When it comes to stories that bear transposition to varying eras and settings, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) seems a prime example of a plot t...
Joe Johnston's remake isn't dreadful -- certainly not as awful as the commercials make it look. It's not a good movie, by any stretch -- but it could have been a lot worse.
Surveying the historical span of filmmaking, the use of original music appears more prevalent from the dawn of sound through the 1970s -- or perhaps it's just that the scores themselves were more memorable over this period.