You’ve most likely seen one. Your favorite movie is being remade. Naturally, your first question is: “What’s the point?”
Our question for today: is there a purpose (or lack of purpose) for remakes? I’m going to separate these remakes into categories and we’ll evaluate the different breeds.
Shot for shot remake: A remake is never truly identical, but some have come very close. Take the 1998 remake of “Psycho,” which uses the same camera techniques, angles and dialogue as the original; you could watch them simultaneously. Gus Vant Sant, the director, describes the film as more of an experiment: “What would happen if you literally just followed in the footsteps of any film,” he remarked, “If you followed every single line and cut?…Would it be the same film?”
Van Sant came to the conclusion; “It’s just not the same. You can never really get there. So it’s not in fact the same.” Many audiences seemed to agree. In spite of this “Psycho” being the ‘newer one,’ most prefer the 1960s version. “Psycho” (1998) proves an interesting point: You are at an inherent disadvantage. If you want a remake to stand out, it can’t be the same.
Remake in name: Of course, completely skewing away from the source material doesn’t automatically make a remake good. Take for example the 1998 version of “Godzilla”, a Godzilla movie by name only. For lack of a better term, the team Americanized the 1960s original: less nuanced, flashier, and marketed as a disaster flick. While “Psycho” (1998) was made out of appreciation for the original, “Godzilla” (1998) didn’t have any respect. The director, Roland Emmertich, said, “I didn’t want to make a traditional Godzilla. I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to make my own. We then asked ourselves what we would do today with a monster movie and a story like that- we forgot everything about the original Godzilla right there.” If you didn’t care about Godzilla, what was the point of calling this a remake?
Remake by the same mind: What happens when a creator decides to do a traditional remake of one of their original works? Did you know that Alfred Hitchcock, who made the aforementioned “Psycho”, himself remade one of his films, and not as a shot for shot remake? “The Man Who Knew Too Much” was released in 1934, and a remake was released in 1956. Hitchcock explained, “The first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional.” The two films are respectable in their own right, and watching both back-to-back highlights Hitchcock’s evolving preferences as a director. But in certain scenarios, a creator may remake their work into something distinct. In this instance, they create a ‘subversive remake.’ This type of remake starts as a realistically accurate adaptation of the original before jumping into a completely different direction, usually jumpstarting a new story. The TV series “Neon Genesis Evangelion” was remade across four movies. While the first part was a near shot-for-shot recreation of the first few episodes, the next three parts shift the story into a meta reflection on the franchise. Hideaki Anno, the creator, used it as a way to find closure for his series.
“The world is now a different place from back then,” Anno reflected, “I changed from back then. So, I thought that I could do something different and interesting from before.” These subversive remakes provide the creator an opportunity to subvert the mundanity of a remake.
A revised remake: There’ve been many remakes of adaptive works as of late that promise a closer correlation with the original work. A relevant example is with the HBO Harry Potter show, which promises to be more accurate than the original movies. The need for an accurate remake can be justifiable. The 1931 adaptation of “Frankenstein” drastically altered the public perception of Mary Shelley’s original, so having a movie to restore the novel’s themes was needed. And sometimes, an accurate adaptation can usurp the original. “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” is a remake of “Fullmetal Alchemist,” now with an ending closer to the original manga, and it has overshadowed the original’s relevance.
With the Harry Potter HBO show, it’s less reasonable when you consider the success of the movies. One of the cast members did share the remake’s further ambitions, “I think with this adaptation, you get to see so much more than the books,” Lox Pratt (Draco Malfoy’s actor) shared. “(…) there’s just so much more that you get to see.” While this could be interesting, what would it add to the perception of Harry Potter? If there’s nothing to add to the story, there’s no benefit to remaking the story.
Live-action remake: Live-action remakes are the most notorious type, mainly due to their high output from Disney. Films such as “Beauty and the Beast” (2017), “Aladdin” (2019) and “Little Mermaid” (2023) are painfully close to the original, while also revealing the downsides of converting animation into live action.You trade dazzling characters and environments for mundane green screen and computer-generated imagery (CGI). On the topic of CGI, there’s one remake I want to highlight: “The Lion King” (2019). The remake doesn’t use anything live-action; rather, it’s all CGI. In other words, it is an animated movie. In spite of the 2019 version sharing the format of the original, it looks muddier and emotionless in an attempt to be ‘real.’ And this film highlights the central issue of live-action remakes. Their existence reinforces the misconception that animation is for kids, as these remakes are created just to make the originals seem more ‘adult.’ This notion is almost as offensive as something like “Godzilla” (1998). But, not every live-action remake is like that. In fact, there’s the occasional project that is handled with care.
Perhaps the best example is the “One Piece” live-action remake. The team behind this project was interested in creating a remake that honored the original, resulting in a show that has the charm and enchantment of the source material. Eiichiro Oda, the series’s original creator, explains the reason they approved of this remake: “The global manga and anime industries already know about One Piece to a significant extent. But if someone tells you there’s an even bigger playground out there, wouldn’t you want to explore it?!” By optimizing One Piece’s lengthy manga/anime run and showing the best bits, the remake has already introduced the series to a whole new demographic. When there is a vision for a live-action remake, it can be good.
Remakes have the potential to be good or bad. It doesn’t matter the categorization, the only thing that matters is the creative vision behind the project. Who knows how many more remakes we’ll get, the only thing we can hope is that they have something interesting to say.