Peter Sellers vs. Steve Martin: No Contest!

"The unspoken rule of cinema is that you don't recast iconic characters"

Who ever uttered such a rule? Who says such a rule exists? If it's unspoken, how come you are speaking about it? Could you possibly mean that it's unSPOKEN, but not unWRITTEN or unTYPED?

You're not making much sense. There's no such rule.

Also, who defines what 'iconic' means? Is 'Ace Ventura' iconic? Is 'Jackie' in some Jackie Chan's movies an iconic character? Is 'Einstein' the dog in Back to the Future an iconic character?

All kinds of characters have been 'recast' (whatever this means) numerous times, so I don't know why anyone would get upset about it, or create a rule about it.

Look, it doesn't matter if some character is 'recast' or not, all that matters is that the movie is good. That's _ALL_ that matters when it comes to movies. Everything else is irrelevant. If the movie is good, it doesn't matter if something was 'recast', who cares? If the movie is bad, it's not bad because of 'recasting'.

Of course no one can be Peter Sellers, but there are OTHER comedic geniuses in the world, and I am convinced SOMEONE could've pulled off at least SOME kind of funny 'Closeau' character, if they had embraced the character and made it their own. It wouldn't be the SAME, but it could still be not only good, but funny.

There's nothing inherently wrong about 'recasting' a character, it's done all the time. Why would 'iconic' matter, if the end result is good? The problem is, the the result is usually HORRIBLE, because it's done without finesse or good taste, it's done from the wrong motives (money), it's done in a really bad, busy, sketchy way, instad of good craftsmanship and proper building of a 'new version of a character'.

BTW, do you consider 'Lassie' iconic? Do you have any idea how many times that was 'recast'? Think about 'Eddie' in Frasier as well... 'iconic' characters are and should be recast as much as anyone wants, no one should care about THAT. Just focus on a GOOD MOVIE.

"what a crappy phony idiot"

Use capitalized characters for beginning of sentences and the word 'I' that refers to self, god damnit.

Also, if someone is 'crappy' as an idiot, it means they're not very good as an idiot, which means they fail to even BE an idiot, and must be something else, probably something intelligent and non-idiotic.

To add, 'phony' means they were 'faking their idiocy', so they were NOT an idiot after all, they were just badly faking it, revealing their intelligence and wisdom in the end.

You obviously don't know what english words mean, so YOU insulting someone else is funnier than anything shown in this movie.