In what can only be described as a testament to the 80s, classics such as the A-Team and The Karate Kid are being remade to once again fill our screens with joy, but are they as good as the originals?

The A-Team first graced our TVs in 1983, and was full of mandatory explosions, fist fights and typical 80′s one-liners – not to forget the iconic characters. Who could forget Mr T? Immortalized in … well I’m not sure what but when anyone mentions the name, we all know who it is.

Karate Kid, released in 1984 was one of those kid-who-gets-bullied-and-then-kicks-ass-to-be-the-hero type of movies was so good it prompted 2 sequels and a ‘Next Karate Kid’ to come out. It might be just me, but I will always will think of Mr Miyagi as Arnold from Happy Days!

As for the new movies, check out these trailers:

A-TEAM

KARATE KID

Make your own mind up, but as good as they look, personally I think you cannot beat the originals.

Talk about an iconic movie of the 80s! Put together a few nerdy characters, college girls and buys, some catchy music and you have a great movie that you can watch over and over again without losing interest.

Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are nerds and best friends, both heading to Adams College to study computer science. Even the music and ‘nerdy’ jokes are great at the beginning, setting the theme for a typical callege loser-to-hero story – but in it’s own special way.

Lewis and Gilbert move into a freshmen dorm with other first-year students, and are immediately set upong by the Alpha Betas, a fraternity to which many members of the school’s football team belong. The leader of the Alphas is Stan Gable, played by Ted McGinley of Happy Days fame.

The team’s coach (John Goodman) uses his intimidation to overrule the school’s Administrative Dean Ulich (David Wohl) and has the Alpha Betas evict the freshmen from the dorm for their own purposes. lewis and Gilbert work with the other outcasts whose characters are revealed in more details, and finally renovate a run down house for their own.

The Alpha Betas and their associated sorority, the Pi Delta Pis, harrass the nerds, and the story evolves further with the boys being continually tormented when they are trying to get in good with the Lambda Lambda Lambdas (Tri-Lambs). Come along the female nerd sorority, the Omega Mu.

I must bring up the outstanding (?) character of Booger (Curtis Armstrong), someone that you would not associate in real life, but in the movie was a real hero and funny guy with his unique and careless attitude towards life.

The movie comes to a head, where one night Gilbert has enough of the bullying and storms in the homecoming pep rally that the Alpha Betas are involved with. With a bit of asisstance from other chapters of the Tri-Lambs, the nerds get their way, and Lewis gets his girl, who just happens to be a member of the Delta Pis.

Here is one of the main songs from the movie. Looking at it now makes me laugh as it seems so corny, but don’t forget it was 1984!

A great movie, and as I said before, one that you can watch over and over & still enjoy.

All that Neal Page (played by Steve Martin) wants to do is to get home for Thanksgiving. His flight has been cancelled due to bad weather, so he decides on other means of transport.

As well as bad luck, Neal is blessed with the presence of Del Griffith (played by John Candy), who is a shower curtain ring salesman and all-around blabbermouth, never short of advice, conversation, bad jokes, or company.

And when he decides that he is going the same direction as Neal, that’s when the fun starts.

As the title suggests, to get home they try via three main modes of trasnport with hilarious results. Another famous actor is in this movie, being Kevin Bacon.

Similar to Ferris Bueller, this is an iconic movie of the 80s, as is the promo picture for the movie shown below:

1987 iconic movie

E.T. (Extra Terrestrial) was the top grossing film of the 80′s.

The Steven Spielberg film, released in 1982, is the story of Elliot, a lonely boy who befriends a friendly alien, who is stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help the alien return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.

E.T. learns to speak English by repeating what Gertie (played by Drew Barrymore in one of her early movies) says in response to her watching Sesame Street .

It enlists Elliott’s help in building a device to “phone home” by using a Speak & Spell toy, hence the infamous line repeated even to this day.

Elliott and E.T. ride a bicycle to the forest on Halloween, where E.T. makes a successful call home. Again, something else synomonous with the film and the 80′s is the picture of them flying in front of the moon.

According to Wikipedia, after his parents’ divorce in 1960, Spielberg filled the void with an imaginary alien companion. Spielberg said that E.T. was “a friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn’t feel I had anymore”. Hence the movie was born.

One of the most iconic movies of the 80′s was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – the story of a kid who wagged school and spent the day with his best friend and girlfriend.

I think it is every kid’s dream to have a day like this and get away with what he did. And what a legend he was at school too!

There are plenty of web pages dedicated to ‘Save Ferris’ – just to show what sort of a cult following it has.

I found this great poster which I have yet to frame and hang on my wall at home (due to the size), but when I unroll it and show my friends they love it.