I think there is enough precedence to come to the belief that remakes are bad in and of itself. Big movie companies do like to put their money in already established or at least known franchises or names. This leads to them forcing a movie they think should make money rather than letting the creatives follow their passion, which may or may not lead to better movies. And then there is also the typical knee-jerk online reaction in play here. People like to be dismissive and jaded about things. I think it’s partly because we have a lot of reasons to be jaded, but it’s also because it’s easy and it makes you feel smarter. I believe in most cases people aren’t actually informed enough to form a real opinion, they just like to shit on things online to make themselves feel better.
In my late teens and early twenties I had a phase where I basically disliked every new movie. I thought old movies where perfect and new movies where all just cash grabs with the exception of indie movies. After a bit of growing and working in a creative industry myself, I now know that this is bullshit. There are lots of reasons why movies turn out bad, but in most cases the people working on them are trying their best and genuinely want to make something great. With that in mind I’ve become much more open and appreciative. It’s so easy to shit on things online. It is very, very hard to make a movie, even a bad one.
Sure, sometimes the movie turns out bad and yes the chances of a reboot, remake, sequel or prequel to be bad is higher. But it might also turn out to be a great movie in it’s own right! To be honest lots of old movies did not age well and could use a remake. If you don’t like it, the original movie is still there for you to watch instead.
Not sure if it’s underrated, but Sunshine (2007) is really great!