Reboots: It is all coming back with inevitable rebellion
From film to video games, 2012 and 2013 has seen and will continue to see many reboots,
whether they are similar to the originals or different in a drastic way.
In the past year, the film industry has seen a reboot from two years before, television has seen
multiple reboots, and the video game industry has seen a couple of well-known reboots itself.
Many fans across all forms of media have sounded off about these reboots, mostly negatively for
one aspect or another.
The art of the reboot may sound easy, but it is harder than many realize. A person or company
cannot simply do anything with the original series. There is a specific balance between a
rebooted series and the original series.
If the rebooted series is too close to the original, it would be just a continuation of a series and
would not incorporate a larger audience. If a series deviates too far from the original, the original
fan base will rebel against it, usually claiming that the new franchise ruined the original.
Even though the season of reboots is still in full swing, some mistakes have been pointed
out about the recent revisited or revived series. One mistake that has been made includes the
question about when a reboot is needed.
In the case of “The Amazing Spiderman,” the directors were attempting to bring new life to a
franchise that was ended only two years before. Instead of starting fresh, people would have been
more comfortable with the continuation of a saga. In the case of the Batman series, the previous
iteration had ended eight years before Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, and that movie, “Batman &
Robin” was met with negative reviews. The time had come for a new look on series, and the
reboot was a success.
Another factor in a reboot that can be seen as a mistake is the balance of new material and
old material. One error that people make with making a reboot is adding too much new material,
resulting with too many fans rejecting it.
For example, when director Michael Bay announced a movie that would reinvent the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles, fans were outraged because the proposed movie would have the creatures
become aliens instead of mutants.
Seeing that the term “Mutant” is in the title of the franchise, it is understood why fans would
reject this idea. An example of a good balance between the old and new franchises also includes
the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
When Nickelodeon started with its reboot in 2012, it changed several aspects of the
characters, but included older fans with some comic book-like animation harking back to its
origin and multiple references and a remix of the theme from the franchise’s first television
appearance in 1987.
These problems exhibit an idea that exists in every proposed reboot: a reboot is not exactly
like its previous franchise. In almost every rebooted franchise, people have sounded out about
the changes that a company made before the reimagined media even appears.
In the case of the recent video game “DmC: Devil May Cry,” people became angry at the new
look of the main character, which included a more Western hairstyle. Even before “The Dark
Knight” was released, people were skeptical of the portrayal of the Joker.
The rebellion of a few fans is inevitable, and if people are hesitant to try a rebooted franchise
because it isn’t like the original, they should try the franchise. A reboot is simply the series
through the eyes of another director or company, and not the original series ruined.
Fans can and will hate any changes that a reboot makes, but the reboot doesn’t offer more of
the original series that they may love. A reboot is another series with the same idea, so fans of
the original series should sit down and enjoy having another series to watch, play and discuss.