Ryujin
Legend
You're not wrong there but I'd rather see someone try something new and fail, than see someone try something old that already succeeded and screw THAT up.
Film remakes and reboots and adaptations
You're not wrong there but I'd rather see someone try something new and fail, than see someone try something old that already succeeded and screw THAT up.
sabrinathecat
Explorer
(cough)Kurtzman & Orci (cough cough)
trappedslider
Legend
I think part of the "will it be good or bad" is dependent on how you view the folks who are behind and who will star in whatever it is that's being remade/rebooted,I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a number of folks when it comes to reboots/remakes. I'm also not tied to nostalgia when it comes to my favorite IPs for remakes and or reboots.
sabrinathecat
Explorer
Best reboot is still the "ReBoot" cartoon by Mainframe.CA
Re: remakes - I'm fine with them. They've been a part of Hollywood since, well, Hollywood. Generally speaking, I don't think there are many films that are so singular they can't be reinterpreted and/or re-imagined by another talented group of people. I like variations on a theme. Sometimes its almost sad that we only get a single version of a story; sometimes a work/premise/set of characters is so interesting a single treatment of it is almost a shame.
I may be in the minority here...
Re: adaptations - I like them to. They're hard to judge because faithfulness is often used as a criteria for evaluation them and it's a terrible one. Wildly unfaithful adaptations have been brilliant while faithful ones have foundered. Snyder's Watchmen is a good example of a fairly accurate film adaptation that worked well, so's P. T. Anderson's recent Inherent Vice, which i just watched yesterday.
I may be in the minority here...
Re: adaptations - I like them to. They're hard to judge because faithfulness is often used as a criteria for evaluation them and it's a terrible one. Wildly unfaithful adaptations have been brilliant while faithful ones have foundered. Snyder's Watchmen is a good example of a fairly accurate film adaptation that worked well, so's P. T. Anderson's recent Inherent Vice, which i just watched yesterday.
I don't usually get upset if a movie adaptation from a books is different. It's a different medium, good opportunity to do somethings different. The Prestige was an alright book, but the movie was excellent. To me, they tightened up the story ideas and executed it better.
I'm wary of reboots for the sake of reboots. Star Trek at least used a timeline thing and Nimoy to basically say "we respect all this past material, and are now going someplace different with it." Without that, it's like saying the previous version was junk, don't watch it, ours is better.
Sure, Shakespeare's plays have been done a zillion different ways, but the nature of theatre is for it to be done a zillion different ways because it's different actors in every theatre putting on hamlet. The play's the thing.
I'm wary of reboots for the sake of reboots. Star Trek at least used a timeline thing and Nimoy to basically say "we respect all this past material, and are now going someplace different with it." Without that, it's like saying the previous version was junk, don't watch it, ours is better.
Sure, Shakespeare's plays have been done a zillion different ways, but the nature of theatre is for it to be done a zillion different ways because it's different actors in every theatre putting on hamlet. The play's the thing.
sabrinathecat
Explorer
I can think of two adaptations that were superior to the source material.
Warlock. Male witch from the time of the Salem trials gets teleported to modern (1980s) LA by a magic spell, along with the man who hunted him down. The book is full of puerile and juvenile vulgarity, such as a sage soiling herself while channeling Zamiel (aka The Devil), and the warlock having his genitals enhanced as part of his pact with the devil. The movie skipped all of this and boiled down the story. Movie is good due to the actors, director, screenplay, and soundtrack.
Jumper. The book is an excessively whiny YA story about a boy who can teleport. And oh, terrorists are bad. (this was written 10+years before 9/11) The movie was an action vehicle for Samuel Jackson and Hayden Christian, with the notion that there were not only lots of Jumpers, but also an organization of religious nutcase fanatics trying to track them down and kill them. The only good thing about the Jumper book was that it had a sequel called Reflex, which was a middling decent read.
Warlock. Male witch from the time of the Salem trials gets teleported to modern (1980s) LA by a magic spell, along with the man who hunted him down. The book is full of puerile and juvenile vulgarity, such as a sage soiling herself while channeling Zamiel (aka The Devil), and the warlock having his genitals enhanced as part of his pact with the devil. The movie skipped all of this and boiled down the story. Movie is good due to the actors, director, screenplay, and soundtrack.
Jumper. The book is an excessively whiny YA story about a boy who can teleport. And oh, terrorists are bad. (this was written 10+years before 9/11) The movie was an action vehicle for Samuel Jackson and Hayden Christian, with the notion that there were not only lots of Jumpers, but also an organization of religious nutcase fanatics trying to track them down and kill them. The only good thing about the Jumper book was that it had a sequel called Reflex, which was a middling decent read.
Mishihari Lord
First Post
I perceive remakes, reboots, and adaptations as very different things, and this affects my tolerance for each.
I generally don't bother to see remakes. I've seen this story already, not much point in seeing it again. I'll make an exception if the original is amazing, like anything by Shakespeare, but then if the remake is not moderately amazing I'm disappointed with it.
Reboots can be alright. While I enjoyed the original Star Trek as a kid, I now find it naive and self righteous. The original fit my preferences at the time, and the reboot fits my preferences now, so it's all good.
Adaptations get the most tolerance for change. Different media almost always require significant changes in the story. The length of a movie vs a book is only the simplest example of this. I still insist that the adaptation at least have the essence of the original. The absolutely horrendous Starship Troopers movie is the biggest example I can think of of a failure in adaptation. The book was about a political philosophy interspersed with powered armor action. The movie lacked both of these.
I generally don't bother to see remakes. I've seen this story already, not much point in seeing it again. I'll make an exception if the original is amazing, like anything by Shakespeare, but then if the remake is not moderately amazing I'm disappointed with it.
Reboots can be alright. While I enjoyed the original Star Trek as a kid, I now find it naive and self righteous. The original fit my preferences at the time, and the reboot fits my preferences now, so it's all good.
Adaptations get the most tolerance for change. Different media almost always require significant changes in the story. The length of a movie vs a book is only the simplest example of this. I still insist that the adaptation at least have the essence of the original. The absolutely horrendous Starship Troopers movie is the biggest example I can think of of a failure in adaptation. The book was about a political philosophy interspersed with powered armor action. The movie lacked both of these.
While it is true that the movie lacked the deeper message of the book to its detriment, I actually agree with what the makers said in an interview. With the budget they had, they felt they could make the space marines awesome and the bugs so-so, make both marines and bugs middling good, or they could make the bugs awesome and the space marines mundane.
They opted to make the bugs fearsome, thinking they'd never be forgiven if they screwed up the bugs.
wingsandsword
Legend
Hollywood is extraordinarily risk-adverse. They want a safe, predictable movie that will make lots of money. They want known "brands" and "franchises", they want long-running film series that are always hits.
The stream of reboots, remakes and sequels all fuel that.
Some sequels are a reboot/remake in all but name, taking a long-dormant film series and hauling out a few of the actors to do one more film so they can get more out of the IP, and maybe try to hand off the starring role to a new generation and start a new series. That's how we got a 6th Rocky, a 4th Rambo, a 4th Indiana Jones, and why Disney is making a 7th Star Wars (and why they paid George Lucas $4.3 Billion for Lucasfilm, so they could have Star Wars and Indiana Jones as film series they could own).
A while back, Simon Pegg said some things about the writing process for the 3rd Reboot Trek film. Paramount doesn't want a traditional Star Trek film, with all the thinking and dialogue and complex plot. No. Paramount is envious of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and wants their Star Trek films to bring in Avengers-level money. They want Star Trek films that are big-budget, big "event" films that make over a billion dollars each time, and they've made it clear to the writers they want a typical Hollywood action-adventure film, and just graft Star Trek costumes/sets/plot elements (because they sell) onto the standard action movie and hope it hits it big like Marvel movies get.
That's what it comes down to, Hollywood wants predictable, highly profitable movies that have almost cookie-cutter uniformity, with the "brand" or film series bolted on for cosmetic purposes. Whether it's JJ Abrams generic-action-movie Reboot Trek, or JJ Abrams generic-action movie Disney Wars film, it's all the same to the Hollywood machine.
The stream of reboots, remakes and sequels all fuel that.
Some sequels are a reboot/remake in all but name, taking a long-dormant film series and hauling out a few of the actors to do one more film so they can get more out of the IP, and maybe try to hand off the starring role to a new generation and start a new series. That's how we got a 6th Rocky, a 4th Rambo, a 4th Indiana Jones, and why Disney is making a 7th Star Wars (and why they paid George Lucas $4.3 Billion for Lucasfilm, so they could have Star Wars and Indiana Jones as film series they could own).
A while back, Simon Pegg said some things about the writing process for the 3rd Reboot Trek film. Paramount doesn't want a traditional Star Trek film, with all the thinking and dialogue and complex plot. No. Paramount is envious of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and wants their Star Trek films to bring in Avengers-level money. They want Star Trek films that are big-budget, big "event" films that make over a billion dollars each time, and they've made it clear to the writers they want a typical Hollywood action-adventure film, and just graft Star Trek costumes/sets/plot elements (because they sell) onto the standard action movie and hope it hits it big like Marvel movies get.
That's what it comes down to, Hollywood wants predictable, highly profitable movies that have almost cookie-cutter uniformity, with the "brand" or film series bolted on for cosmetic purposes. Whether it's JJ Abrams generic-action-movie Reboot Trek, or JJ Abrams generic-action movie Disney Wars film, it's all the same to the Hollywood machine.
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