Angry Embassy: Russia
The Original: Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci-fi classic of the same name, about the bizarre psychological effect a sentient planet has on the inhabitants of an orbiting space station.
The Makeover: Steven Soderbergh’s third remake in a row after Traffic and Ocean’s 11, produced by James Cameron and starring George Clooney. A big sci-fi action extravaganza, then?
Nope. Tonally, this is closer to Tarkovsky's austere metaphysics than Star Wars. That said, there's a smidgeon of commercial logic implicit in Soderbergh cutting the running time in half and narrowing the focus to the sudden arrival of Clooney's late wife (Natasha McElhone), recreated from his memories by Solaris.
Moment You Know You’re Watching a Hollywood Movie: When it becomes obvious that Soderbergh isn’t going to investigate the weirdness of Solaris beyond the emotional effect it has on the central couple.
As Stanislaw Lem, author of the source novel, put it: “I wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that…cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled Solaris and not Love in Outer Space.
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Comments
Orbish
Jan 22nd 2010, 11:34
No Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars/Last Man Standing?
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mitchsn
Jan 23rd 2010, 2:29
With the exception of 1 or 2, all the american remakes sucked a*s.
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sunnyrandall
Jan 25th 2010, 9:40
What about Haneke's Funny Games? Yeah, I know he directed both but . . . .
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jimclark54
Jan 25th 2010, 15:45
Seven Samurai -> Magnificent Seven -> Battle Beyond The Stars (writer: John Sayles, art director: James Cameron)
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Ihatethis
Jan 25th 2010, 18:33
La Femme Nikita = Point of No Return
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BaldMelon
Jan 25th 2010, 23:51
You forgot "Three Men and a Baby" and "Three Men and a Little lady" were originally French. Disney bought the North American distribution rights of the French sequel to cut down on competition. They also did the same thing for the Japanese version of "Shall We Dance". You can't even find it on DVD and it is a far superior film to the Richard Gere version. Oh, and shall we not forget the Jodie Foster/Richard Gere flop "Sommersby" is a watered down version of the French "The Return of Martin Guerre". Not to mention "La Femme Nikita"/"Point of No Return" and "Les Diaboluques"/"Diabolique", etc, etc...
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metalgatesolid
Jan 26th 2010, 20:26
The Grudge/Ring remakes where, I think we cn all agree, no where near as terrifying as the original versions. The biggest travesty in my eyes is Rec and Quarentine. Rec is amazing!!!
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tacroy
Feb 8th 2010, 14:03
Where is "The Invisable" on this list? It's a bad remake of the swedish movie "Den osynlige". And they even had to make a bad (and I mean really really bad) ending to it. They changed the whole outcome from the original one. Someone should be punished for that
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