Reboots

This post is not particularly about Star Trek, but it addresses something that a lot of fans get very upset about.  It's often because they take the fandom too personally - their fandom was "the only good thing about their childhood."  Well, I wasn't there when you were a kid so I can't verify that; I had a pretty decent childhood all things considered.  What I can say is that reboots of a franchise are normal and should be encouraged.

This topic came up for discussion over the forthcoming Ghostbusters movie which will be releasing this week.  My roommate asserted to me that, on principle, money-grabbing reboots are not qualified to be art because movies are meant to be watched again and again as symbols of their time and the stories that would come out of them.

The new, all-female Ghostbusters team, looking all badass with their proton packs on.

In the case of Ghostbusters, there was some contention over whether or not the movie should be a continuation of the previously existing story (making these women the next generation of Ghostbusters) or whether they should just start from scratch.  My roommate's assertion is that the movie will be inoffensive if it continues the story but it will be wildly offensive (to him) if it doesn't.

The existence of the new Ghostbusters movie in no way cancels out the previous Ghostbusters movies.  In fact, starting over prevents it from retconning anything in the previous movies and thereby cheapening them.

I have always believed that Tina Fey and Amy Pohler would make an excellent replacement for Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray in an all-female Ghostbusters reboot, but I understand why the casting director for this picture didn't.  Tina Fey and Amy Pohler would have had too much star power - and what director Paul Feig apparently wants to do is to tell a story.

How dare he?

It doesn't matter if it's the same story we've already been told, Paul Feig wants to tell it his way.  His way involves four ass-kicking women instead of four ass-kicking men.  It will have more contemporary jokes in it.  It will be a symbol of Ghostbusters in 2016, just as the original is still a symbol of Ghostbusters in 1984.

But about reboots in particular, the focus here is on the question of whether or not reboots are true artistic expressions or whether they're entirely driven by corporate greed.

There is no clear-cut answer.  But I will argue that, even in the most vapid of reboots, a great deal of artistic talent must be brought to bear in order for them to compete for the role of summer blockbuster.

Cowabunga, dude!

I'll make it perfectly clear that I am not a big fan of senseless reboots.  Movies like Total Recall (2012) and Transformers (2007) had little substance as far as story.  They were neat-o burrito romps in sci-fi action, but, especially in the case of Total Recall, made me wonder why they even bothered using the name.

But reboots are as old as film making itself.  There are some great examples of films you love you probably never knew were reboots.

Oh, no, Mr. Scarecrow!  Really?

The above still is from a 1910 production of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, produced by its creator L. Frank Baum and directed by Otis Turner.  By 1939, The Wizard of Oz had passed into the public domain and MGM picked it up and made it into the classic motion picture that has become the most watched movie in the world.

That's right, the most watched movie in the world is a reboot.

So why do we hate it when a franchise reboots with the same name but whole new characters/story?

We hate to see the names of our franchises attached to different stories because we're afraid it'll confuse the memories in our heads.  But it usually doesn't - I can absolutely tell Doom (2005) from the 1993 video game in my head; and even those two from the Doom video game that was just released earlier this year.

Man, they didn't even add the Jaws theme when it was chasing the heroes around...

It's genuinely most often the artistic reinterpretation of stories that we enjoy.  Nobody makes good movies every time, and if you stomp on reboots on principle then your franchise will die.

I can't stress this enough: if you boycott reboots on principle, your franchise will die.

Staying relevant is hard, kiddo!

For us young 'uns that might not recognize the picture above, that's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.  That's the show that originated as a series of stories in the Golden Age of Science Fiction and fell into obscurity when its spiritual successors - Star Wars and Flash Gordon - outlived it.

When franchises are rebooted, their old material resurfaces by popular demand as old fans return to their beloved classics to enjoy them for what they represented upon release.

Just ask these chaps

When nobody pays to see the reboot, demand for products from the franchise tapers off as its fans grow older and die until that franchise falls into obscurity and it exists only as a reference in some kid's blog about reboots (Sorry, Buck!)

Most often, the failure of a reboot can mean the wholesale end of a franchise.

Like this 2004 reboot of Lost in Space, which was a victim of the earlier 1998 movie flop of the same title

But it doesn't always.  Dumb things keep our franchises relevant - for television was historically reruns in syndication (like for Star Trek), but has transitioned largely to availability on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.  For example, Lost in Space is looking at a 2017 reboot on Netflix due to the popularity of watching the original series which is hosted there.

Sometimes things that keep a franchise alive are really dumb...

But if there's something common you can see in all these reboots it's production value.  To the consumer, production value sounds just like money being thrown at the picture, but artistically it translates to more than that.

Reboots typically get more production value because a studio is banking off the popularity of the original content.  That means the new artist can take the story in different directions - express themselves differently - than the previous artists did.  They have less limitations.

To restrict the new artists based on the old content is a perverse form of censorship.

Clever things make people feel stupid, and unexpected things make them feel scared!

In no other art form would you tie an artist's hands in this way.  Why would you?

The reason why the Transformers movies are cool is because ILM poured a lot of talent into making realistic-looking twenty-foot-tall robots.  They're certainly not Gone with the Wind, but they're not void of artwork.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn...

We can see the transition from heavily restricted budgets to unrestricted budgets in Star Wars films.  Star Wars was, in 1979, practically an independent film.  By 1988, when Return of the Jedi was released, Lucas practically had free reign of the production process.  And if Return of the Jedi meant freedom for Lucas, then The Phantom Menace was just the logical evolution of that freedom.

Mesa evolution!

The interesting thing about studying film is that it is very subjective.  Fans of anything anywhere must be honor bound to never forget this.  What The Wrath of Khan means to so many people it does not mean to me.  A widely accepted belief about films is that they must tell a story (a good one!) in order to be a good movie.

Well, that's a pretty narrow view of the craft.  I've seen plenty of shit artwork that's hailed as amazing (I'm looking at you, Campbell's Soup Cans) because pretentious people can't admit that they're blindly following each other into stupidity.

Movies can be good pieces of artwork simply by being visually impressive.

One of the most impressive tracking shots I've ever seen.

Or having good acting despite having shit dialogue.

"Only a master of evil, Darth!" ...nice comeback, Obi-Wan.

Or having a good story despite having a low budget.

The original cut of Star Wars had a bunch of these wolf-headed aliens in the Mos Eisley cantina...

So the next time you're thinking of shitting on a reboot, evaluate how much your franchise means to you.  Figure out if you'd like it to be around in 40 years.

Then go show some artists your support because not every artist is starving.  Some artists have already made it to the big time and there's no need to be bitter about it.

(I'm not one of them, by the way.)