Remakes and sequels

I'm not going to sit here and whine about Hollywood doing remakes and sequels out the ass because they can't create anything original. It's not like they've ever really been that original. They used to make serial westerns from old dime novels with pretty much the same plot. Even movies that seem original come from outside sources. The Internet Movie Database's Top 250 are headlined by The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Two novels and a short story. Scenes from the play Cyrano de Bergerac were first put on film in 1900 which was the same year that a Sherlock Holmes movie first came out. Of course, Shakespeare never said his plays were original ideas. He just took existing stories and made them into plays. I don't mind sequels if they are good. Star Wars did well with sequels (until The Phantom Menace and before the Revenge of the Sith rebound ), but Fletch should have stayed at one movie. I also don't mind turning a TV show into a movie. Why not? It's a long episode, and you can add things that you can't on TV. Like gratuitous nudity. You shouldn't do it if it's going to suck. Like Lost In Space. I also don't necessarily have a problem with remakes if it's done right. The Magnificent Seven was a remake of a Japanese film about samurai, but that doesn't mean I like it any less. Actually, that's an example of a remake done right. The plot really didn't change, but the time and place did as they moved from feudal Japan to the American west. Another time a remake is a good idea is The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead II. The Evil Dead II is technically a sequel, but it's really a remake with better production values. So, it's enjoyable and led to one of my all time favorite sequels - The Army of Darkness.

Unfortunately, Hollywood is taking good movies and remaking them as inferior films. There were two this year that I haven't seen (one is new). The Longest Yard I may watch when it hits cable. I don't know. I just can't see Adam Sandler as Paul Crewe or James Cromwell as the Warden or Chris Rock as Caretaker or anyone doing it as well except maybe Burt Reynolds as Nate. In fact, seeing the previews, I have to agree with a review that I read (can't remember who, sorry) who said Reynolds (at almost 70) still looked more like a football player than Sandler. The other is The Bad News Bears. This was one of my favorite movies from childhood, but I doubt I'll ever watch the remake. I refuse to see Billy Bob Thornton as Walter Matthau's Morris Buttermaker (great name, great actor, great character). From the reviews I read, it sounds terrible. How can you make Tanner Boyle politically correct? I heard that they used non-actors who might be better at baseball. Great idea. The original had Tatum O'Neal who had already won an Oscar. It had a guy, Jackie Earle Haley, as Kelly Leak who could have still been playing a Little Leaguer when he was 20. Do the scenes of Little League Baseball need to look that realistic? I don't think so. The main problem with remaking it is: what's the point? Everything that made the original good has been done to death. How out of the norm is a female Little Leaguer now? I played Little League in the early 80s. Most of the teams had girls. Kids acting like dicks and cussing? Every movie has that. Team of mismatched kids who bond together to succeed? I could spend all day and not come up with all of them. From what I've seen, this was a movie that just shouldn't have been made.