Are remakes ever as good?

[Capt Lightning]

In the past I've watched remakes of classic films and thought that they were poor imitations of the original...
For example... The Nutty professor , War of the worlds or The secret life of Walter Mitty..

One recent remake of Whisky Galore (based on a true story and another film largely shot a few miles from here) was quite watchable. However while the original film followed the book on which it was based, the new version skipped a lot of the background detail.

What do you think? Is it possible to improve on the original?

 

[hollydolly]

Apart from Dr Who which we loved as children... but then retruned back in the 2000's better than ever , I can't think of anything that was better in the remake...

 

[JaniceM]

I usually hate remakes.. but the Nutty Professor wasn't too bad

 

[In The Sticks]

It all has to do with which you saw first.