With each new superhero movie that’s coming out, more and more of them are being rebooted and many for absolutely no good reason. It’s like rebooting has become the latest Hollywood trend—if you’re not doing a reboot then you’re unhip; you’re not cool! Only the chicest of the chic reboot and if you’re not doing that then you don’t belong in our exclusive club! There have been so may reboots done now with more along the way that Hollywood needs to take a step back (pun intended) and take a good look at what they’re doing.
The first reboot done was Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. This reboot makes complete sense and was an absolute necessity. No movie had been done of Spider-Man by this point and the last exposure to a live action Spider-Man the audience had was a TV series from the 70s. If you’re as young as I am, you weren’t even born when The Amazing Spider-Man was in it’s original run so the only way you could see Nicholas Hammond running around in red and blue spandex was to watch reruns on the SciFi channel in the 90s, which you couldn’t do if you didn’t have cable at that time. So when Sam Raimi came along rebooting the Spider-Man franchise was a must, not only to update it into a modern classic, but also because the movie was going to be viewed internationally and the Japanese TV live action audience had this:
Gotta love those giant robots.
Now I know what some of you are thinking: that the first reboot was actually Tim Burton’s Batman. It wasn’t. His Batman was actually a remake, and for those of you who don’t know the difference:
Remake—Taking existing material from a certain source and making it over again in its original medium. Ocean’s Eleven was a remake. Little Shop of Horrors was a remake.
Reboot—Taking an existing franchise or series and starting over again, requiring the retelling of an origin story. For the sake of this article, I’m not including cartoons or serials in this definition since they have their own separate continuity.
While it’s true that Tim Burton’s Batman follows in the wake of Adam West’s Batman, Mr. Burton’s version had no origin story—Michael Keaton just starts off being Batman already—so it doesn’t fit the definition of a reboot.
The next reboot came from Ang Lee’s Hulk. This movie was a reboot of the made for TV movie The Death of the Incredible Hulk, the last in a series of TV movies that picked up where Bill Bixby’s The Incredible Hulk TV series from the 70s left off and starred the same actors. This reboot was also necessary because in the previous movie…well, the title says it all. It’s hard to pick up where that one left off. Unfortunately, this was the last reboot to make any kind of sense.
The next reboot came with Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk. Ang Lee’s movie was rebuked by critics and movie goers alike (most probably because it followed the comic book storyline too closely) so when Mr. Leterrier decided to make his movie, he decided to start from the beginning all over again. This was absolutely stupid.
Here’s a good rule of thumb when doing remakes or reboots: wait about 20 years. There was only a 5 year difference between Lee’s and Leterrier’s Hulk movies; there was no good reason to reboot because, like it or not, the origin story was already known to the movie going audience. (There was also a 5 year gap between Men in Black and Men in Black II and you’ll notice that no reboot was necessary.) Plus there are plenty of fan boys out there watching the movies to begin with that the majority of the audience already knew Hulk’s origin anyway so Leterrier was just wasting a lot of time with his movie. The smarter thing for him to have done was make a sequel; his movie was already great to begin with and a sequel vice a reboot would have kept the series going, something comic book movie studios seem to like to do.
“Oh, but a reboot was necessary because Leterrier used a different cast.” That’s never stopped movie makers before. In all three live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies as well as in Christopher Nolan’s Batman series the lead female role was never played by the same woman twice. With the Mortal Kombat series, Raiden was played by two different actors. And do you really want me to mention Rhodey from the Iron Man series?
“Oh, but they were all just supporting cast. The reboot is necessary because the titular character was being played by a different actor.” Really? With the TMNT series, the third movie had different voice actors, costumes, and animatronics for the turtles, yet it was a sequel and not a reboot. And the Friday the 13th series currently has 12 actors who played Jason (unless you want to count the four actors who had their bodies taken over by Jason’s soul in Jason Goes to Hell, in which case the number of actors is actually 16)—and only one actor has played Jason twice. And don’t even get me started on James Bond who, despite having 22 films under his belt, has yet to have a reboot!
The Superman series is also suffering from sequel/reboot syndrome. Because a lot of people didn’t care for Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns the next Superman movie will be a reboot. Again, this is completely unnecessary since movie goers are already familiar with Superman’s origin either due to being a fan boy, having grown up with Christopher Reeve, or because they’re familiar with Mr. Reeve’s Superman thanks to Mr. Singer, whose movie was both a remake and a sequel to Reeve’s movies (which isn’t confusing at all). Warner Bros. doesn’t need to do a reboot; Superman is tough enough that he can handle the new movie being a sequel.
The worst offender of the sequel/reboot syndrome is Spider-Man. Over the course of five years, millions of kids have grown up with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man—this Spider-Man is the only one that’s real to them—and now here comes Sony with yet another unnecessary reboot. Now five years may not seem like a long time to you, but remember when you were a kid: time went by a lot slower back then and five years was half of your life! Mr. Raimi has laid down a strong foundation with his series. Yes, Spider-Man 3 was one of the worst superhero movies ever made and left a lot of cracks in the foundation, but the foundation itself is still quite sturdy. Sony’s Spider-Man movie could have filled in those cracks and built further upon what has already been established, but instead they’re following that stupid Hollywood reboot trend and taking the easy way out. The only saving grace they can possibly have is if they don’t mess up the movie this badly (but even then it’s iffy):
Enough is enough! Stop being trendy and start being smart! Take the existing material and make something better with it! Not everything needs a reboot! Quite frankly I didn’t even like Star Trek being rebooted, but I’ll take it if it means getting Rick Berman and Brannon Braga away from the franchise!
