Imprinting on media

[briggart]

I was going to say yes, but on second thought I'm not so sure. For me at least.

First Star Wars I remember seeing is Jedi in theater, when I was 8-9, and today my favorite SW is still the OT (and Rogue One/Andor). I think the prequels are OK, but not great, and the sequels felt like a wasted opportunity. I'm particularly annoyed by things like The Acolyte or Solo (which I liked as a SW movie, just not as Han backstory).

First Superman I was exposed to were Reeve's movies. I think I liked them as a kid, but now I'm mostly indifferent to them. As a teen I was mostly into X-Men comics so I don't really know much about comic Superman, and to me Man of Steel is the best superman movie (haven't seen the last one though).

I was never fond of Spider-Man in the comics, didn't particularly like the first two iterations of movie Spidey, but I really like the current MCU one.

I could go on and find lots of cases in which the first iteration of piece of media I was exposed to defined how I feel about reboots/sequels/etc. but also several examples in which I grew to like something long after I first encountered it. I'm not sure which of the two groups is larger.

 

[pukunui]

I think my most visceral reaction to a new version of an old property was Mission: Impossible, because of the way it utterly betrays the old shows. The TV version (both 60s and 80s) were ensemble shows, where a group of exceptionally skilled agents with specialized skills go on missions all over the world to overthrow dictators or catch international criminals and so on. I had good memories of the 80s show – it was schlock, but good schlock. So I was looking forward to the Mission: Impossible movie... where they pretty much started with eliminating Ethan Hunt's team, making it mostly a Tom Cruise solo show, and then turning Jim Phelps into a traitor on top of that! Yuck. Do not want. I hear the other movies are pretty good action movies, but I can't bring myself to watching them.

I've never watched the original Mission: Impossible show myself, but my parents did, and this was exactly their reaction to the first M:I movie when we went to see it in the theater together however long ago that was.