Just saw the 2000 remake. I swear, all the flaws that I noticed from the original were repaired in the remake. It was great, they really did their homework this time. Although I guess the acting and directing are probably still better in the original. But anyway, check out the remake if you haven't.
shareWow...that's interesting. I had the exact opposite reaction.
I watched the remake thinking, "great I don't care much for remakes but at least now they can correct all those errors". But I was so disappointed. I mean aside from changing the wife to a kid and some minor dialogue changes it is all the same script and plot.
What mistakes did you see fixed?
Get yer cursor off my spoilers !
Okay, major spoilers now...
Well the original had those couple of stories at the start. They spent extra time on Blackie and Groeteschele. The remake cut those way back, which was good I thought because they didn't really fit with the flow of the movie.
And yeah, the wife to a kid like you said, BUT, they had the kid say something personal this time, which the wife didn't. People were really annoyed by that in the original. AND, they showed us the phone conversation with the boy while he's still on the ground, so then it's like, "Oh, the Russians could have gotten that private info from that," so the pilot could STILL think the Russians were fooling him. I thought that was handled pretty well.
Then at the end of the original, that voice-over about "the matador", they removed that in the remake, of course there was no depiction of the dream in the first place.
Oh yeah, and the president, in the remake, actually tried to read the code to the pilot, to prove that he was the real president.
Ahhh..okay. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. All of those things were well made changes actually. Yep. I was thinking more along errors in tactics and technology. Yes, I actually like those changes that they made, just wish they had made more.
Get yer cursor off my spoilers !
Maybe one of you could elaborate on just what some of these "flaws" were. As it stands, it sounds like you both are trapsing close to being rivet counters.
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You, Mr Neville, are the refuse of the past. You are discarded!
I thought the remake's changes were pointless, as was the remake itself. I usually like Richard Dreyfuss, but here he was obviously nervous and on the verge of line-flubbing.
EDIT: watched it again tonight and I retract the above statement - on second viewing, I thought Dreyfuss did great, and I also found the movie to be at least as good as the original.
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To Bones:
How on Earth would the Russians have been able to listen in to that phone conversation between Clooney and his kid? How could they pull that off? There's no way they could tap into a phone on a U.S. Air Force base. And for them to somehow tap into his home phone also defies credulity.
SOVIET AIR DEFENSE COMMANDER: Comrade Premier, I have a great idea. Let's tap George Clooney's home phone so that if he and his kid have a conversation down the road where they share some secret dialogue, we'll be able to use that to try and get him to turn back when he gets the order to attack our capital.
SOVIET PREMIER: Is good idea. I like. Call Radio Shack and see if they have latest wiretap equipment.
So, the flaw from the 1964 original was not repaired in the remake. Because I believe Clooney knew he was speaking with his actual son and yet he went through with the bomb run anyway- for what reason, God only knows. He had to know it was legitimate. He recognized his son's voice- the look on his face and the way he says "I love you. You're my boy" indicates that. And he had to realize that no else, especially the enemy, could know that secret message. So it wasn't repaired. Because even though it should have done the trick, it didn't work.
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I think the scene in the T-Bird showed that while the Professor seemed cold and heartless, he still a highly moral man and just because he knew the facts didn't mean that he had to like them.
I also think that some of the changes in the remake had to do with the fact that when it was broadcast, it was done LIVE. Very unusual in the modern television world. They had to cut out some stuff, like the dream sequence, because they couldn't do it live.
Soylent...I loved your "rivet counters" comment. I made a similar observation, even using the example of "counting rivets" in another thread on this board to describe people obsessed with technical accuracy in movies made 50 years ago.
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I'm just a patsy!