Okay, but they're still remakes that have supplanted the originals in the mind of the public. That is my only point here. Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:A Fistful of Dollars...Magnificent Seven Fair enough. But they're still remakes which supplanted the originals in the mind of the public, of which phenomenon jedimasterbac and Drewton both avowed they could think of no examples.
Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:Vanilla Sky/The Ring
Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon posted:A Fistful of Dollars...Magnificent Seven
Merlin_Ambrosius69 posted:I should thank you for making my point for me. The public now thinks of these films as the definitive versions of these stories. If the DVD-buying public owns copies of these movies at all, it's the new versions they've bought, the new versions they see on TV, the new versions that exist in their minds.