1. What counts as a remake?
A remake is a method of making new production based on ideas and material from past movies, TV shows or cartoons. Remakes can be done to any form of media, but I am only addressing films.
House of Wax with Vincent Price... in Natural Vision 3D
2. What do they remake?
Most of the producers and film makers would only remake films worth remaking, namely popular and famous ideas in films. There are some rare occasion when they remake previously unknown films, but that is really taking a huge risk. Almost every genre have remakes, for example, Psycho (1960 & 1998), King Kong (1933, 1976 & 2005) and Batman (way too many to count). There are various type of film remakes:
Movies to movies: Psycho, The Fly, A Nightmare on Elm Street
TV shows to movies: Mission: Impossible, The A Team, Charlie's Angels
Cartoon to movies: Transformers series, 101 Dalmations
Foreign movies to English movies: The Ring, The Grudge, 無間道-The Departed
Movies to Cartoon movies: The Prince of Egypt, Star Wars: Clone Wars
3. Why remake a movie when the original was already good?
There are many reasons to remake a movie. Some movies like Halloween (1978) created the craze for slasher films and spawned 7 sequels. By the time they got to Halloween: Resurrection (2002), the idea was getting stale and the films got too boringly repetitive. So in 2007, Rob Zombie tried to reboot the franchise by using the idea and characters from the first movie. Many people think this and other remakes are film maker's efforts to "milk the old cow" while some others inject totally new ideas into the concept. James Rolfe, the Angry Video Game Nerd, once said that film makers should remake bad movies instead of good ones because there are many bad movies with good stories but were not narrated effectively.
The mentality is simple.
"When you got a good idea, make as much money out of it as possible"
4. Why would people go to watch a remake if it is the same thing?
Let me use Peter Jackson's King Kong as an example. Peter Jackson is an awesome director and he has always admired the Dynamation (stop motion photography) of Ray Harryhausen, especially those in King Kong (1933). His 2005 King Kong movie is an appreciation and homage to his favourite film.
The Hammer film production company were also well known for their remakes of horror movies in the 1950s, 1960s and the 1970s. Dracula (1958), Frankenstein (1957) and The Mummy (1959) starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were all remakes of the originals by Universal Studios in 1931. But they were in colour and had slightly different stories. So people watch remakes in hopes of a film with new and inventive plot, visual effects and even overall story line.
Dracula Montage
Almost every single live action Dracula so far... 1922-present
Total = 32 actors (as of 2017)
5. Are there any remakes that are better than the originals?
This depends very much on personal judgement. There are definitely many remakes which are better in my opinion. The recent Spider Man movies are the first to come to mind, we had 3 separate versions in 15 years. The Tobey Maguire Spider Man movies were quite good overall, the newer Andrew Garfield movies had better visuals and the newest Tom Holland movie has better characters.
The other two I remember are The Thing (1982) and The Fly (1986). These remakes and their originals are all fantastic classics. The only better point of these remakes is their vast improvement in visual effects. Of course the general consensus that remakes are worst than their originals is accurate most of the time. I am still have high hopes that future remakes can be as good, if not better than the originals.
