The Day the Earth Stood Still is another example of a distracting side story with a brat in the middle of it!
Wow, if you think THAT was the #1 core problem with that HORRIBLE remake, boy did you miss the point of what the original was about.
Original - number of people killed = 3 (Klaatu killed first, then two human guards as Gort revived and went off to get Klaatu.). Before then, shortly into the start of the movie, Gort had used a ray to destroy guns and tanks, but not injure the soldiers manning them.
Remake - number of people killed = MANY thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Cities destroyed.
Original was a warning, with the Earth standing still as proof of power if the people of Earth kept onwards towards becoming a risk to other planets. Standing still, as in no power, EXCEPT for hospitals, airplanes in flight, and other special situation where lack of electrical power could harm people. PEACEFUL demonstration of power.
The Remake, ahhhh, let's just have a whirling crap-storm of "Kill-Kill-KILL".
I watched the remake in a theater, with a friend who like me had really liked the original. We were dumfounded at how awful the "movie that stole that name" was, can't call it a "remake" with such violence in place of peacefully standing still. Never saw it again, never will. Never.
Now, I don't mind attempts to remake a movie, it's all in how it is written and how they go about it, and if it has the spirit of the original.... presuming the original was good. If it's a crappy knock-off, well, there's crappy originals too.
The latest Star Trek movies..... I had high hopes for until I saw the first one. They trashed the core of what made Star Trek so good to begin with, throwing massive mind-numbing special effect onscreen instead of a good story. And then ruined the original ST universe by destroying the planet Vulcan, and having a "Horny Spock" that contradicted what Vulcans are supposed to be like.
i WILL say that I absolutely loved the remake of "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"
Even if they did give it a shorter name and "rewrote some scenes".