While perusing the stories written by our corporate siblings last week, I came across a report from Mike Mastovich of The Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown, Pa., that a screenwriter is in his town working on a remake of “Slapshot.”

Peter Steinfeld said he was there to scout locations and atmosphere for the potential remake.

“This is not a sequel,” he said. “I am going to try to adhere to the original movie as best as I can. At the same time, it can’t be just a retread of the original.”

Rather than open yourself up to the inevitable criticism that your film isn’t as good as the original, why not leave a classic alone? “Slapshot,” which followed a minor league hockey team in a struggling steel town that fought for its survival and a title, is widely considered a top-five sports movie. Aside from taking a few bucks from “Slapshot” fans who will come to the remake to pan it, there’s not much to gain from the whole scenario.

Despite repeated historical precedent, filmmakers continue to think they can do things better than their predecessors.

• Adam Sandler is funny in his element, but he had no business stepping into Paul Crewe’s shoes in his 2005 remake of “The Longest Yard.” Burt Reynolds was the personification of cool in the 1974 original as a former pro football quarterback who ends up in jail. Sandler wasn’t horrible, but you can’t look at him without thinking about dueling hair product bottles in the bathtub.

And word to the wise: Adding a few toilet jokes into a classic movie for the sake of differentiation doesn’t make it better. If potty humor was cool, consider this remake Miles Davis — but that doesn’t mean it’s any good whatsoever.

• Speaking of unnecessary add-ins, 2005’s “King Kong” features about 90 minutes too much of jungle scenery, dinosaur battles and other eye candy that was nice to look at but did nothing to disguise a bleak project.

By the time the giant monkey is finally subdued and brought stateside, you’re begging for the boat to sink just so the stupid movie ends. Uninspired acting and a storyline that was hard to follow at times did nothing to aid in this franchise’s latest incarnation.

• As long as I’m on the subject of our genetic relatives, I never saw the original “Planet of the Apes” until it ran on basic cable a few weeks ago. With every minute it aired, I liked the 2001 Mark Wahlberg version about 60 seconds less.

Tim Burton did a masterful job working in the realm of dark cinema with “Edward Scissorhands,” “Sleepy Hollow” and “Batman,” but he made these apes greatly devolve. Out were much of the social commentary and plot devices in the original that were made to make the viewer think; in were dead primates.

• While not quite a remake, the film version of “Miami Vice” bore no resemblance to the 1980s TV show except for the character’s names and the city in which the action took place.

Respect should be paid for trying to carve your own niche, but this crime drama played out so generically it could have been called anything from “Alpha Force” to “Zion Never Dies” without anyone’s opinion of the movie changing. The movie completely lacked in the style and glitz that masked the mediocrity of the TV show, instead opting for modern slickness and lots of explosions.

• Another TV redo, I actually didn’t hate “Transformers” — in fact, last summer’s blockbuster was much funnier than I thought, and I’ll go to the sequels.

This film appears here because of how generalized the titular robots became. When the Autobots and Decepticons revert to robot form, there’s essentially no telling them apart; they were all made to look like hunks of scrap metal haphazardly picked up with a magnet, like the little slivers sitting at the bottom of a Wolly Willy toy.

What made the commercial ... urr, I mean original series ... fun was the anticipation of seeing heroic Optimus Prime looming over the bad guys. Despite top-of-the-line graphics, he basically looked like a scribble in the film. In trying to be more menacing, director Michael Bay instead erased the best part of the whole concept.

•••

Because I possess the capacity to be positive, I’ll leave this week by mentioning two of my favorite remakes.

• The original “Ocean’s Eleven,” which I only watched after viewing the spectacular 2001 remake, lacked everything that made the newer version so much fun. Trying to make a film about a Vegas heist before The Strip existed was not a good idea. No style (even if The Rat Pack was featured in the 1960 version), no personality and no shiny lights — or at least considerably dimmed lights in black and white — only made the George Clooney version that much better.

• Maybe Jerry Lewis was funny in the 1960s, but Eddie Murphy blew him away in the remake of “The Nutty Professor.” From a more polished plot to better acting and a general lack of goofiness, the update of this film was much-welcomed.

One final note: If you’re going to resort to toilet humor, do it how it was done with the Klump family around the dinner table. Somewhat original punchlines amidst witty delivery is key if you’re going to recycle this type of humor, and most importantly it was approached once then flushed.