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First of all I want to say you are right about many things, and that more than once I've agreed with you in this and other threads regarding this matter.
Remakes are often just an excuse to make money without much effort. Somebody buys the rights of the movie and plans to save a lot of time and money that would be otherwise spent in the creative process that comes before the movie itself. Most of the times these movies are directed by "professionals", persons who know very well how movies work, but that are completely inept when it comes to creativity and invention, taste and coherence. They are often supported by other good technicians for things as writing, cinematography etc. In brief, you have a staff composed by persons who know their work very well, but that are the nothing more than craftsmen doing it for, well, a salary. They add nothing to their source, and as a matter of facts they just "adapt" it to the taste of their audience, which is usually supposed to be lower and less educated or refined than the one of the original audience - otherwise there would be no need for a remake as they see it. These are the remakes I usually accuse of being a complete waste of time and/or offensive towards the original creation.
I think the question is different is when a good director chooses to film a remake. First of all because a good director will choose to direct something which is usually a continuum with his general production and artistic views. Then because we will also have a person actually adding something, like it or not, to the original. For example, I am a big fan of Kurosawa and his movies. But I wouldn't dare to say The Magnificent Seven is not a masterpiece of the Western genre because it is a remake of Kurosawa's Shichinin no Samurai. Same goes for Sergio Leone's Per Un Pugno di Dollari: I wouldn't call it a stupid movie because it's a remake of Yojimbo. I was kinda bewildered reading Leone didn't give credit to Kurosawa at first when his movie was released, and I was also annoyed. But couldn't force myself to not like the movie itself for this reason. I have to say I prefer Kurosawa's originals in both cases I mentioned, but I still think the remakes are excellent movies and should be watched without necessarily having the originals in mind and making comparisons. Of course, they take away a lot from Kurosawa's works, but at the same time they add a lot to their sources. What is lost is successfully replaced with something else. What they don't add, they change to fit their needs. If one says they aren't good, he is probably a very ignorant or very arrogant person, or both.
With that I only want to say a good director never "literally" films a remake because he doesn't need to, unless he's so desperate to need money at all costs - but if economical needs are dominant in a director's mind forcing him to make a movie in a way he doesn't like at all or that is just insincere compared to the rest of his production, then maybe he's not that good. A good director that is not a mere professional gives another perspective and another interpretation of the same story, even of the same scene, even with same identical script, just using other languages that are peculiar of the cinematic experience, and in this case a comparison is always unfair both towards the original and towards the remake. Maybe it's a wrong way of putting it, but I suppose that's how I see it.
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