Here's Hollywood's favorite joke:
Pete and Repeat went down to the lake. Pete fell in and who was left?
As Homer Simpson would say, it's funny because it's true.
I'm talking, of course, about Hollywood's incessant need to mine the past - old movies, old TV shows - and redo them for a new audience.
Except that, recently, instead of calling them what they are - which is remakes - the marketing geniuses have come up with a new term: "reboot." It sounds so high-tech, so of-the-moment - much more so than, say, "do-over." But let's be honest: What's a reboot but just a slick way of avoiding the term "remake"?
Oh, sure, you can sell it as a whole new approach, a reimagining, a re-whatever. But what it comes down to is a lack of imagination, a need to suck the life from an existing idea, apparently out of an inability to come up with anything original. (Sequels? Do I even need to go there?)
So, yes, Batman Begins was a vast improvement over either of the Tim Burton Batman films or their sequels - but it's still a Batman remake. (Don't even get me started on The Dark Knight. We've already had that argument. My side: an overhyped mess. Your side: No, it's a great movie. My side: You're wrong. End of discussion.)
Since the beginning of May, we've had three more so-called reboots. Two of them sucked, big time: X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Terminator Salvation. One didn't: Star Trek. Still to come: Land of the Lost, The Taking of Pelham 123, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
As much as I enjoyed Star Trek, it was a guilty pleasure. Because here was yet another movie - another $100+ million dollars spent - that was devoted to selling us something we already had.
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Do you stick to movies, or do you tread the world of music, too? Talk about unoriginal!
Thank you!
(For all the naysayers- hey, I enjoyed these "new" movies, too. It's just a shame there's nothing new in some of these genres. I mean really! When was the last really good space epic?)
Complain all you want about remakes or sequels, or adaptations of old stuff, but don't lump them all into the 'reboot' category so you can criticize several movies you don't like or haven't seen yet under one banner.
I can deal with product placement. After all, how would I know Budweiser wouldn't exist in the 23rd Century? I can deal with uniform redesigns. In fact, the way the uniforms conformed, more or less, to those of the original series was reassuring as I watched this very different Star Trek. It was even refreshing, as New Coke must have been to the focus groups it was tested on prior to rollout. Then Vulcan was destroyed, and the feeling was at the same time that of being punched in the stomach and kicked in the balls. J.J. Abrams had just killed Star Trek, of which I have been a fan since I was eight years old. And then cadet Kirk was made a captain right out of the box, and Spock was the first in line looking for a job under his command. As the real Spock might have said, this was simply not logical.
I couldn't believe that J.J. Abrams felt he needed to chuck 40 years of Star Trek "history" and start completely over in order to make a "Star Trek" film profitable. Surely this was the new New Coke. Not only would Gene Roddenberry not have recognized this "Star Trek" apart from the names of the principal characters, he probably wouldn't have endorsed it if he lived to hear the proposal. "Where are we going with this?" he would have asked before chucking this travesty of a script into the trash.
I also can't get past the "let's drill a hole into the molten core of a planet and plant a naked singularity there to destroy it, all without getting sucked in ourselves" plot. Sure, science fiction movies have always played a bit fast and loose with physics. Example? Explosions in space would be neither noisy nor spectacularly fiery. Don't blame me; it's the vacuum. But this? Please!
And don't even get me started on Uhura leaving her post in the middle of a red alert to chase after Spock...and him liking it. Could either one have been more out of character?
Also, it should not have been given to Abrams—who admittedly hates the franchise—to direct...and I use the term loosely. Would someone please tell him that Blair Witch-esque camera shaking is passe?
I will watch the new movie again, if only to confirm my opinion. Frankly, though, I'd rather go back and watch TOS...all three seasons from start to finish. Pass the popcorn.
(1) "Originality" is overrated. I mean, c'mon, even the immortal Shakespeare blatantly ripped off other writers; he just did it so well that we forgive him and proclaim his versions to be the definitive ones. In short, proclaiming something better -- or "best" -- just because we believe it to be "original" smacks of snobbishness, pointless nostalgia, or both. (Plus, whatever your age, anti-originals phobia and/or whining adds, "like, omigosh," 10 years to your face. For real. Check the mirror.)
(2) Every generation has the right to "rediscover" for themselves what they've been missing. Telling people to keep their grubby hands off your favorite characters from "Star Trek," "Get Smart," or (in years to come) "The Matrix" makes you sound like the cranky, old (no matter your actual age) bore permanently stationed on his front yard to yell at kids, puppies, and Life. Relax, already. They're young, they're harmless, and they're just playing. (And it wouldn't hurt your lawn to be aerated, now and then, either.)
(3) Finally, watching that accursed "reboot" might show you something you missed the first time around -- something that needed only tweaking to jump out at you and make you laugh, or something familiar but still fresh and fun.
Hey, change happens to the best of us. Those in it for the long haul know to savor the good, discard the bad, and hand some of the popcorn over to the kids.
The problem is the last bunch of years that original ideas have simply not been used in big budget films. I'm all for the new Star Trek and hope they make many sequels...but I'd love to see a brand new science fiction movie that isn't based on an old TV show. New characters, new universe; all that good stuff. Hollywood needs to start taking chances with original ideas again.
And by the way a reboot is something you do after windows crap out on you that says a lot about the Hollywood exec mindset!
Re-boots or re-makes are about finding new ways to tell old stories and the process is as old as narrative art itself. What, exactly, is wrong with that? Surely the point isn't so much 'what subject?' as it is 'how well done?'
Besides, seeming to argue for originality, you actually side with the grumpy old men of art criticism. I mean citing the Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, for example? Most filmgoers under 30 (perhaps 40? perhaps even just most filmgoers period) wouldn't even know that there was an earlier film by that name (which wasn't all that great, anyway). As for Wolverine and Terminator, etc, they shine or fizzle on their own merits as movies. Being re-boots is no guarantee for or against.
But telling stories is rather like stage magic There are only a handful of tricks, really. It's how they are presented that matters.
All these reboots are doing is bringing the same sense of wonder and thrill to the new generation that got us interested in their previous iterations.