Re: Re: Re: Reboot, Re-Imagine, Remake

So in honor of Scream 4 I figured I would write about Reboots, Re-Imaginings, and Remakes. I was going to make this post about M. Night Shyamamaaammmalan, but that will have to wait until next week. For now, you'll just have to read my break down on the differences between the three Re's. Enjoy!

1. The Remake: This one's quite possibly the most common of the three. It tipically gets made when the original movie fades into obscurity and some new director wants to put his spin on a classic and make it relevant for a new age. A good example of the remake is King Kong. According to wikipedia there are at least 7 different King Kong movies that have been made since 1933. Apparently only two of them are remakes, this means they pretty much share the same plot as the original: Adrien Brody finds a mysterious island, discovers King Kong, screws King Kong, which causes King Kong to change it's sex and go on a rape rampage through New York City. Wait a minute, I think I'm getting my plots mixed up here. Anyways, remakes tend to stick close to the original source material and usually only serve to show the original movie but with better graphics and typically a modern setting (or nostalgic setting like Peter Jackson's King Kong.)


2. The Reimagining: This term gets thrown around a lot these days. More than likely because it's a more modernized version of the remake. The difference is that a reimagining usually strays away from it's source material. Essentially someone looks at an old movie or TV series (let's say Battlestar Galactica) and decides to remake it but this time change the nature of the villains (i.e. robots are now human/robots), change the sex of the characters (i.e. Starbuck now has breasts and so does Boomer) and then make it one big War on Terror allegory.


3. The Reboot: Now this one is almost similar to both a reimagining and remake except it's not. The reboot tends to completely get rid of all previous continuity in hopes to start anew with fresh ideas. Typically a reboot happens when a more recent movie franchise has failed. This differs from a remake in that remakes tend to redo something that was good but just faded into obscurity. The reboot differs from a reimagining because reimaginings change source material rather than completely discard it for something new. Now there are two different kinds of reboots: the Franchise Reboot and the Sequel Reboot. A good example of these are: Christopher Nolan's Batman and Scream 4. The Franchise Reboot pretty much takes a failed movie franchise of the last decade and makes it better. The Sequel Reboot does the same thing except it actually fits it into the continuity of the failed franchise. Now to drive my point home on the differences between the three Re's I'm going to take the movies I mentioned and explore them as if they were the other Re's.


4. King Kong: If it were reimagined King Kong would have been a gigantic sloth instead of a gorilla, Adrien Brody would have been the damsel in distress, and climbing the Empire State Building at the end would somehow represent the terrorist attacks during 9/11. If it were a Franchise Reboot Peter Jackson would have made King Kong then Son of King Kong, which would have flopped in the box office, and then hollywood would haved hired Christopher Nolan to give his take on what King Kong represents. If it were a Sequel Reboot Peter Jackson would have made a 3rd movie called King Kong Returns or something, in which King Kong's son has a son.


5. Battlestar Galactica: If it were a remake Starbuck would have had a penis, 'nuff said. If it were a Franchise Reboot, the 1980's Battlestar Galactica movie would have had a ton of failed sequels and some director would have come along and did what Ronald D. Moore did with the modern BSG except without all the changes (which is actually what Bryan Singer's next project will be.) If it were a Sequel Reboot, it would have had the main characters of the original series but the plot of the new series last episode.


6. Batman: As a remake it would have had Nolan's first film involve Heath Ledger's Joker, the second involving the Penguin, and the third involving Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face. As a reimagining, Bruce Wayne would be a detective who hunts down his parents murderer, they call him the Batman because he works the night shift. As a Sequel Reboot, Nolan would have cast George Clooney as The Dark Knight and... would have made an awesome movie, repairing the damage done by Joel "Batnipples" Schumacher.


7. Scream 4: As a remake it would have had the same essential plot but none of the original cast would have been in it and it would have come out 20 years from now. As a reimagining, the killer would murder his victims using a hockey stick while wearing a Richard Nixon mask. As an entire Franchise Reboot: SEE "As a remake," but make it more recent.

Well, there you have it folks. That's my take on these matters. Come tomorrow I will have rewritten this blog post, except I'll mention The Dollars Trilogy, the new Halloween movies, The Incredible Hulk, and Superman Returns. I'll also add a lot more War on Terror allegories and claim that I have a vagina! Until next time, Casey signing off!