About 45 mins ago, I read that a live-action Hollywood adaptation of Akira has been in the works for more than 20 years, and it was apparently about to move forward.

About 30 mins ago, I read that the rights have lapsed so it's pretty much dead in the water. However, it looks like there was always skepticism for an American version, long before anyone thought to put Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell.

About 15 mins ago, I learned that Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest is about to be released this weekend. It's apparently a "reinterpretation" of Kurosawa's High and Low, which I've been meaning to watch but never looked up the trailer to until 10 mins ago. That made me think about how inherent Japanese-ness might be to Kurosawa's work - the pacing, the emotional tension bubbling under the surface, the unspoken contexts - and how much of that is translatable or indeed replaceable. (Also it made me compare the track records of the Akira Kurosawa+Tohiro Mifune combo to Spike Lee+Denzel Washington)

All of that made me arrive at this question - how many worthwhile remakes have there ever really been, whether or not they crossed cultures? I suspect the ratio of bad/mediocre to good/great is weighted heavily to the former. I know of a few famous examples (The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars) but I'm counting on you film buffs to broaden my horizons here.

For the purpose of this thread, I want to exclude movies that are second-attempt adaptations of a previously existing IP (e.g. Dune 2021 vs. Dune 1984), unless you feel it specifically aimed to be a remake of the first movie.

I just finished watching it (pirated, because I wasn’t going to give Disney money after all the controversy regarding Taiwan).

Uhh, it.. was bad? I mean I’m usually pretty positive especially about all the Disney remakes, and I liked the general darker mood of this Mulan version. But what’s with the 90s era cgi physics?

Also, and I get the Mulan plot line is entirely about how ridiculous gender-gating is in general, but whew there is a serious case of The Stupids around a lot of the tradition, much more so than in the original. This felt very tropey to me, convenient idiocy. I mean yes okay this takes place 1200 years ago but …

I appreciated not seeing mushu, but the Phoenix could have just been a lot lot lot more subtle.

And I’ve never seen snow look so much like party foam. This is the same studio that produced Frozen?!

Man, this movie felt like it was written, produced and directed in 1998. I would say I watched the wrong one by mistake but the original was actually good for its time.

What happened, did I miss something? This could have been an amazing movie full of great music, awesome choreography, and a super dark take on the original. Instead, I watched the equivalent of a machine learning exercise in turning anime to live action.

I was chatting with a friend today and this question came up - I drew a complete blank.

Aside from a few foreign movies retranslated into a completely different context, like Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, most remakes don't even approach the quality of the original, for my tastes.

Please enlighten me if you're aware of any superior, or even equivalent remakes that tell roughly the same story with the same characters.

Old stories are always being updated for lots of reasons, ranging from trying to appeal to new audiences to correcting toxic depictions to fitting better to the current social or political climate and more. There's nothing new there. However, one thing I find a bit odd lately, as in the last five years or so, is that a lot of this modernization is actually done pretty poorly in main stream media. We see more forced diversity, queerbaiting, and generally bad storytelling. Not totally sure how I'll do this yet, but I'm thinking of posting stories that stand out to me for better or for worst, starting with a classic.

There will be spoilers for both movies.

Cinderella (2015)

This is one I honestly didn't think worked at all. To be fair, I believe Disney's goal was just to sell a beautiful movie, and not a good story. This whole movie was gorgeous. It was also really boring, which I honestly believe is the greatest sin in storytelling.

Cinderella herself is "smarter" in this movie than the old classic cartoon. She's well read and has some agency, which honestly makes her more a damsel than the original cartoon for me. In the cartoon, she was an abused child that had no where to go. Her being trapped made sense. In the new one, she's sort of a fighter...who doesn't fight. I didn't get it.

Another issue is that Cinderella was really the only character they modified, which is why the story is still shallow.

Ever After (1998)

This is honestly one of the best modernization of the fairy tale I've ever seen. What worked for me, is that they fleshed out all their characters. Danielle, Henry, the stepmother, stepsisters, everyone! This makes for a much richer story, where characters themselves can be modernized, but still fit the time of the period piece. It's not about dropping a fourth wave feminist into an aged story, but about adding the dimensions that would have still existed then. Danielle is strong, well read, and obedient. Her servitude is not without reason. She's seeking a "mother", and her relationship with her stepmother is more than simply being a slave. The audience is shown the moments of kindness Danielle seeks from her stepmother.

My quick two-cents. I also find it interesting that Ever After came out over 15 years before Cinderella.

So what are you thoughts? Any good fairy tale adaptations you can mention?