Oh dear, I've just watched the remake trailer to the BEN HUR remake, sorry, it is not even thinkable, there are films that
will always be compared to the forebare, unhappily for this film, it is a foregone conclusion, 12 months down the line. bargain basement for DVD. Charlton Heston is still the winner.

I am so sure this will be "filmed" or rather camera waved by some amateur asswipe, scenes with max 2 second in lenght and CGI hell. Don't want it, Heston has done it well enough

It was done as a TV Special with Ray Winston, who else, but a cockney Roman who mumbles his lines is not in the Jack Hawkins class of actor. subtitles would have helped, the whole production was very poor.

There is a remake due out August/September this year with Morgan freeman in looks interesting.
Whatever it will be very hard to follow charlton Hestons version now that's what you call an epic📽📽📽

Please no no no no no no, when will they learn :-(

Mind you Morgan Freeman is a top top actor :-)

Hmmm ! am keeping an open mind on this one.
The Charlton Heston remake of Ben - Hur is an epic indeed. However as much as I like
it some of the acting in it is somewhat "cheesy" at times and for me has not aged well.
I will pass judgement after I see the new version.

Just watched the full trailer, looked like a computer game in parts, toooooooo much CGI.

I don't watch much of anything unless it was originally made on 'reel' film, using special effects done the old fashioned way.

On reflection I much prefer the restored 1925 original Silent version of Ben-Hur to the later
1959 re-make.

That is on my to see list

Just watched the trailer again, no it doesn't cut it for me, Morgan Freeman looks like Whoopi Goldberg, complete with Rasta
hairstyle, a boo boo straight away. I still maintain the '59 version has nothing to fear, better acting, no animals injured, which
the '25 version certainly can't say, it nearly wrote off some Italian extras at the time, thinking them drowned, even tried to cover up
their disappearance, very naughty. Where does the "brother " bit come into it, they were friends, not relatives, anyway the verbal exchanges remind me of any American TV soap, very intense, in your face, modern dialogue, which in the '59 version was carefully
rewritten by Christopher Fry, to give gravitas, example, when Hugh Griffiths asks Heston, "You didn't like the food?", was changed to,
"The food was not to your liking?, subtle, but it makes a big difference. Anyway, "Titanic" equalled the number of Oscars as Wyler's film, but it "sank",
this pretender will go the same way.

The problem I have with the 1959 version is its star Charlton Heston.
It seems to me that whatever role he plays be it in Ben-Hur , The Ten Commandments, Planet Of The Apes
The Omega Man etc etc. He always comes across as " Charlton Heston". I am never convinced that he is not
Charlton Heston. As for Jack Hawkins well I wont go there.
Another actor that causes me the same problem is Robert Taylor.
Well I guess that's just my problem and I will have to accept it.

While on the subject of re-makes I think the TV version of Doctor Zhivago is much better than the
film version by David Lean.
David Lean makes the Russian Revolution look like fun and cinematically beautiful.
The TV version is for me more raw and realistic and conveys the brutality and horrors of the
backdrop of the Revolution in a more convincing manner.
Still there is room for both in my collection as they both have there pros and cons.

Hi David, I just look at some of the remakes that flopped, "The Wicker Man", "Jason & the Argonauts", "King Kong '76", "Robocop",
and the list goes on. I can't agree on poor 'ol Chuck, I suppose he got to be bigger than the films he was in, but he was in all my
favourites, Ben Hur, Planet of the Apes, El Cid, I remember someone saying, "You could drop an atomic bomb on Charlton Heston,
and he'd emerge suffering nothing more than prickly heat". I am quite fond of him, indeed no one was more guilty of "playing himself", than John Wayne, and I like him too. I really don't care much for films made of late, they are popcorn films,
no value, throwaway, CGI, bad acting, terrible corny dialogue, badly delivered lines, usually garbled, which is why this "epic" remake
will be in the DVD bargain bucket in a few months. The chariot race in Wyler's was worth the price of admission alone, there are no
stuntmen like Yakima Canutt's son to carry off those hair raising stunts now, without CGI, coupled to the fact that no animals or actors
were injured, the original silent version was responsible for carnage in the chariot race sequence on a grand scale.

Hugh. Yes i am aware of the downsides of making the Silent version. It is a shame they have
blighted this great production.
I agree with you on what you think of todays "popcorn movies".
My problem with Heston stems from the fact of his big teeth and American square jaw
looks. I just could not see him as " Judah Ben-Hur " The same for his other epics.

Sadly in this PC age the titles is going to be Ben Person.

Loved 'Mr Epic' though. The new ones totally agree with Hugh.

Back in a land before time and cgi I believed a man could fly. Now all I think is well its just done on a computer

That's sad David, I like David O's "Ben Person", in this mad world he ain't far off. I saw the '59 version as a kid, my little hands were sore
from gripping those reins, I was up there with him, I've always liked Chuck, at that time, Christmas saw me with a beautiful book, each page illustrated with full colour pictures drawn from the film, along with the story, wish I still had it, then a collection of classics, including Ben Hur, loved reading then as a youngster, but Heston was up there with Steve Reeves and Kirk Douglas, my heroes of these
ancient tales, not for me Wayne, Payne or any other Hollywood action star, these lads I identified with, sword swinging heroes who could mix it up with the best of them. Doubt any youngsters will be impressed by the lacklustre leads in this new effort.

Hugh I too share those childhood memories of Heston , Douglas and Reeves.
The Vikings Spartacus and the Steve Reeves Hercules films and all other Italian "sword and sandle "
flicks had me hooked.
However as I grew older my tastes changed and I got a bit more selective and discriminating as to
the films I watched.
Maybe this spoiled things a bit for me as regards my childhood interests. I got into what is now termed
" World Cinema" films.
Even though I can still watch the " golden oldies " though.