To Reboot Or Not To Reboot:
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Part 1 appears in this issue. |
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Just as I think the best Bond will always be Sean Connery for me and Roger Moore a close second. Just the way The Spy Who Loved Me will be always be my favorite overall film of the long-endured franchise even if it does look cheesy as hell by today’s standards.
Recently, it was reported that Harry Potter would out-gross the James Bond series, and while that is impressive after only ten years and a fraction of the movies it took James Bond, Harry Potter’s days are numbered. There are, at least from the books written by J.K. Rowling, only two from which to derive more films, and James Bond will keep coming back long after Harry casts his final spell. The James Bond franchise is the highest-grossing film series to date and will remain as such, even if it is interrupted for a couple of years.
As much as I enjoyed watching Bond in his British car, harking after some criminal set on world domination, I also enjoyed the original Batman films made by Tim Burton, starring Michael Keaton. I often find the original films to be more enjoyable to watch. They’re laid-back, fun, entertaining and not-so-serious like the Christopher Nolan ones. I wouldn’t mind if my children watched the original Batman films, but if they asked to see The Dark Knight I’d probably run them out of the room.
Are the new ones entertaining?
Yes, I’d be lying if I said ‘no’. They squash the originals in special effects and filming. But there are other attributes to consider. Don’t judge a book by its cover, remember? Just because there’s a layer of dust an inch thick covering it or maybe it’s been torn off and lost doesn’t mean it doesn’t have character.
Every time I hear ‘reboot’ I get this preconceived idea of production companies scrambling around trying to shuffle through their catalog of titles trying to determine which one is due for a revival and which one can be milked one more time for another healthy Fourth Quarter. If looks like everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon trying to get their franchise out before the well runs dry for good and it’s too late.
Every time I watch a reboot I go in with my hands up. I go in screaming,“I surrender!”
I don’t want to have any preconceived ideas or notions on what to expect or see because that’s what I’ve been used to seeing. But it’s hard not to miss those things when they’re suddenly not there or something’s been erased or changed.
Reboots do that.
They rip the guts out of you and throw them in your soup. You can’t look away, you have to sit there and watch it swirl around, getting cold. And you can’t toss it down the garbage disposal either, you’ve already paid for your lunch and now you have to eat it too. So you do and you taste it and it kind of tastes like chicken because don’t they say everything tastes like chicken?
Maybe that’s true of everything else. Maybe movies taste like chicken. Maybe television tastes like chicken, and maybe James Bond, The Dark Knight and Star Trek taste like a Big Mother Hen boiled to piping-hot perfection. No added ingredients, no preservatives and least of all no pepper or salt because they’re full of things your body doesn’t need like sodium and carbohydrates.
They also say your body will crave what it wants or needs. So can’t we just have it? I like eating with pepper and salt, maybe not with every meal, but it’s nice to have once in a while. Once in a while because they’re original, something you grew up with, like your irritating little brother. You thought he was a spoiled brat but you would miss him, wouldn’t you? If suddenly he weren’t around anymore? They’re a part of you. A part that connects you to the past. A past that only you shared together and experienced. I truly believe movies and TV are that way too. A connection. A link.
I had never heard of a Low Carb Diet until I started seeing more and more reboots cropping up. I mentioned earlier that the Nineties were building to something, a foreshadowing of sorts, remember? Maybe society cried for Low Carb. Maybe we all cried for reboots too. Maybe we allowed it all to happen so we could tell ourselves it was best for us just like eating Low Carb would suddenly make us healthy. Maybe reboots are healthy for the soul, I don’t know.
Are reboots a good thing?
Have we truly run the well dry?
Is there no more creative power to keep something going and for people to keep coming back and enjoying and contributing to its originality? Or is originality merely revolutionary, starting new when things dry up and there’s no more demand?
So far, I believe that we can only look to results.
Overall, reboots have been successful.
The two biggest successes of James Bond and Batman (and in all likelihood, Star Trek) have proven that reboots work and people will pay money to see them. But what if this is merely a solution to a problem that never existed? Batman was successful when it came out in 1989. The subsequent films were not as successful but they were also done as campy, summer attractions — but not at all failures, financially speaking.
James Bond has always done well. Even the last Brosnan film Die Another Day raked in over four hundred million dollars. That’s hardly signs of a struggling franchise. And yet when Casino Royale debuted with new actor Daniel Craig and a complete restarting of the timeline and themes, the demand increased. So without a familiar star like Brosnan to see the reboot off or any familiar themes like Bond’s womanizing maneuvers, the film was still a major success. I had to admit I was stunned. Originally, I expected it would not live up to its predecessors but it did, and then some.
So does this mean that every fifteen to twenty years a franchise will reboot its moneymakers? Does this mean sometime in the next decade we can look forward to seeing films like The Matrix, X-Men, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, even Titanic rebooted with a new cast and story line?
That might be fine for new generations and the studios developing them, but having to endure them again in lack of new material might further my dislike of reboots. While I can’t say reboots are entirely a bad thing I also can’t help but wonder if their creative wells are drying up each time one is announced. Maybe it would be better to let them die. (Euthanasia, I call it.)
Let the franchises die while they still hold some dignity. Let them all die with their pride, maybe that would be better than seeing them whither away into something worse than death. Something you wouldn’t want your loved ones to suffer needlessly at the end of their life. Why let it endure?
Sign the DNR and get out of here.
Like I said, maybe I am getting old. Maybe there is a new generation of younger recipients out there that genuinely embrace change more easily, even if it’s a diehard, traditional concept that has never been broken, until now when everyone sees the well is getting low. And maybe this isn’t about embracing change but maybe stubborn refusal to admit you’re slow to change. Change is never easy, but they say it is necessary. I wish I could believe that with things like James Bond and Batman. I’m a fan of both.
I said I recently saw Star Trek, the new film directed by J.J. Abrams set with a new cast reprising the roles of the original cast from the TV series back in 1966-69 and the later movies. I went in hopeful. Did I come out with the taste of chicken in my mouth?
Yes.
And no.
It was more like bittersweet turkey.
Originally this film was set to be released in December but was delayed. They thought it would do better as a summer flick which for the most part do better financially. Star Trek has always been released previously in the late fall, November or December, until this release. I can’t believe it doesn’t have something to do with the fact that it’s a reboot or the fact that it relies heavily on action and special effects like other films being released this summer such as Transformers.
When the film was first announced that it would be a new cast playing the parts of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and crew I remember I thwarted the decision saying ‘they’ll never do it right or live up to their legends’, and ‘how can you do a Star Trek movie with new actors that have never been introduced in a TV show before, anyway?’ Surprisingly, I was wrong. And you know what? I’m glad I was wrong.
They all did a superb job. And it was amazing watching them fill in the gaps as you might say on coming to know their younger selves. I was most impressed with Karl Urban’s performance. I thought he did a remarkable job playing McCoy, not too much like him but enough to know it’s the right flavor. Not KFC mind you, but a juicy K.C. Strip Steak.
I thought Simon Pegg pegged Scotty’s role for ‘all she’s got, Captain’ unfortunately a little late into the film at about the halfway mark. I thought he did a remarkable job blending in his voice and humor.
Were there blunders? Oh yeah.
Forgive me for revealing this small tidbit of the movie, a spoiler if you must, you can skip to the next paragraph now if you don’t want to know or haven’t seen it. One unforgivable image that I can’t get out of my mind (like kissing your sister or brother) is the relationship between Uhura and Spock, which never happened on screen until now. I really began to taste the chicken in a point in the film in which a long, string of saliva dangles between their lips like a tightrope.
I felt like I was watching daytime television.
But mostly where the film fell apart for me was in the plot and plot-scripting. Some scenes looked ridiculous, like they belonged in the now forgotten Lost in Space film. Other scenes looked like parts dubbed from Willy Wonky and the Chocolate Factory. You’ll know what I mean when you first see Scotty on the Enterprise.
And when the film was finally over and complete I felt lost, as though something was missing, and it wasn’t until I got home that I finally figured it out. Hope, optimism, the promises of the future, a dream the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, had set forth, was gone.
Wiped away, like dust on a chalkboard and Abrams had scribbled in its place some pretty fancy cartoon characters, let me tell you. But I didn’t find them funny or cute or charming. The actors, yes, but not the meat.
It tasted a little like poultry.
Boneless, salt-less, pepper-less, skinless chicken.
Was it all bad?
No.
I remained entertained for the entire show, but where I worry is the next time I see it if I’m going to like it as much after the newness wears off. So far the film has done really well. It’s on its way to summer blockbuster status and hopefully will revamp the franchise which after the last unsuccessful film Nemesis and a canceled television show, it needs something.
But something else tells me that things — ideas have a way of enduring. Maybe there is hope for Star Trek. Maybe there will be a return to grace eventually. Will they do it with this latest movie? Word is they’ve already started a script for a sequel. Will it be like it was before the reboot?
Probably not. Before, Star Trek has been primarily one TV show or another but being a Well of Profit they can’t turn down the potential it might have at the box office. It’s a lot easier to do one or two big budget movies than it is to do an entire season of television. It’s a safer bet. But life is like a wheel.
Remakes, prequels, and yes, now reboots.
If you don’t like reboots or maybe what they’ve done with your favorite hero you can be sure it’ll come around again. You just have to wait until Vanna spins it on the next round when it’s your turn. Will it be right?
Who can say.
So, are reboots a good thing?
Honestly, I don’t know.
The studios are filling their glasses with as much as they can fill with their moneymaker franchises, and I say all the power to them. Keep pumping the well for all she’s got. At least you won’t have to tap it off. That’s hard on the environment and hard on people like me to start off completely new. I don’t like change but I like starting over even less. Go easy on me.
So I guess you’ll have to make up your own minds. You’ll have to do it eventually sooner or later but I can say, like Charlton Heston’s guns, with every part of me that holds on to the fading past, “You can have my shaken-Martini drinkin’, cigarette-smokin’ Bond — James Bond DVD collection when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”
Copyright © 2009 by Thomas R. Willits
