Watching the original Jurassic Park today and it got to the part where Ellie was helping investigate what's wrong with the Triceratops. We never find out (which has always bugged me), but it got me wondering what would have happened if Nedry and his plot to steal the embryos didn't exist. Does Jurassic Park turn more into Outbreak as they try and solve what's making the dinosaurs sick? In place of Nedry maybe someone is trying to sabotage the park from the inside by poisoning (maybe the lycene contingency that is mentioned and dropped) the dino's. So the dino action comes from tracking the threat in and out of the various dino areas.

What other flicks would transform into something different, yet still entertaining with the removal of a major plot point? Basic rule is to try and stay within what the plot still provides and not necessarily introducing something entirely new (my idea spawned from the unresolved sick dino subplot).

The movie X (2022) without its featured plot is about a group of people making a porno, which would be pretty entertaining.

In Psycho, I am 100% happy with the story that we got. Don't get me wrong.
However... in an alternate reality where Marion Crane had stayed at any other motel (or just pulled over behind a giant billboard and slept in her car or whatever)... seeing her heist play out for the rest of the running time would have also been a good, albeit possibly 'cliche' movie. I don't care. I'd watch it.

The movie Ex Machina without its featured plot would be about how little a tech billionaire really values his top programmers.

A Hitchcock heist movie, now that would be interesting! Maybe the Psycho is the person from who she stole from and is pursuing her.

Great idea! Or have her stop at Bates' Motel, get into that weird conversation with Norman, smile sweetly and politely excuse herself to go back to her room, pack her stuff, slip out of her room quietly, get into her car and drive as far the hell away from that creepy guy as possible, rain or not!

Halloween without its featured plot either becomes an R-rated Adventures In Babysitting, or a heartwarming road film about a wordless former inmate learning how to drive and navigate for the first time.

Carrie would be a heartwarming film about an ugly duckling who gets hot, has a great time at the prom, then goes home and has a nice bath and goes to bed.

How about Jacob's family trying to turn the tables on their captors, the Gecko Brothers in From Dusk Till Dawn?

(in actuality, that would be boring and has been done a million and a half times, I far more prefer them teaming up against the vampires)

Actually, one thing I've noticed about Carrie is that her mom actually had no idea what happened at the prom. So let's say she goes to the prom, has a good time, goes to the Beehive with Tommy, maybe a little make-out session in the car, and he drops her off at home. Margaret is still behind the door with the knife, the candles everywhere, etc etc.

• The Dark Knight without the Joker essentially becomes "Batman and Co. vs. the mob"
• Jaws becomes "Sheriff Brody deals with rowdy vacationers"
• If Beale Street Could Talk becomes "A Black couple settles down and raise a family while dealing with some in-laws drama"

I don't think any of those would be outright awful, although Jaws Minus Jaws is likely the weakest.

Dracula: Jonathan Harker's real estate company refuses to sell property to a foreigner. Dracula is stuck in his castle eating the locals, and eventually the countryside around him is depopulated because the survivors emigrate to America.

Frankenstein: Victor's fiancee cures him of being a self-centered git. He gives Igor a beating when he learns that Igor has been tormenting his creation. Victor teaches the monster that he is loved. The former monster becomes a loyal retainer to the house of Frankenstein for generations.

Citizen Kane

Nobody heard his last words. It's just a biography and nostalgic estate sale.

Alien (1979)

Idiot does not take of his helmet to get a better look at alien biology. The movie becomes a political commentary.

It's possible that, if Carrie didn't have psychic powers, her Mom, while still being a religious nut, would not believe Carrie to be possessed or evil.

Maybe, although in my proposed scenario the only thing I'm omitting is the pouring of the pig's blood; she still has the telekinesis. But even if you omit the telekinesis as well, in Margaret's long rambling speech, she truly believes that Carrie's mere existence is punishment from God because she enjoyed the down and dirty sex with Ralph that one night.

Star Wars: If the Imperial Stormtroopers didn't summarily execute Owen and Beru, Luke stays behind on Tatooine and we find out what we was going to do with those power converters.

Evil Dead: They don't play the recordings of the reading of the Naturom Demonto, and it becomes a movie about a loser who gets dumped by his girlfriend because he gave her a magnifying glass necklace.

The Godfather: Michael does not avenge his father by gunning down McCluskey and Sollozzo, sticking to his status as a "civilian" and pursuing his relationship with Kay. He drifts further away from his family, and the Five Families destroy the Corleones. At the end, only Michael remains, realizing he's happier with the new family he's made for himself instead of the one he was born into.

Spielberg shows you the answer to the triceratops illness. Ellie plays with some stones that was in that big pile of shit. The dinosaur was eating the stones near the berries.

I kind of think Jurassic Park plays out in a similar way, except Nedry's spaghetti code and Hammond trusting a disgruntled underpaid hacker to run all the systems breaks down and the park becomes a nightmare. Or it's just the opening and we get what Jurassic World was, a fully fledged theme park where people are "bored" of real dinosaurs and they have to make up deadlier ones, and things go awry with a park full of people.

Star Wars, if Luke doesn't leave I think Obi mind tricks his aunt and uncle or something because that's basically he can't just leave Luke on that planet to rot. Or something, I was never really clear on why he allowed Luke to grow older without intervention.

In MoS if Pa Kent doesn't die he continues to fill his son's head with ideas that humanity will never trust him and will turn against him as soon as he reveals himself. He is eventually forced to when Zod and company come but sides with the Kryptonians because he doesn't really have any close relationships outside of his mom and dad, and he finally finds a place where he belongs.

Black Panther, everyone respects tradition, realizes Killmonger doesn't cheat to win, and falls behind him as king. No takebacks, T'challa lost and that's that. He wants to open up Wakanda's technology to the world and instigate war for revenge, but now being able to be a full fledged character and not a bwahaha villain, his experiences actually having to rule over people and has a change of heart; he installs Wakanda as a new global military power and as a sanctuary, which of course angers the other governments of the world, who ready the Avengers.

Cheech and Chong without any weed/dope.

It would seem like aimless films without any of the humor, and no storyline.

I sometimes think how amazing it would have been if Gus Van Sant had been pulling our leg by announcing a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. I imagine him copying the original for the first half hour, up to the point where Marion gets into the shower. Instead of being stabbed, the sound of the water cuts out, and we have a low angle shot of the shower curtain jerking open and Marion stepping out to towel off. No idea where the movie would have gone from there, but 1997 audiences sucked into the copy would have been as gobsmacked as 1960's audiences were by the shower scene.

I think you missed the "different, but still entertaining" part of the original post.

Midsommer becomes the story of a young woman feeling like a fifth wheel on a European backpacking trip and discovering that herr boyfriend is actually just a big douche.
-- which is kind of what the movie is about already, with or without the horror elements.