What kind of remake do you prefer?

[Zeus]

I know this is a loaded question, but I'd like to get other people's opinion on this. My bud and I watched the Total Recall remake on Saturday night. We were both a little surprised on how very close it stayed in a lot of ways for a long time to the original. They even used the same lines in the same places in a lot of cases. It wasn't like the Psycho remake (that was scene for scene, line for line) but it was much more than a passing homage.

The question I have is: do you prefer a remake to be as close to the original source material as possible (basically be a fresh coat of paint, which a lot of Verhoven films need nowadays; that's why we're seeing a few of his flicks being remade) or do you think it's useless for there to be a remake unless a new twist/vision is added to the film?

I know there's a bunch of factors here, such as whether or not the original's any good (if so, why change it or remake it at all?), how old the original is, and whether or not anything can even be gained by the remake. Bring it all into the discussion, I'm just interested in others' preferences on the topic. But I'm specifically talking about remakes (Total Recall) and not reboots (Batman, Spiderman, Superman) here. Those are a completely different animal

[SineSwiper]

It depends on your definition of "original source material". There's been a number of good remakes of movies in the 70s/80s that were originally based on books (comic or otherwise). And those remakes have been closer to the source material than the older movie. Those are good remakes, and I'm fine with those. Based on what I've heard, Dredd seems to fall in that category. The Dune miniseries is another, which is like night and day with that horrible Lynch movie. Maybe Total Recall is like that as well, not sure.

When you're trying to remake a movie based on an older movie, it's a bit sketchier. You gain a lot less if you're not adding to the original source material, and with a remake of a screenplay, you have exactly 2 hours worth of material. So, you either have to create your own material and risk butchering the vision, or just make it pretty much 100% the same, which is pointless. The things I'm hearing about the new RocoCop movie are scary, and frankly, I think it'll end up being a classic case of what NOT to do with a movie remake.

There's another category that I don't like, either: translation remakes. Let Me In was fucking pointless, as was the American version of The Grudge. One translation remake that I thought really butchered the source material was The Magnificent Seven. Though, even I end up falling for this shit, as I love the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Based on what I've heard of the Swedish character, I seem to like Mara's version of Lisbeth a lot better. And I've never seen the Spanish version of Vanilla Sky, Open Your Eyes.

So, I guess there's one big requirement in my mind: It needs to add something. And that something should be good, like better accuracy of the source material.