I hate remakes

[wiseheart]

And the icon I chose for this post will go a long way to tell you which one I hate most passionately.

It's not that I'd hate them on principle, mind you. I understand the basic idea of bringing something closer to a new generation by using the ways of expression said generation is used to. Hell, one of our greatest authors, Mór Jókai, needs to be re-edited for the young ones to understand because not only was 19th century Hungarian considerably different from the language we speak now, people also used a great deal of German, French and, above all else, Latin in their daily speech - if they came of a certain social class, that is.

What I hate in remakes is the fact that their makers almost always turn the new version into something the original was not. Into something less ethical, something less straightforward - perhaps something less naive, or so they think, but it more often than not means killing that specific something that made the original enjoyable.

Best (or worst) examples:
- Battlestar Galactica
- JJ.Abrams's "Star Trek" travesty
- The A-Team
- Starsky and Hutch
- "Enterprise", to a certain extent
- almost all Star Trek films, but most definitely the TNG ones
- Torchwood, starting with Series 3 - yes, I know it isn't exactly a remake, just always, because it didn't really had anything to do with the first two series; or with the Whoniverse as a whole
- and my latest disappointment, McGyver.

I'm really, really upset about the McGyver remake. I only saw about twenty minutes before I got so disgusted that I turned the telly off and never watched it again.

The basic phiosophy of the original was that you don't always need to shoot people to get things solved. Mac always used his brains and his creativity to do things, and even if it was sometimes a bit far-fetched, it was also endearing. Plus, he wasn't a self-absorbed snot. This new one is - and he just runs over the place with a machine gun or whatnot, behaves like a real brat and makes me wish to punch him in the nose.

Another favourite violated. I'm really, really sad.

Comments

[red-day-dawning.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more. Re-makes always (often?) lose so much when compared to the original material. Must confess I love TNG, though. The Abrahms re-makes fascinate me, even as they appall me. Spock! Uhura! What hellish travesty is this? How could he do that? And don't even start me on Spock/Uhura. The horror! And yet I can't look away...

Very interested in what you say about the famous Hungarian author. Do you agree with the re-editing for younger readers? Couldn't the differences be resolved with footnotes for context? I confess I don't like the notion of re-editing an author's work. And yet I feel as a teacher you would have much more practical insight than I. Is re-editing Mór Jókai effective in helping the books reach a wider audience? How interesting!

[red-day-dawning.livejournal.com]

I only managed a short view of the new McGyver before turning away in disgust. And Torchwood Miracle Day must be the greatest disappointment ever!
What do you think of the idea of the new female Doctor? I love the idea. I enjoyed Capaldi as the Doctor, and yet lost all interest in the series. Maybe I'm just getting old? i haven't regularly watched Who since Matt Smith left. Do you follow the Torchwood audio series? The ones Barrowman, Miles and Ianto-actor (whose name I have forgotten) did more recently?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

My favourite Doctor is Christopher Ecclestone, although I like Jon Pertwee, too. The others are too silly or too overdone for my taste. I only saw a few eps with Matt Smith, but he wasn't my cup of tea, either. And David Tennant made me crawl up the walls.

I only ever saw 20 minutes or so of Miracle Whip. And I refused to watch Series 4 of Sherlock after the first half an hour. Horrible remakes are bad enough, but disgusting character assassination, performed by the showrunners themselves is even worse.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

They didn't change anything but some of the wording. I once got my hands on the original versions and even as an adult, I had real difficulties to understand them, although I'm füllentett in German. So yeah, editing the stuff was a good idea, especially ad some of the books are mandatory on upper primary.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I'm prepared to give most of them a go (I remind myself of the British show Humans, which was a remake of a foreign language show, and also of the different versions of Pride and Prejudice that I love, and... give them a go) but i'll admit that years ago when someone bought the rights to Blakes 7 and talked about rebooting it I was frothing at the mouth at the very idea.....