Thanks for the comment. No, it’s not a new phenomenon at all and is really just business as usual, but I think it does underscore the business aspect and makes me ask if the point of most movies is to entertain and enlighten or just give you something familiar to pry away your dollars.

When the source material for a movie is something besides another movie, there will always be different interpretations of the source, and I personally don’t have a huge problem with adaptations of that nature, though I’d always prefer something fresh. With a remake, you’re taking a final product that already exists and repackaging it.

When the source a movie is another movie, you generally either get a close facsimile of the original wherein the goal is replicating the source or a movie with a few similar elements and a lot of original ideas. The former, like the Psycho remake, seems purposeless and marginalizes the movie as more of an experiment in mimicry (which I suppose can be an art form itself). The latter is not really a remake so much as a new movie with elements familiar to an audience, which makes it feel like a capitalist venture before a work of art.

To use King Kong as an example, neither the 1976 or 2005 versions made any profound new revelations on the themes of the original. The 1976 version changed the details of the story and reused the characters from the original and the 2005 version was more faithful to the events of the original, both fitting pretty closely with the two remake outcomes I stated above. They really only served to modernize the special effects, for which they both won awards.

The Karate Kid is not going to be talked about with the greatest movies ever made, but for it’s time it was a pretty good movie, and I think there’s more value in viewing an original piece of art than someone else’s re-creation.

Unlike a painting or a statue, watching a movie also involves a significant investment in time. I would rather spend that time taking in new ideas and experiences instead of a tweaked version of something I’ve already seen. But maybe that’s just me. I know there are plenty of people that enjoy and even look forward to these remakes.

I just recently reviewed the original Karate Kid 1 and 2 and liked it as it was — a popcorn, entertaining movie that should go down in history as that cheesy 80′s American karate take.

And in the same way, I really don’t enjoy the fact that just because some soon to be kid-star wants to use a classic film not meant to be remade as his vehicle.

*ashamed*