Maybe I’m an old person, but I feel like one of the weakest ideas for a show or movie is a remake. It’s like, you can’t find anything new to do? The reasons to do remakes I can see (outside of just money chasing):
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It’s been like 60 years and no one remembers. This is the weakest.
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You do a interesting twist or change(The various Sherlock Holmes in modern day, redoing in a different language, doing a live action version).
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The previous adaptation was completely off the rails and considered bad.
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There were shots that you just couldn’t do in the past due to less technology.
For the recent Trigun, and now Spice and Wolf and Rurouni Kenshin - were the previous anime’s way off the source material? I don’t think Spice and Wolf was, I haven’t read the source for Trigun or Kenshin. If not, I’m struggling to see why anyone who was interested in these would wait to see the “new” version versus just watching the existing one RIGHT NOW.
For those of us who watched the existing version, why would we want to waste time on re-watching the same story when there’s other shows that are new, either to everyone or at least to us? I guess in my limited time to watch a firehose of entertainment (heck, just in Anime, forget about shows like The Witcher, various Star Trek, books etc), tell me what I’m missing by just skipping these and remembering the stuff I watched 15-20 years ago?
Heck, I even tried to watch the live action movies of Kenshin, and while the first was interesting enough, I was also kind of just like, oh yea - this scene now. And never watched the rest because I know the story.
OTOH, I recall these being enjoyable enough that I watched Trigun and Kenshin several times, bought the translated light novels for Spice and Wolf (though I did peter out around book 11).
One other reason remakes tend to get made in any medium is that the original’s storytelling methods (dialogue, cinematography, art style, acting style, whatever) are very much of their time, and this can turn off younger audiences who have different expectations of the stories they consume. I don’t know how true this is generally or how justified it is in individual cases, but it’s another factor. It doesn’t help the case for the shot-for-shot remakes like sailor moon (at least from what I’ve seen of it), but I think it explains a bit for trigun (again, from what I’ve seen of it). I’m on my way to becoming an Old as well, and it’s a little hard to accept, but the younger folks sometimes look at media that we enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) and it feels viscerally old to them.
(Also, I can’t let a conversation concerning rurouni kenshin go by without feeling it needs to be mentioned that the author has been convicted of possession of cp)
I get stuff might look old, however I also kind of doubt that’s as big a deal as some people make out. I really enjoyed many “old” shows, and movies as a kid, and the look was just part of the style. Then again I also liked old books so… I guess I am also reminded where a lot of recent attempts to update a story for modern sensibilities was controversial at best, and rarely that good a movie or show.
And you’re right the shot for shot remakes make even less sense.
Then you have the very questionable idea with Kenshin to go out of your way to make the author more money. I liked the original story, and would not support banning or putting it in a vault. But to choose to do more business and raise the profile says something unsavory about the people making the current show. Makes it easier to let that one just be my memories.
I can’t speak for Trigun, but the Rurouni Kenshin and Spice and Wolf readaptations are easily justified. Firstly, neither of the old anime versions reach the conclusions of their stories.
Moreover, the old Rurouni Kenshin was rife with filler and one of the arcs is completely different from the manga (and in a bad way). As for Spice and Wolf, the old anime skips an entire light novel which introduces a character and plot points that will be relevant later on.
Agreed, remakes are best when they make the original more concise, complete incomplete series and brings outdated series to modern standards, creating a “definitive” version to watch.