MovieChat Forums > True Grit (2010) Discussion > Among the greatest remakes of all time(?...

Among the greatest remakes of all time(?)


I put the Coen brothers version of "True Grit" among the greatest remakes of any movie. It is right up there with "The Maltese Falcon" (John Huston) & "His Girl Friday" (Howard Hawks' remake of "The Front Page")! Does anyone else want to start a thread discussing their favorite remakes. (There's not enough room here to list the WORST movie remakes of all time!;.))

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Both the 1969 version and this version are based on a novel.

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I know. The book is an excellent book by Charles Portis. "The Maltese Falcon" is also based on a book by Dashiell Hammett. "His Girl Friday" is based on the play "The Front Page" by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (father of "Hawaii Five-o's" [1968–1980] "Dano" James MacArthur). What I was talking about was a movie remake of an original. The original "Maltese Falcon" starred Ricardo Cortez in 1931. John Huston remade it in 1941 w/Humphrey Bogart. "The Front Page" was made into a movie in 1931 by Lewis Milestone, and was remade as "His Girl Friday" by Howard Hawks in 1941. Hawks changed the 2 main characters from 2 men (as in the play) to a man and a woman who were divorced.

What I wanted to know in this thread is if anyone has a favorite movie that was a remake (especially since most remakes are terrible!).

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Ah interesting thread - I haven't seen the original True Grit but this version is my new favourite movie of all time. I'm also a fan of the Maltese Falcon so I guess I'm one of those people! ;-) I had no idea the Maltese Falcon was a remake. My comment would be that True Grit 2010 is a newly inspired version rather than a remake.

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I never thought much of it, but one of the few things the original did better – John Wayne’s delivery of the line, “Fill your hands, you sonofabitch!” remains classic. Both are great films, but for entirely different reasons.

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John Huston remade it in 1941 w/Humphrey Bogart.
That wasn't a remake according to your definition. John Huston completely disregarded both the 1931 film and Satan Met a Lady when made his film. He went back to the book for inspiration. Right down to the dialogue.

--
Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.

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nope...uses the same dialog in a lot of scenes, no one actor save for the girl actually stands out as being amazing, the end was forcefully trying to be deep and emotional even though the original ending was way deeper and better....damon was miscast terribly...sigh...both were about a 7/10 for me, with this edging the original out a little only cuz I never really cared for Wayne's drawl....but at least I understood what he said unlike almost every guy in this film.

Best remakes are The Departed, Cape Fear, Batman Begins, Ransom, Thomas Crown Affair, Italian Job, Insomnia...hell, I'll choose a western for ya...3:10 to Yuma, and Ocean's Eleven....to put those in the same category as this is kind of disgracing them.

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OK...let's take these one at a time:
1) Batman Begins: I agree, I should have put that one on my list.
2) Italian Job: The original's cliff hanger ending is what put's it on top of the remake. Any movie with both Benny Hill & Noel Coward automatically scores high with me!
3) Why do people always hate on the original Ocean's 11? My brother and I always had conversations while growing up about the ending where all the money burns up in the coffin. That will always make it better than the remake for me. (Probably too much nostalgia involved there! I know, hating on the Clooney/Pitt Ocean's is blasphemy, right?)
4) On Scorsese: The Departed-agree, Cape Fear-disagree. I will admit to you that I am a big Robert Mitchum fan, and when he plays scary (like Cape Fear, or The Night of the Hunter) nobody is better (not even Robert De Niro-again a little blasphemy).
5) Thomas Crown Affair: Pierce Brosnan over Steve McQueen? What are you nuts?
6) 3:10 to Yuma: A wash (dead even).
7) The rest: Either I haven't seen the original or the remake or both.

OK...nobody is commenting on my picks-His Girl Friday & Maltese Falcon. Does everyone agree? Hasn't anyone seen the play The Front Page? As great as the play (and first movie) is, Howard Hawks improved it and that's why he was a true genius!

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How about the 1959 remake of Ben-Hur? The original was a silent film made in 1925. I've seen it and while it's not a bad movie the Charlton Heston version easily surpasses it.

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I'm sorry, but what is Batman Begins a remake of? I thought it was a completely original story.

How are we defining 'remake' here? I thought of Batman Begins more as a 're-boot' (one of my least favourite buzz terms of the past decade, right there with 're-imagining') than a remake. Does this mean the new Captain America is a remake of that piece of crap from the early 90's?

I always assumed a remake was essentially a film that was a newer version of an old one, not a just a new film that has the same characters but bears no actual relationship to any previous film.

Personally - and I may be alone here - I don't even tend to think of something like True Grit as being a remake as I think of the term. They are just two films that are based on the same novel.

If we are being liberal with the term 'remake', I'd have to say my favourite remake is probably Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, a remake of the 1978 Ralph Bakshi film. Undeniably better in EVERY way possible.




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I thought this movie was great -- it made me interested in reading the book, which has since become one of my favorite novels (well, it's somewhere in the top 25-30 or so, anyway ). Almost everything about the film -- the story, characters, setting, music, cinematography, etc. -- attracted me to the story and made me feel that I was watching something that could have taken place in America during the 1870s. Oddly enough, I had seen the 1969 adaptation several years before, and although I remember liking it, it didn't inspire me to pick up the novel, and I forgot many plot elements over the years. In hindsight, my relative lack of interest at the time was probably due to my age; the story simply didn't resonate with me the way that it does now. Also, I'm not entirely sure of this, but I think the book was out of print at that time, so I would have been likely to encounter it only through public libraries. At any rate, I think the release of the new film has greatly helped to draw attention to the original novel as well as to the classic 1969 film. It's a win-win scenario.

If I had to criticize anything in the movie, it would have to be that certain scenes are a bit darker and more cynical than their counterparts in the novel. It's been mentioned before, but in the hanging scene in the novel, the convicted Native American man actually is allowed to make a final statement before he is executed. I expect that this was changed in the film in order to highlight the pervasive racism of that era, and it is a nice bit of black humor, but it also changes the tone of that particular scene into something much nastier (even more so than it already is in the book), in my opinion. There are probably a few other specific scenes that gave me the feeling of the film being more cynical, but on a more general level, I feel that turning True Grit into a film slightly changes the way Mattie's character comes across. Don't get me wrong -- I love Hailee Steinfeld's performance. It's just that, in the novel, we see so much of what goes on inside Mattie's head, and although she is not a perfectly likeable character (which is why she's so interesting!), our being privy to her innermost thoughts -- or at least the ones she reveals to us -- makes us care more about her troubles. This is essentially why I feel that True Grit the novel needed to be written from Mattie's perspective -- she's so hardnosed, intense, and a little cold that she could easily come across as unbearable if we couldn't see her internal workings. In the movie, most of her thoughts have to be conveyed wordlessly, which works to an extent, largely because an excellent actress was in the role, but it cannot possibly match the richness that is in the book.

There were a few other changes in the film that I could quibble with, but I understand the reasoning behind most of them and the simple fact that a book cannot be translated page-for-page into a screenplay. LaBoeuf leaving Rooster and Mattie at various points along the way was definitely not in the book, but it added to the tension of the story and gave LaBoeuf a stronger conflict. To me, this change is reminiscent of some of the alterations that were made for The Lord of the Rings scripts, especially the part in the film where Frodo sends Sam away just before going into Shelob's tunnel, which greatly increased the tension and drama of the following scenes, and the major changes made to Aragorn's character, turning him into a much more dynamic, conflicted person than he is in the books. So, essentially, I didn't mind the few plot changes in True Grit, as they added cinematic drama and didn't go against the spirit of the novel. There were also a few scenes that the movie simplified, such as Mattie's final confrontation with Tom Chaney; in the book, Mattie shoots him, but it is pretty clear that Rooster is the one to finally kill him, while in the movie, even if Mattie's shot wasn't enough to kill Chaney, surely his falling off the ridge would do the trick.  I also find Mattie's tumble into the rock crevice to be more eerie in the book than it is in the movie, but, again, this section is too lengthy and complicated to translate well on film, so simplification was necessary. It's still a great moment in the movie.

So, in summary, I would agree that this is an amazing film and adaptation of the novel. However, it's not truly a remake.

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agreed...and the poster above you said it wasn't a remake per se...changing the ending to a movie while keeping everything from the original, including lines of dialog is, I think, considered a remake...

Also, I'd add that Robert Duvall was awesome as Pepper in the original and even more memorable to me than LeBeuf or Tom

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I had a hard time enjoying this film.

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I agree!
I was worried a little as I loved the original but The Coen Brothers came through big time, awesome remake

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The remake of Man on Fire was better than the original.


If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want.

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This was one of the best remakes I've ever seen. I would put Let Me In at the top of my list of greatest remakes.

The Fly and The Thing are also great. Most people don't know that The Wizard of Oz is a remake...that's hard to top. I think Hitchcock topped himself with The Man Who Knew Too Much remake.

~Sig~

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This was one of the best remakes I've ever seen. I would put Let Me In at the top of my list of greatest remakes.


Yes to both. I'd also add "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It's strange, because for each of these "remakes", the originals are also fantastic. The newer films take a different approach that is subjectively more appealing...

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