Quickly, Let's Name 50 Films That Can Never Be Remade and Save Their Souls
The dust has settled and it looks like they're really going to remake Logan's Run. With Ryan Gosling. Yep. You might remember that I mocked the original Logan's Run the other day. I was positive we didn't need to revisit it, actually! And yet, Logan Run's bastardization is a minor loss compared to what could be. The occasion calls for a rally: Let's name 50 movies that can't be remade for the following reasons: 1) They're perfect the way they are and belong in a time capsule; 2) they will seem grotesque in a 2011 update. Please add your own. Together, we can save some lives.
I've only chosen movies that I think are susceptible. The world knows you can't remake Gone With the Wind, right? Right. I won't list it. Add your own suggestions at the bottom. Feel free to print these out and cross them off as Hollywood finds their preserved corpses and eats them for a between-meals snack.
1. Grease
2. Working Girl
3. Young Frankenstein
4. National Lampoon's Vacation
5. Hoosiers
6. Ghostbusters
7. Thelma and Louise
8. Strangers on a Train
9. Vertigo
10. Notorious
11. The Lady Eve (I've decided this doesn't count.)
12. Some Like It Hot
13. The Goonies
14. Saturday Night Fever
15. Aladdin
16. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
17. Clueless
18. Scream (It's about the only horror movie that hasn't been remade yet. You may make your Candyman argument elsewhere.)
19. Victor/Victoria
20. The King of Comedy
21. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Ryan Murphy, hear this.)
22. Dirty Dancing
23. Tootsie
24. Witness for the Prosecution (I've decided this doesn't count.)
25. Airplane!
26. Desperately Seeking Susan
27. Cool Hand Luke
28. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
29. Heathers (We can stop this.)
30. Weird Science
31. Rudy
32. High Noon (Haha. This.)
33. Network
34. They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
35. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
36. A League of Their Own
37. Top Gun
38. Paper Moon
39. Ordinary People
40. Animal House
41. Terms of Endearment
42. Clue (That Gore Verbinski version seems like it won't be based on the original.)
43. The Breakfast Club
44. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
45. Stand By Me
46. Rosemary's Baby (Sit down, Michael Bay.)
47. Chinatown
48. Laura
49. Bullets Over Broadway
50. Mrs. Doubtfire
51. What the hell. Gone with the Wind.
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Comments
I'm totally with you on Dune.
Breathless....oh wait.
The Wild Bunch? Dammit.
Hmmm. I'd really prefer if they did not remake Abel Ferrara's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Do not even consider "Raising Arizona". If that gets touched somebody is going to hurt.
Once, before they were so overexposed, I thought Betty White and James Franco could be extraordinary in a Harold and Maude remake. Oh well!
I would personally hunt down and kill anyone who dared remake Sweet Smell of Success.
Silent Running.
Good call on The Goonies. If it gets remade, I'm burning down Hollywood-and walking away from it in slow motion, emotionless, while a guitar wails.
I am shocked that you would think, even for a minute, that Gone With the Wind is untouchable. This is a shameless and moronic world we live in, my friend. There is no idea that is so idiotic that it can't be beyond the pale.
Cool Runnings, Sanka was too perfect haha.
THey did remake Working Girl with Jessica Simpson and called it BLONDE AMBITION
You'd think Back to the Future would have made it though, especially in place of a movie like Scream. That movie definitely does not belong there, it's pretty recent and they're still making sequels for it. You could have used a better example there.
How about NO REMAKES huh? Enough recycling storylines.
The Princess Bride - a remake would be inconceivable!!
So glad you said this. Because as I was reading the list, I kept thinking "The Philadelphia Story," and then had to remind myself of High Society, which was godawful, to me.
Also, in that vein, can we say that the Steve Martin Pink Panthers are not really remakes of Peter Sellers'/Blake Edwards' Pink Panthers? Or, alternatively, can you make Steve Martin's versions disappear?
Oh, forget it. I'm going to say it anyway: Nobody should remake any version of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau movies. There.
The Caine Mutiny...Bonnie and Clyde...Stripes...
I totally agree re Sweet Smell of Success. Perfection!
You know what? GWTW is *totally* remakeable. Seriously. Its reputation is wholly overinflated; what it is more than anything else is melodramatic spectacle. Given the right cast, I don't see why that wouldn't translate to a pretty decent remake - on the understanding that Baz Luhrmann isn't allowed anywhere near the project. Or Michael Bay.
(That's "Michael Bay shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the project", not "Baz Luhrmann shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Michael Bay". ... although that too.)
Good call on The Princess Bride, though. I will fight any fool who attempts it... to the pain.
The Great Escape
STAR WARS is the number one movie that should never ever be remade. no one could ever replace harrison ford as han solo or james earl jones as the voice of darth vader.
Harry potter shouldnt ever be remade either
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Blues Brothers
It's A Wonderful Life
Citizen Kane
The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai
Smokey & the Bandit
Feed this beast on Twitter, hashtag #FilmsThatCanNeverBeRemade
they basically already remade a bastardized version of Logan's Run anyway. Just watch The Island with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson... Pretty hard not to notice all the similarities there.
Already Done: Grease II, Ghostbusters 2, Lampoon Vacation Europe & Xmas, Scream 2,3,4,5...., Airplane 2, Ninja Turtles 2 &3, etc. These already bastardized their originals.
Jaws?
Jaws?
I cant believe no one has mentioned the Wizard of Oz. If Hollywood touches that movie, I'm done. Just straight up done with it all. Im getting fed up with recycled storylines glossed over with CGI. Bring back the storytelling in movies, for God's sake.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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