4 Reasons Why Remakes of Sci-Fi Movies Are Doomed to Suck

Maybe you actually liked Spielberg's War of the Worlds (or John McTiernan's magnum opus Rollerball), but the numbers say you're in the minority: Out of the 50 highest-grossing sci-fi films ever, only four of them are remakes -- and zero of them touch the top 20. Compare that to the horror genre, where the numbers are doubled and there are two remakes in the top 10. To show you how hilariously inept sci-fi remakes are at making money, the list of best-grossing examples since 1977 has Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor at #5, with $128 million.

Universal Studios
Any list with a fat suit in the top five isn't a good list.

This is why we can already rule out RoboCop for creating a pile of cash. But what is it about these movies that makes them stink?

It sounds outrageous, but this is actually rather normal when you consider that pretty much every sci-fi remake has to change shit to make it more contemporary -- taking us farther and farther from what we liked in the first place. Arnie's Total Recall changed the original story's ending, and the 2012 version changed the changed one. The original plot of The Island of Dr. Moreau has been so diluted through all its remakes that the improbable-yet-real upcoming one will inevitably be about a furry convention at a tropical resort.

Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
"This summer, it's just what the doctor ordered."

But, you know, what does it matter if they change the cosmetic elements as long as the underlying message is the same? Well, about that ...

Then look at the remakes: What the hell are they about? A half-baked environmental or anti-corporate greed theme doesn't make up for taking away the entire reason the original was made in the first place. They're trying to sell us the product of another era hastily repackaged as our own. On the other hand, if these movies can't reflect the present anymore, at least we have better CG technology to depict far-flung futures now, so there's that. Right?

See the issue now? When asked how the new RoboCop is going to be different from the old one, even the freaking star said the main change is the fact that the technology isn't new anymore. In fact, it's almost retro. Even the Star Trek films stopped coming up with new gadgets -- they don't have futuristic communicators in the new films, they have regular cellphones. Sci-fi remakes are inherently regressive -- we're dredging up the past to teach us about the future, which happens to be right now. By this standard, Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas is the next Blade Runner.

MovieWeb
"Wait, Madea's a replicant? Fuck, movie posters these days spoil everything."