Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6267654" data-attributes="member: 37579">"Build on what came before" as in "work with what they're given and not start from scratch". Changes can be made, but they should be mindful of the past and every change should have a good reason. Making a change shouldn't come down to personal taste or one person's feelings.So, yes, you can add new things, but it has to work with the old. And sometimes you can change old things, provided they didn't work well originally. Emphasis added. Craig raised some eyes, and if he hadn't done such a good job with the role and the movie hadn't been one of the better Bond's in ages he might have ended up a forgettable Bond like George Lazenby. And, again, that was the fuss over the colour of his hair. If he'd become Indian or gay or a woman the movie would have to feel that much more Bondian to win people over. (And while I tolerated Star Trek, I hated Into Darkness. So not the best example to use for me. And, really, most of the Trek movies don't really capture the feeling of the TV show, with no social commentary or musings on humanity beyond "blow the ^%$#@ out of the villain".)And it should be noted that all three of your examples are reboots that go back to basics, retelling the origin and get back to the roots of the franchise after it had drifted away from it's base and what the audiences wanted. People struck out in a new direction with a happy Batman in a campy movie, or Bond movies with increasingly outrageous gadgets like invisible cars, or, well, after a poorly executed movie and a couple bad TV shows. Trek is a muddier example. There is a happy medium: this is a sliding scale with extremes. Going too far retro to innovation falls flat is problematic, I'll admit that, but so is making things unrecognisable though too many changes. Changes have to fit the context of the story and character, and larger changes have to be surrounded by familiar elements. Change should not be arbitrary or come down to one person's taste. The Dark Knight trilogy is a good example. It dumped the camp and silliness of the last couple Batman movies and returned to an emotionally haunted Wayne. It removed most of the wackier high tech gadgets in favour or realistic weaponry and ninja training. But, it was not afraid to innovate with things like the tank-like Batmobile, adding new characters, and the like.  It's not a matter of making no changes, it's a matter of not fixing what isn't broken. Or not rebuilding the garage when all it needed was a splash of paint. AC that goes down instead of up? Yeah, that's a valid change. Consistent math across all the levels? Yes, absolutely. Removing a myriad of combat modifiers in favour of one? Sure, sounds good. New idea for a class or race? Sure, people can ignore it if they hate it. Having the fighter cast fireballs? No, that's probably not a good idea.(I had other examples of "bad" ideas that went too far, from both 3e and 4e, but I'm omitting them to avoid needless edition warring)This gets much trickier with lore, as it's harder to say if a story is "broken" or not. There's some wiggle room. You can do a lot while still respecting the past and emulating the tone and feel of what came before without replicating the mechanics. Which is important and a counterpoint to the "Kill all the sacred cows!" cries over the past few years.</blockquote>

Verification