"WHAT AM I WORKING ON? I'M WORKING ON SOMETHING THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD, AND HUMAN LIFE AS WE KNOW IT..."

Seth Brundle (The Fly)

Ask any film-fan and they'll likely tell you Hollywood is doing noting but pump out remakes and reboots. It's a hard thing to argue, we're certainly being inundated... But, rather than see this as a sign of some on-coming cine-geddon, let's first consider the facts- are remakes really such a bad thing?

Remakes! Remakes everywhere!

Sure, we didn't need another Robocop, or a Total Recall. Godzilla was pointless, and the new Carrie, Friday 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street remakes were gaulingly bad. But- we've not lost the origionals. they're still out there and, who knows, maybe these remakes will introduce a new generation to the classics?
And truthfully, I can think of a whole bunch of films which could actually benefit from a rethink;

IT, Jason and the Argonauts, Sinbad, The Guns of Navarone, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, Alien Nation (very timely, given the subtext), Beastmaster, The Last Starfighter, Mountain Men, Stripes, Wargames, Name of the Rose, Flight of the Navigator, The Magnificent Seven, Dare Devil, Dune (now that's a franchise opportunity a'la Lord of the Rings in scope!). 

There's more than you'd think. The problem isn't so much that we're inundated with these remakes, the problem is the wrong films are getting remade (rebooted, whatever). I mean, for Christ's sake, Spiderman got rebooted just three years after Raimi's last flick, and now the character is due a further reboot by Marvel.

Lastly... I used to be really irritated with these seemingly endless remakes, the same as everyone else. When I heard Robocop was getting a reboot I was livid in fact. But then I realised, some of my favorite films are actually remakes themselves- proof that this isn't a modern-day phenomenon (and bare in mind that films are pumped out now in greater numbers and faster speed than ever before, with more hype and coverage thanks to the Internet).
Think on it, without remakes we'd have none of these excellent films;

Carpenter's The Thing. Cronenberg's The Fly. Aja's The Hills Have Eyes. 13 Assassins. Ritchie's Sherlck Holmes. Fassbender's Macbeth. Nolan's Batman. The Departed. Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. Bram Stoker's Dracula. Ocean's 11. King Kong. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Precinct 13. Heat. True Lies. Jackson's Lord of the Rings!

 Is that a world you really want to live in? No, or me...

So, the next time you hear about a remake, or a reboot, or whatever they chose to call it, don't roll your eyes or swear, cross your fingers and hope for the best. The problem isn't that another remake's being made, the real issue is- will it be an improvement?