Jesus Restoration Gone Awry and Five Other Botched Pop-Culture Redos!

Miley Cyrus, Tom Hanks and Nicole Kidman hold the dishonor of horrible remakes

By John Boone Aug 24, 2012 9:02 PMTags
Ecce Homo, botched Jesus PaintingWikipedia

Remember that part in the bible where Sasquatch turns the water into wine and walks on water? Oh wait, neither do we. But we wouldn't fault you for being confused after looking at the recently "restored" fresco from Spain that's quickly becoming the hottest meme online.

Eightysomething  Cecilia Giménez admitted to creating the botched century-old Ecce Homo while attempting to restore it to its former glory, all with the best of intentions. Sound familiar? Cecilia isn't the first to get her hands on something and make it far, far worse.

Just look as far as Hollywood, where "restorations" on favorite movies, music and much more have only led to disaster.

Columbia Pictures

Book-to-Movie Adaptation: No novel quite dominated bookstores quite like The Da Vinci Code, the Dan Brown conspiracy theory thriller that quickly shot to the top of the New York Times best seller list (only to be outsold by Harry Potter). So a big screen adaptation seemed not only desired, but essential.

Sign on Tom Hanks as the protagonist, Robert Langdon, and the movie was practically guaranteed to be a hit! But a WTF-worthy wig on Hanks and a bloated, dulled-down plot left the movie as one of the worst lit-to-flick translations in a long, long while.

Paramount Pictures

Movie Remake: Where to even begin?! Russell Brand's Arthur flopped, Vince Vaughn's Psycho was a dud and Poseiden Adventure, Planet of the Apes and nearly every Michael Bay-produced horror remake have tarnished the legacy of those before them.

But we're giving this (dis)honor to Nicole Kidman's Stepford Wives, the plot-hole laden, sci-fi mess of a remake about a sinister plot to fill suburbia with picture perfect housewives. Nicole is no stranger to awful remakes either. Bewitched, anyone? Yeah, about that.

twitter.com; Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

Song Cover: There's been plenty of cringe-inducing covers throughout the year (most noticeably for The Beatles, thanks to the likes of Avril Lavigne and William Shatner), but Miley Cyrus took the cake when she decided to pay tribute to Nirvana.

During a string of concerts, Miley performed "Smells Like Teen Spirit," a Hannah Montana-meets-grunge take that surely had Kurt Cobain rolling in his grave. "I wanted to be able to do music that inspired me and made me want to be here on this stage," Miley said. Unfortunately, the rendition made most people wish she weren't on stage at all.

ABC/NATHAN BELL

TV Remake: Charlie's Angels has been a staple in the world of female ass kickers for decades now. And since the film reboot starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu also was able to perform, it would make sense that gold could be struck twice on the small screen.

The cast was picture perfect (joining Minka Kelly, Rachael Taylor and Annie Ilonzeh), the setting was steamy Miami but…everything else was a complete fail. Not even girl-on-girl smooching could save this show from a swift cancellation after only four episodes.

Lucasfilms

Special Edition: It it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yet, Hollywood is continuously trying to improve upon what is already great as is. Case in point? The original Star Wars trilogy, which, at the hands of George Lucas got a very unnecessary re-release.

Fans were (rightfully) outraged and controversy ensued after additional CGI and story-related changes were made to A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Most criminal of all? Lucas had Greedo start the blaster battle, when we all know Han Solo took the first shot.