Is Hollywood ficated on remakes?

      Ever since sequels and sagas became outdated, Hollywood movie and TV show makers have resorted to copying and pasting everything from the black-and-white era. A few recent remakes, such as 2010’s “Clash of the Titans” and this year’s “Footloose” were somewhat of a success, but most have been thrown into a bin of pure failure. Hollywood’s inability to come up with original ideas has not only saddened several movie buffs, but it has also wasted a lot of money on producing a movie with a plot that has already been seen a million times. I must say that the 70s and 80s produced many of the best movies ever made, but the 21st century has only brought disappointment to the box-office.
       Constant repetition of the same story not only makes a movie extremely predictable, but it also demonstrates a lack of creativity from Tinseltown. The recent remake of “The Karate Kid” broke my heart as Jaden Smith took on the roll that Ralph Macchio had perfected in the mid 80s. The story is minimally altered, while the ending is obvious and the acting (aside from Jackie Chan’s) is awful. The repetitive need for Hollywood to fix something that isn’t broken is extremely irritating as “The Karate Kid” trilogy was already perfect, yet Hollywood spent millions of dollars remaking it.
      What also bothers me is when British TV shows are remade and completely botched by U.S. networks such as MTV (Skins anyone?), with the only exception being “The Office”. I really think that once a show has been made, it should live out its life and then be left alone. There are so many untold stories that remain so because everyone wants to create a show or movie that is proven to become a mainstream production. But this inevitably leads to incessant retelling of the same story, which eventually ends up being extremely annoying. Once again, ABC disappoints in its failed attempt to bring back “Charlie’s Angels” this fall. The show was cancelled after airing only a few episodes, not because the acting and episode plots were horrible, but because the original show made in the late 70s and the two movies that followed in the early 2000s were already successful in telling the full story.
     Certain originals do leave room for improvement, but Hollywood’s attempt to “improve” them has completely failed. Only a few movies and TV shows have made my short list of decent remakes. It definitely varies by individual movie preferences, but I think that the 2001 remake of “Ocean’s Eleven” and this year’s “Planet of the Apes” were quite successful, as well as CBS’s “Hawaii Five-O” and the CSI spinoffs. I anticipate that Hollywood will continue to reel out remakes regardless of their pointlessness, but we shall always dream of the days when John Hughes produced worthwhile movies with interesting plot lines, perfected scripts and bearable acting.