To put in my two cents.
Shot-for-Shot fan re-creations are acceptable under the right circumstances. There's even a UK based competition for re-creating a film in 60 seconds, by whatever means you are able. And they don't even have to be that cinematic or realistic looking, they just have to be fun.
But the idea that if you recreate something shot-for-shot, and then try to pass it off as your own thing because you change some details of the story, is not entirely wrong, but it's not at all right.
It's not right in that you won't be able to make a meaningful career off of doing that. Because you'd basically be looking at it as just a way to make money rather than a way to have fun being a visual artist. Producers and Investors are the ones chiefly out to make money. Directors shouldn't be. I'm not saying they can't be, just that it doesn't make much sense.
Because the thing is, if you can't offer your own creativity and sense of shot composition to a film, then I don't feel like you can call yourself a real director. Or rather, you are a director, but you're not an Auteur. You're not imparting your own personal sense of vision onto something, you're just re-purposing someone else's.
But building off the existing work of others in terms of referencing, being influenced by, or paying homage to certain shots that you like from other movies isn't a bad thing to do. Plenty of people do that, and it can easily set them on the right path to truly understanding why these great shots work, and what makes them work based on what's happening in the story, how the characters in the scene are feeling, and how the cinematography is handled to make the shot look its best. Many artists have to imitate the masters before they can set off on their own path. So the idea of it is not a misplaced concept. However, trying to make a whole movie that way, especially if you don't have the legal rights to do so, is frankly foolish and misguided.
