I think Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” remake proved the shot-for-shot remake is a bad idea, or at least with Vince Vaughan.

The theme was similar, it just lost a lot of the singular, angry personality of the original in favor of a more measured approach. Not as good as last year’s Evil Dead reboot, but at least Padilha had something to say that was congruent to the 1987 version. That I respect.

I wonder about this. We “reboot” plays and musical productions with a spectrum of variations, from the most minor cast changes to complete reworkings of script and theme. Would it be terrible to sometimes do shot-for-shot remakes of classics with different casts and modern effects and sound?

This RoboCop cast was pretty great. It might have been neat to have a more faithful remake but changing only the setting and theme to be war and drone-technology. Keep what works and update what could be improved.