Always is a remake of the 1943 romantic drama A Guy Named Joe, although Spielberg did not treat the film as a direct scene-by-scene repeat of the earlier World War II melodrama. The main departure in plot is altering the action to that of a modern aerial firefighting operation. The film, however, follows the same basic plot line: the spirit of a recently dead expert pilot mentors a newer pilot, while watching him fall in love with his surviving girlfriend. The names of the four principal characters of the earlier film are all the same, with the exception of the Ted Randall character, who is called Ted "Baker" in the remake and Pete's last name is "Sandich", instead of "Sandidge".