Solid Snake

I was watching Magnificent Seven yesterday, hadn't seen it in a very long time, and I totally forgot how close of a remake it is while also veering off into its own thing rather well.

It's a good film and all but...I dunno. It kind of lacks a punch that Seven Samurai has. It doesn't have that visual power. Which probably attributes to American Cinema was at that time to a point. I will get it on BD when it hits the price I'd want it for. Seven Samurai is the better film and my favorite of the two.

Which one is better? Which one is your favorite? Maybe they're one and the same?

inri222

Seven Samurai is the better film and I would consider it one of the all time greats. Magnificent Seven is an entertaining western but I would not even consider it as one of the 10 (maybe even 20) greatest westerns.

davidh777

This is pretty much how I feel. Seven Samurai is an all-time film for me, while Mag7 is an entertaining watch with a great cast.

OldBoy

Seven Samurai...just enthralling.

dhmac

Magnificent Seven is a fun Western with great theme music and a great cast.

...But this isn't even a contest because Seven Samurai is one of the great films ever made and easily runs away with this.

(However, if this was a poll between Yojimbo vs. A Fistful of Dollars...)

kefrank

Seven Samurai would win this poll against almost any movie you could name. It's that good.

Ky-Fi

I pretty much agree with the consensus. Although Magnificent Seven may not be the greatest western ever made, it's certainly one of the most entertaining.

Favorite exchange:

Robert Vaughn: "Insults swallowed--none. Enemies--none."

Yul Brynner: "No enemies?"

Robert Vaughn: ".........Alive.."

RocShemp

No option for A Bug's Life? Thread fail!

hanshotfirst1138

I think MS is really, really, really good as far as remakes go. It's not up to par with the original and maybe it doesn't have the social depth or the sweep, but it's lots of fun, and has a cast to kill for. Both are pretty damn good though. They'd make a great double bill.

Mabuse

Social depth. That's the best term for it. That's what Magnificent Seven lacks. They adapted almost everything from Seven Samurai very well, but the cultural complexity between low farmers, high samurai, and the bandits can't be properly mirrored with cowboys and peasants. There's nothing like it in the old west.

Nick Danger

Waiting for the response from Hokeyboy . . .

Nick Danger

It didn't work with American gunfighters assisting Mexican farmers. It could have been done with Mexican peasants and Spanish nobles during the unrest around 1800. But then Steve McQueen and Yul Brunner would have had to play Spanish/Mexican characters, which would have been box office poison.

Mondo Kane

That Horst guy ruined M7 for me. But then again, it ain't that easy when your character is modeled after two of the samurai.

Ky-Fi

I agree with that, but thinking about it some more, maybe that makes MS interesting in its own way. All three groups--the bandits, the gunmen and the peasants, are more or less the same social class. All socially insignificant or outcasts within the context of the wider society. They were all hard-luck stories, but they all made very different choices as to what path they took in their lives.

hanshotfirst1138

MS also has a more defined villain than SS though. Wallach was a fantastic bad guy.

Magnificent Seven does flirt with the social ideas-Chico argues that the gunmen are basically what made the peasants what they are-but the settings are fundamentally different, so it'd be a harder theme to run through. Plus Frayling says on the DVD commentary that there were many issues with the censors not wanting the Mexicans to appear to ineffectual either.

Incidentally, I had the genuine privilege of seeing a 35mm print of Seven Samurai, and was amazed by just how quickly the film breezed by when you consider that it's 210 minutes long. In an age when many films half that length feel longer, it's amazing to think how engrossing and quickly it moves.

B5Erik

Are you kidding me?

Look, I love The Magnificent Seven, but Seven Samurai is one of the 10 best movies ever made (and a strong argument could be made to put it at #1).

davidh777

The first time I saw it was in a theater.

Ash Ketchum

I saw MAGNIFICENT SEVEN for the first time at the Victoria Theater in Times Square on a triple bill with its first two sequels in early 1971 at a theater down the block from my high school. I saw SEVEN SAMURAI for the first time at a tiny theater around the corner a few months later, while I was still in high school. I'd also seen A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS at the theater next to the Victoria, the Astor, for the first time a few months earlier in 1970. And then I saw YOJIMBO in July 1971 at the same little theater where I saw SEVEN SAMURAI. So I saw SEVEN SAMURAI and YOJIMBO and their two western remakes all for the first time all within a year on the same strip of Times Square real estate. Those were the days.

Now that strip of real estate is occupied by the Marriott Marquis Hotel. Which hosted the Big Apple Anime Festival in 2002 and 2003, which was attended by Kurosawa's heirs, some of Japan's best anime directors, including Satoshi Kon (TOKYO GODFATHERS), who I got to interview there, and the guys who directed "Mobile Suit Gundam," "Macross," and "Cowboy Bebop." (Oh all right, maybe not exactly Kurosawa's heirs, but close enough.)

dan30oly

Magnificent Seven cause it's in english.