Most remakes, both the good and bad ones IMO, do something new with the material. Even a remake like Let Me In, which recreated many scenes from the original film, is substantially, though subtly, different from Let the Right One In in many important ways, as even John Lindqvist has observed.
Another example of a seemingly similar remake that is actually very different from the original would be Adrian Lyne's Lolita. While Lyne's film is superficially the same as the Kubrick original (same setting and characters, covers the same events), tonally it is nothing like it at all.
I'd argue that even Fincher's The Girl with Dragon Tattoo, despite being heavily similar to the original, is differentiated from that film in at least one very significant respect: the depiction of Lisbeth. There's an almost child like emotional vulnerability to Rooney Mara's Lisbeth that was nowhere to be seen in Noomi Rapace's version. Robin Wright admitted to wanting to hug this version of Lisbeth and I felt the same way. That's an important difference in the title character that changes the dynamics of the film in interesting ways from the original.
Portraits of the same woman by different artists will have similarities, yes, but they won't all be the same. They'll emphasize and downplay different aspects of her appearance and personality. As I said I've seen a lot of different versions of Wuthering Heights and I don't think that any of them, including the ones I don't like very much, are so similar as to be unwarranted. While in many ways the interpretations of the many different directors and screenwriters overlap, there are also plenty of subtle differences - in characterization for instance - that cause me to reexamine different aspects of the story in a new light. I really look forward to that opportunity whenever I get my hands on a remake of Heights that I haven't previously seen. I'd be disappointed if the story was left to remain static, as if there was nothing more to be said on the subject.
For what it's worth, this miniseries (Rosemary's Baby) did indeed do something new with the material, though I thought that it was awful on every level.
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