Hypothesis

 

You probably noticed that the production dates of the original versions of the movies we are analyzing coincide with the time period when the latter portion of the Silent Generation and the first wave of Baby Boomers were 12-29 years old--in other words, the time period in their lives when they would be the target audience.

 

It is no coincidence that the remakes of the same movies were produced with the same age group in mind—in the 1990’s, this group is composed of a mixture between the tail end of Generation X and the first wave of what is being called Generation Y.

 

What is significant about this age group?  It is the time period in people’s lives where they are the most impressionable.  It seems logical to therefore assume that when given a choice between watching the original version of a movie versus a remake of the movies, Silents and Boomers would probably choose to watch the original version while Xers and Ys would choose to watch the remade version.  We therefore conjecture that when given a choice between two options, one familiar and the other unfamiliar, people tend to choose the option with which contains elements they are more familiar or comfortable with.