Films that are blatant rip-offs of other films but that are good?

Tried searching, dunno if we've done this before

What's a good film that obviously rips off another film? Leaving the definition of 'rip off' open deliberately but for example, taking the plot and changing just enough to avoid legal action, or a character is clearly strongly based on a character from another film, etc, etc.

Bad lieutenant new Orleans and even if that's not what you meant who gives a fuck *snorts coke, beats cardamom down with pistol*

The Last Starfighter is better than pretty much all of the Star Wars movies.

Not empire or the two new ones

But otherwise it's a debate

Willow is the best LOTR movie

http://cdn.shortlist.com/resource/binary/fa55e3c4b21e06aacb80e0c9eae7b139/school.jpg

http://cdn.shortlist.com/resource/binary/eac01937fbe9a188af951ed23e1cb2ed/happy%20tappy.jpg

Haven't seen any of this total rip-off genre which I think is relatively new (?) but

mockbusters should be a separate thread maybe

Spun seems like a satirical version of Requiem for a Dream, but not sure if it qualifies as blatant rip off

Found this on a Cracked article, didn't know ...

http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/photoshop/9/8/5/204985_v1.jpg

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_656_17-famous-movies-that-ripped-off-from-lesser-known-films/

All for the Winner vs God of Gamblers

that latest version of Magnificent Seven was at least an 8/10 western.

Kill Bill is a rip of Lady Snowblood but is good

Kubrick's The Killing owes a lot to Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, but improves on it.

that french thriller that home alone supposedly ripped off actually looks kind of intriguing -- anyone else seen it?

I like Dante's Piranha, but I'm not sure that makes it good.

Some people think Groundhog Day stole the main idea from the TV movie 12:01, but if it did it was a big improvement.
Hard Eight is a riff on Philip Baker Hall's character in Midnight Run.

oh and enthiran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysbbPStfWw

Extreme Prejudice is kind of a Wild Bunch ripoff to an extent but it's a very, very good one.

Assault on Precinct 13 on various stranded in a fort Westerns.

Magnificent 7 on 7 Samurai. Or maybe not so much improve but translate for a popular Western audience.

Did wonder about Mad Max II/Road Warrior and a Yul Brynner film I think was called The Last Warrior.

1984 and Brazil.

La Jetée and 12 Monkeys?

Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars/Django(Nero)/Last Man Standing(Willis)

John Woo's The Killer is a more or less acknowledged remake of Melville's Le Samourai

dunno how we distinguish remake from rip-off, did Michael Mann rip himself off when he turned LA Takedown into Heat?

I remember enjoying some of the gremlins clones back in the day, not sure how good any of them really are tho

Bogart learns to love La Resistance: Casablanca vs To Have And Have Not

the fast and the furious relies heavily on a template provided by the peerless and immortal point break

(these films are good and fuiud btw)

john cena's magnum opus 12 rounds is a shameless mashup of speed and die hard 3

its shamelessness is heightened further cuz it's directed by renny harlin (who made die hard 2) and produced by mark gordon, one of the producers of speed

I've always assumed 16 Blocks is a rip of The Gauntlet but I've only read the synopsis.

never mind, forgot the "but are good" bit

tbh there's probably a whole thread to be had on movies which blatantly attempted to rip off die hard:

speed: die hard on a bus
under siege: die hard on a boat
executive decision: die hard on a plane
passenger 57: die hard on a plane. again
air force one: die hard on a plane. again. only this time it's the president's plane!

is die hard the most influential action movie of the last 30 years?

Hard to see past it or the matrix maybe

how about Robin Hood: Men in Tights and The Princess Bride?

spoofs don't count

they aren't spoofing each other though

Caché blatantly rips off the first part of Lost Highway, but does it so well that it doesn't matter.