Das (Re)boot


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Ever feel like nobody appreciates your favorite movie from 2004?  Well, no need to fell prematurely dismayed: it’s very likely that it will be remade…bigger, faster, CGI-er.

Oops — I said the dirty word.  Films are no longer being “remade,” since that word suggests a lack of creativity, but rather films based off old franchises are being called “reboots.”  Don’t see the difference?

There isn’t one.  I’ve heard rebooting defined as forgetting continuity and taking a familiar story in a new direction. Hmmm.  Sounds like a remake!  Glad that’s settled.

It’s safe to pin much of the current “reboot craze” on Christopher Nolan’s excellent 2005 film Batman Begins. Ooh, it’s darker. Ooh, it’s more realistic. Ooh, no continuity with the nipple-suits! But it does feature the same Bat-characters in the same Bat-City with basically the same Bat-story.  Hey, that’s easy!  Let’s do it again!

Cue a more realistic 2006 Casino Royale, back-to-basics 2006 Superman Returns and from-the-top 2009 Star Trek. Cool.  But if you give a mouse a cookie…

In comes the excessive 2009 special effects fest Terminator: Salvation, a new Rocky Balboa movie with its edgy one-word title, Rocky, and a reported upcoming reboot of the middling action flick Mr. & Mrs. Smith. (Why yes, astute reader.  That movie is only four years old.)  Uh-oh.  What have we done?

Not only are we giving Hollywood a new lease on every stale 80s franchise, now we’re giving them second chances at dribble they mishandled the first time around.  This is the definition of a can of worms that we should have buried within the center of the earth.  Instead, we might have to watch The Core again.  Hey, Watchmen sucked, let’s reboot it!

This cat is out of the bag.  The best thing we can do for the safety of our tender film tastes is to grab on tight to the films that were done right the first time and pray Michael Bay doesn’t get his dirty hands on them. The Birds? You’re kidding! Planet of the Apes? Again?!

We’re too late.  Original filmmaking as we know it has died.  Damn you rebooters!  Damn you all to Hell!

It seems that 3D movies may be the only safeguard against filmic banality.  Yes, what a strange and wondrous new concept, Mr. Cameron.  We should do Jaws like that!  Oh wait…