On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 3:38 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > > I guess Hawaii Five 0 has been pretty successful, but it still seems like > > the batting average for rebooting vintage network shows is pretty weak - > > and can't be much better, if at all, than a new start up. I am just > > interested in knowing what the thinking is behind these kinds of > projects. > > Do they think the built-in name recognition will give them an edge? > > That pretty much has to be it. I recently caught up to the latest Star > Trek film, and felt like (1) I would have bailed early if it weren't part > of the Star Trek franchise, and (2) it's frustrating when the characters > have the same names, but they're only superficially the same characters. > > This is perhaps my biggest gripe about reboots of classic shows.
MAJOR TREK (AND BATMAN) SPOILERS AHEAD Last night I was listening to Kevin Smith's podcast commentary of the Burton Batman movie, and he really hit the nail on the head when he said that wasn't "my" Batman. He pointed to how in the '80s the heroes were obligated to kill the bad guys. Jack Nicholson's Joker had to die, which to Smith's and my eyes was a shame because The Joker is Batman's recurring nemesis, and killing him off prevented a key antagonist from existing in Batman's universe (ironically, the Nolan Batman films, for an entirely different era in filmgoers, allowed The Joker to live, but the actor who played him died preventing a return of the character). Same was true of the most recent Trek film, when in "Wrath of Khan," there was no way that film could have ended in anything but Khan's demise, but in the rebooted Trek, Khan wasn't killed, and was a borderline compassionate character. Yet another Kevin, this time Kevin Pollak, speaks often about how when he does impersonations he is basically a con-man getting audiences to ascribe the warmth they feel for the people he impersonates to him. That's what these reboots hope to do, too, to capitalize on the good feelings we had for the original shows. And to me it is an insult to believe that if you have a show that features an ex-con who drives a gold Firebird, you can go ahead and call that show "The Rockford Files," as if the charisma and persona of James Garner wasn't the defining factor of that series. In short, I side with Lansbury, a show about a novelist who solves crimes is not to be called "Murder She Wrote"... it is to be called "Castle." > I gave up on the new Five-O when it seemed like the only things it had in > common with the original were the character names and climactic shootouts > in warehouses. As I think I said here when the show first aired, I'd have > preferred to see it as "Honolulu Cops" or some such name trying to make it > on its own rather than attempting to cash in on residual feelings for the > original. I wasn't surprised that some of the new Five-O people were > involved with the Star Trek movie. > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
