It shouldn't be news to you that the movie industry has pretty much run out of original ideas and has now resorted to remaking, repurposing, and recycling old ideas to score a quick buck. (If you didn't yet realize this, then congratulations on safely returning from your 20-year space expedition. How difficult has it been readjusting to regular gravity?) And we can all probably agree that most often, the attempts to revamp old movies with a fresh new cast and whatever advanced technology has come along in the meantime ends up being pointless at best. At worst? It's like taking a wonderful memory, dipping it in kerosene, and tossing it into the oven to broil. So we should be weary of remakes. But that doesn't mean it's totally impossible to renovate an older movie without destroying its legacy or making the audience feel foolish for once again trusting Hollywood. Sometimes...sometimes...it's even possible for a remake to be better than the original version. It doesn't happen often and, when it does, Hollywood consistently fails to learn any sort of lesson about why it worked. But let's take a look at some of these successful remakes anyhow, and see if a common theme emerges.
