"What movies should NEVER be remade?" Topic

Because they are PERFECT!

The Princess Bride

The Godfather

The Music Man

Starman
The Last Starfighter
Dredd (The Carl Urban one)

Bridge too far
Zulu
Lord of the rings

The Wind and the Lion
The Lion in Winter (O'Toole/Hepburn)
Casablanca
The Maltese Falcon (Bogart)
The Third Man
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Howard/Oberon)
Captain Blood
Raiders of the Lost Ark

Parentheses indicate someone already remade the movie--or that the classic verson was a remake. I think it was Roger Ebert who said that you can remake a movie until you get it right--and then you're supposed to stop.

"Ah, Mrs Perdicaris. My Christian name."

Kelly's Heroes
The Great Escape

The African Queen

And maybe The Rock

Plus all the ones named above

The Man Who Would Be King

2003 ALAMO Thornton's Crockett is superb.

Scarface.

Casablanca
2003 Alamo – Agree on Thornton's Performance
The Longest Day
The Last of the Mohicans – Daniel Day Lewis

I'll add The Third Man and The Draughtman's Contract to the list.
The Music Man? Never even heard of it let alone seen it.

Beau Geste. The Gary Cooper version.

Pretty well, all of them. Most remakes are dreadful.

Zulu
Gettysburg
Star Wars IV: A New Hope
Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
The Sand Peebles
Lawrence of Arabia
Casablanca
The Graduate
It's a Wonderful Life
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Annie Hall

A Bridge Too Far would be worth remaking if they kept to the original style of production but corrected the many historical gaffes :)

Big Trouble in Little China
Jaws

The Ghost and Mrs Muir.
The Untouchables.

Correcting Old Contemptible:

It's just Star Wars. There was no bloody "Episode IV: A New Hope" nonsense when it came out. Lucas added that later when hubris took control of his brain.

Spartacus (Douglas)
Captain Blood
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Flynn)— everything since is barely worth watching (or not at all).
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Wizard of Oz
E.T. The Extra-terrestrial (original filming, with guns. The government is supposed to be scary in the film, even though they're really not nefarious).
The Four Feathers (Gielgud)
The Thief of Baghdad (Sabu) Though the original silent Fairbanks one is great, too.
The General (Buster Keaton)
Metropolis (silent)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Creature From the Black Lagoon
Flash Gordon (Von Sydow, Jones, Anderson, Topol, Blessed, Dalton)— Oh, sure, remake the original, but the camp in this one is perfect! Cheesy in the best possible perfect sense! And the Queen soundtrack!!!
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Mason, Douglas) Best version of the Nautilus ever created— simply iconic, inside and out.
Jason and the Argonauts (Harryhausen)
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (Harryhausen)
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Singin' in the Rain

Many of those mentioned…agree with pretty much all….also "Galaxyquest"

Agree with a lot of those, will add:
Serenity
Four Feather (1939)
Pork Chop Hill
Khartoum
55 Days in Peking
Battle of Algiers
Battle of Britain
Angels One Five
Dambusters

Would definitely disagree with LotR though…

Bridge on the River Kwai plus a bunch already mentioned

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The life of Brian

I should note that, given the current state of movie production, "perfect" is much too high a bar. I wouldn't want them to remake anything "tolerable" or above right now, on the presumption that the next version would be even worse.

Actually, in keeping with FDR's "bank holiday" could we get the current Chief Executive to declare a "remake/franchise holiday" to give the movie-makers time to get their act together? I'm thinking maybe five years would be about right.

I would add the following to the list
The Quiet Man
12 O'Clock High
Run Silent, Run Deep
Das Boot
Battleground

Schindler's List

A much shorter list might be "Movies that Deserve a Remake."

I hardly know where to begin with this topic, but I appreciate those who have stepped up! I would only forget to include a great many things.

Parzival,

I think Lucas can call it whatever the hell he wants to call it.

OC, it's worth noting differences. If you watched "Star Wars Episode IV" on Disney today, you would not be seeing the same movie shown in theaters as "Star Wars." George Lukas has modified the special effects, recut a few scenes and I think added a Hutt. If I meant "Star Wars" as originally released I'd say so.

Han shot first.

Would you believe I actually forgot that one? But then I'm one of the lucky few who has Star Wars on DVD, as opposed to Episode IV.

Barbara Hambly(?) has Spock say in one of her Star Trek novels, that a great work of art requires both a great artist and someone standing by him with a mallet to smack the great artist and keep him from "improving" the work once it's done. I think Spock stole saying from someone, but it is often true.

Exactly. Lucas can call the film whatever he likes, but the original film in actual theaters from 1977-1990 was Star Wars, as titled at that time by Lucas. So it was his film, as intended by him. And *that* film should never be remade. The film you cite is a different film, with added material unworthy of it, that actually made the film worse, not better.

Also, with regards to the original question:

Q: How many films should NEVER be remade?

A: Most of them.

Whether good or bad, it works both ways.

Pretty good list going
Most remakes are bad

A much shorter list might be "Movies that Deserve a Remake."

Start your own darn Poll, Skippy. I can't be the one doing all the work! 😄🍺

It's A Wonderful Life
Casablanca
Robin Hood (Errol Flynn version)
Singin' In The Rain
The Quiet Man

Not worried about any Star Trek or Star Wars movies being remade. Too universe specific.

Hey, I ain't no "Skippy"!

I don't start polls, I train them!

Seldom am I impressed with a remake.
Find a writer with original ideas and make a new movie.

Be charitable, TimePortal. They had to make two previous movies based on The Maltese Falcon before they got to the Bogart version, and you should see the count on The Hound of the Baskervilles before they got even to the Rathbone, let alone the Brett. The same is true of any of the better Austens. Even LOTR had an animated version decades before. Should we not have the Heston Ben Hur because there was a previous version?

Anyway, you can find a lot of debate about how many basic plots there are, but no question if you want original thinking, the movie industry isn't a good place to start the search these days.

Obviously, the concept of "remake" doesn't apply to Shakespeare.

No animated movie should become a live action remake.

I keep discovering new remakes that I never knew existed! Today, for example, I learned there was a new Green Knight move from about 2001-ish that surely can't compare in goofiness to the 1984 Sword of the Valiant? (Or boast the drop-dead gorgeous Cyrielle Clair.) And also a recent, dreadful remake of 1982-ish Clash of the Titans that couldn't possibly have as fantastic a Medusa sequence or the drop-dead gorgeous Judi Bowker?