Amen. Heck, actors and directors even remade their own movies. Tod Browning shot two versions of THE UNHOLY THREE with Lon Chaney, once as a silent and later as a talkie. Hitchcock remade his own THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, once in black-and-white with Peter Lorre, once in color with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day.…

Oh, the world is full of terrible remakes, just as it’s full of terrible original movies, but that doesn’t mean that remakes are automatically a bad idea. Or that the version our generation loved is thereby the definitive version which must never be remade for fear of trampling over our sacred memories. I always…

You beat me to the punch. These paintings are obviously based not on the novel, but the classic 1960 movie version, right down to look of the Time Machine, the look of the Morlocks, and the futuristic Sphinx at the bottom of the poster—which are all straight from the movie. Even the Time Traveler resembles Rod Taylor.

…

Remakes have been around since the silent days, and history is full of examples that were as good or better than the previous versions. And, as you say, JUMANJI is hardly an untouchable classic, so it’s not as though they’re stomping over sacred ground . . ..

So what the heck? Why not give this new version the benefit…

Exactly. I grew up with a Superman who had lost both sets of parents. It wasn’t until John Byrne (and LOIS & CLARK) that that Ma and Pa Kent were suddenly still on the scene, which seemed like quite a radical change at the time.

You never saw Ma and Pa Kent on the old George Reeve TV show or in the earlier cartoons…

Just thought of another one: The Mighty Thor, as portrayed in the Marvel Comics and movies. Thor and Odin’s relationship can be stormy sometimes (that whole “banishing to Earth” business), but Odin is neither dead nor evil, and Frigga didn’t die until the second move—and is still around in the comics, I believe.

Doc Savage is a borderline case. Yeah, his father is murdered in the first book, but Doc Savage is already a fully-grown superhero, complete with a full team of sidekicks, BEFORE his dad dies, so it’s not as though Clark Senior’s tragic demise is pivotal to his character . . .

“too law-abiding,” I mean.

Going back a ways, it dawns on me that Zorro was not an orphan. Yes, his father was a widower by the time the story starts up, but Don Alejandro is generally portrayed as a decent and honorable old gentleman even if he is (more often than not) to law-abiding to let in on Don Diego’s secret life as Zorror. Clueless but…

Third Place Books in Seattle is a great bookstore, by the way. One of my sisters practically lives there.

If you’re revealing the secrets of the universe, shouldn’t the tour include a mountaintop in Tibet or something?

Just saying . . . .

I was disappointed that ANT-MAN didn’t pick up an SFX nod, not for the shrinking effects, but for the amazing way they de-aged Michael Douglas i the prologue. That was so invisible it didn’t even look like SFX!

There was a funny bit on THE 4400 once when the heroes, who were ostensibly based out of Seattle, had to drive up to Vancouver to investigate a lead. “You up for a road trip to Vancouver?”

Boy, that must have busted the budget?

Counting down to the inevitable SATURN 5 remake . . ..

“But if it’s set in Seattle, why is it filmed in Portland?”

“Better tax breaks?”

Haven’t seen THE BLACK HOLE since Christmas Day, 1979, but I remember thinking that Maximilian, the scary evil robot, was cool as hell, but that the friendly comedy-relief robots were a bit too cartoony for my tastes. In fact, I remember my best friend and I cracking up at the old cowboy robot’s “tragic”death scene,…

If we’re doing time travel, how about Anthro or Kamandi?

All these posts and nobody has mentioned remaking BARBARELLA yet? I’m crushed, I tell you.

I think they were going for breasts. (The ship has a maternal female voice.)

I remember liking this as a teen, but I haven’t seen it since it first came out.

Hah. I missed the date and thought you were going to reference THE BLACK HOLE, which was Disney’s first attempt to jump on the STAR WARS bandwagon.