Most Anticipated Movies

[Daikun]

American Ultra

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Here's a spoiler-free review for The Boy and the Beast: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/07/the-boy-and-the-beast-is-the-anime-version-of-the-jungle-book/

It really sounds like my kind of movie.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I can't believe that I just found out about this, but The Sword in the Stone is getting a live-action remake: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/sword-stone-live-action-remake-809845

It's also coincidental timing for this announcement, since I recently read the original book.

Still, I'm rather skeptical given Disney's other attempts at remaking classic animated movies into live-action. Alice in Wonderland was awful, and I've heard just as bad about Maleficent, but to be fair, their most recent attempt, Cinderella, actually got pretty decent reviews, so maybe they're improving?

At any rate, this COULD work in live-action if done right, but that's a very big if.

[Avaitor]

I think this has potential to be a solid Once and Future King adaptation, given the director's history with a medieval setting, and Disney's (hell, the industry in general) increasing franchise-building boom. It also helps that at the end of the day, Disney's animated effort isn't that iconic, so they don't have to follow that as source material too much. Maybe this can work.

But holy shit, Disney REALLY needs to cut back on their announcements for live-action adaptations of their animated films. We're getting one every couple of weeks now. Even Marvel waited for like, 10 hits before they started going announcement heavy.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I'm not quite sure I understand Disney's current obsession for remaking EVERY SINGLE ONE of their animated classics. I mean, Cinderella and the Sword in the Stone; OK, maybe I can get that. But Dumbo has no business being adapted into anything else when it was already perfect and really only suited to film of the animated variety to begin with. And while we're on the subject of strange announcements by Disney, what's all this about in Aladdin prequel called Genies? I mean, not only is it unnecessary, but seeing as how Robin Williams was the one and only Genie and tragically lost his life to severe depression less than a year ago, it would seem to be in really poor taste to go through with a movie idea like that one.

[Avaitor]

On the top of my head, we're getting

• Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson
• The Jungle Book with Bill Murray and Ben Kingsley
• Alice in Wonderland: Thru the Looking Glass
• Pete's Dragon (technically a live-action remake, but I'll count it anyway)
• Tim Burton's Dumbo
• Winnie the Pooh
• Pinocchio
• Cruella de Vil
• Mulan
• Night at Bald Mountain
• Prince Charming
• Maleficent 2 (if they can get Angelina back)
• Genie, possibly leading into an actual Aladdin movie
• The Sword in the Stone

And maybe the Rescuer Rangers movie, if that's still happening. I'm surprised that there hasn't been talk of adapting The Lion King's stage show to film, or something for Stitch. But knowing Disney right now, these will probably happen soon.

[Foggle]

Outside of a few very specific exceptions (The Thing, Scarface, probably some others), I hate remakes. This also comes across to me like animated films have potentially been devalued in Disney's eyes, which I hate even more.

Creators should be looking to the past for inspiration, not so that they can literally tell the same stories all over again. This already sounds more out of control than America's hard-on for recreating Asian horror flicks a decade ago.

EDIT:

And while we're on the subject of strange announcements by Disney, what's all this about in Aladdin prequel called Genies? I mean, not only is it unnecessary, but seeing as how Robin Williams was the one and only Genie and tragically lost his life to severe depression less than a year ago, it would seem to be in really poor taste to go through with a movie idea like that one.

Also, this. What the fuck?

[gunswordfist]

Uh yeah, I glanced over his post and thought it was a joke. The hell, Disney?

And The Thing is the best remake ever.

[Foggle]

And The Thing is the best remake ever.

It is!

[gunswordfist]

Heh, I thought you'd say that but I still had to say it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The Thing
3:10 To Yuma
Scarface
The Fly
The Ten Commandments
The Magnificent Seven
The Departed
Ocean's Eleven
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Cape Fear
Nosferatu the Vampyre
True Lies
Insomnia
Scent of a Woman

Those are all good remakes. And if we're also counting well-received ones that I didn't personally care for, you could add King Kong, True Grit, Dawn of the Dead, and The Ring to that list.

So let's not just go around knocking remakes in general. They have a place in terms of modernizing and updating stories for a new audience, and can be great when done well. It's just that some movies shouldn't be remaid, either because they hold up perfectly fine, or because they just aren't well suited to a modern audience for one reason or the other.

But that doesn't mean that any remake is just a copy/paste job of the original. All of the ones that I listed brought their own unique visions to the screen, and thus stand on their own as great movies.

My point being that I don't like the "all remakes suck and shouldn't exist" argument. Instead, I feel that certain films are suited to remakes while others aren't. Thus, I can be intrigued by the notion of a SITS remake, but appalled by the notion of trying to redo Dumbo or Maleficent. The former makes sense because it's classic literature and much like a Shakespeare play, is open to multiple interpretations. The latter two, though, are specifically trying to emulate the Disney classic animated films into live-action, which just doesn't work.

[Foggle]

Obviously good remakes have existed, but I'm not a fan of the concept in general, unless the original work didn't live up to its potential. And hell, sometimes remakes of great films can even surpass the original versions. I don't think all remakes suck, and will admit if one is good, but more often than not, they don't end up so well. For every The Ring, there are 10 Pulses.

Also, I actually agree that The Sword In The Stone could make a cool live action film, but aside from maybe Mulan (which will be hard to top, since it's one of my all-time favorite Disney films), the rest all sound like bad ideas to me.

[gunswordfist]

Obviously good remakes have existed, but I'm not a fan of the concept in general, unless the original work didn't live up to its potential.

All that needs to be said.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I agree with you about the Disney remakes (and Mulan is one of my favorites as well), but was pointing out that the concept isn't inherently a bad one. It makes sense when it's done for a movie that can and arguably even should be updated.

And you can't really blame the concept of remakes based on all of the bad ones. That's the fault of bad directing, writing, or a combination of both along with other factors. I mean, if we're going to go by that logic, you could also say that about horror films. For every Exorcist or Evil Dead, I could just as well list you ten times as many crappy Ouijas or Halloween sequels. That doesn't mean that horror movies are a bad concept, obviously. I'm really glad that we got a movie like The Babadook last year, for example. There were a boat-load of shitty horror flicks in recent years as well, but it doesn't make the good ones any less great.

I pretty much view remakes in the same light. And of course I want more original content, but in modern Hollywood, it's a trend to recycle old ideas. In my case, I'd rather just celebrate the well done stuff rather than focus on what they got wrong.

[Foggle]

Yeah, I don't usually rage against remakes. I do prefer original material, but I think the sheer volume Disney has already announced just made me really annoyed last night for some reason.