10 Film Remakes That Are Better Than The Original
1. Zero Hour (1957) & Airplane (1980)
The Original
An airline flight turns into a nightmare as they head into heavy storms while passengers and crew alike are struck by food poisoning. Their only hope is finding someone who can not only fly the plane, but didn’t have fish for dinner.
The Remake
Airplane is a remake? Surely you can’t be serious?
Film makers Zucker, Zucker and Abrahams happened upon this B-movie disaster flick from the 50s and immediately realised they had struck gold. The genius of their reboot of course, is that they took a film that wasn’t remotely billed as a comedy and turned it into more or less the funniest film ever made; while hardly making any changes to the script!
It’s all in the original – the food poison, Ted Stryker’s war trauma, little Joey’s visit to the cockpit and an officer who picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
In the remake the cast play it dead straight throughout, even in the face of ever growing absurdity. The jokes pile up so quickly you can’t keep up as you begin to wonder how on earth they all managed to keep a straight face throughout. Mocking everything from Saturday Night Fever, From Here to Eternity and just about every disaster film you’ve ever seen, this is the King of Parody Movies.
You see, I was serious. And don’t call me Shirley.