The most sickening word in the English Language

[Burt]

Reimagining. God help us all.
I'm not usually one to complain about TV show and movies - I'm usually just glad to have them around. Buffy Series 7 crap? Better than nothing in my book. Enterprise hated? I'll take it anyway. New look Doctor Who not going down well with some? I can live with it.
But.
One thing I can not, can not stand, is this bloody trend of 'rebooting' or 'reimagining' shows/movies.
Like Casino Royle. they...'Reset' Bond. They reset it??? I'm surprised Flemming hasn't returned to feast on the brains of who ever came up with that idea.
It seems they want to Re-imagen Trek. I've no idea quite what they mean, but I'm guessing it will be sod the old story, make up a new one! I do not like this. This is a bad path.
I swear I shall call forth the Ghost (Or Katra) of Gene himself to smite those in charge, if this does happen.

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/vie...cle/46176.html
Here's the article. For the record - while I've never heard of them before... I say now... I do not like ' Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci'.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

I would have said "morning".

[Zeke]

I would have said a bunch of romance-related stuff, all of it very bitter and none of it very interesting.

I'm not remotely excited about Trek XI, and this doesn't help. Trek doesn't need to be rebooted or reimagined -- look at the success of neo-Doctor Who, which made a clean start without ignoring anything that came before. And if Paramount was serious about giving Trek a break, they need to give it a longer one. I'm as big a Trek fan as you'll ever find, but even I don't think we need more so soon.

I would be much happier if someone who's worked on Trek before were involved in this. The "new blood" thing was never a particularly good point, but the last thing Trek needs is nothing but rookies working on it.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Zeke

look at the success of neo-Doctor Who, which made a clean start without ignoring anything that came before.

Actually, they only ignored the bits which made the old series worth watching - like decent writing, dialogue and/or direction.

And if you've seen what the future holds with series 3, even you would vomit.

@Burt: Now you know how I feel towards Russell Touchwood Davies.

As for political parties and their promises, see also: Hilaire Belloc's famous poem:

"That Accurs'd Power that stands on Privilege
And goes with Women and Champagne and Bridge
Broke - and Democracy resumed her reign
(Which goes with Women, and Bridge, and Champagne)"

@others:

Focusing on profit means selling out the ideals and the core of the programme, and leaving the empty husk, adding in ephemeral crap that makes you want to puke, and shoving it in front of the chav unwashed masses who will lap it up because it's got shiny SFX and so much sap it's drowning the cast, coupled with celebrity writers who have no idea what they're doing with the show. You can't play to the fans and go solely for profit. You can balance both, or crash the show in five years at the outside when people get bored with it. And that applies universally.

Oh, and as a closing comment, the Great Gatsby is dreadful, and only mindblowing in how stupendously dull it is to read.

[ijdgaf]

According to that logic, The Chronicles of Riddick would have dominated the box office and ushered in a cinematic revolution.

It certainly sold out in terms of the property's core ideals. Pitch Black was a horror movie with decent but not overwhelming effects. A cult classic. The Chronicles of Riddick attempted to be Lord of the Rings in space. Huge, ambitious special effects. Designed to bring in new fans to the Riddick franchise by toning down the violence and making a gargantuan, hollow space epic with little in the way of involved plot and much in the way of over-the-top action and suspension of belief.

Instead, the movie crashed and burned at the box office. The planned trilogy was shelved, and nobody gives a damn about Riddick or the Necromongers or whatever the hell they were trying to push with that film.

One can take a pessimistic look and determine that the public only cares about pretty effects and absurdly epic action and doesn't give two spits about character, drama, or atmosphere. But from what I can tell, the trends have been the other way around lately. Huge, beautiful dumb movies like The Chronicles of Riddick have tanked, while character/actor-focused ventures with intimate drama like Casino Royale have set new records.

Edit: Then again, seeing as you loathe The Great Gatsby, I assume such inticracies as mood and tone (not to mention profoundly difficult-to-pull-off narrative techniques) don't really mean too much to you anyway.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

According to that logic, The Chronicles of Riddick would have dominated the box office and ushered in a cinematic revolution.

It certainly sold out in terms of the property's core ideals. Pitch Black was a horror movie with decent but not overwhelming effects. A cult classic. The Chronicles of Riddick attempted to be Lord of the Rings in space. Huge, ambitious special effects. Designed to bring in new fans to the Riddick franchise by toning down the violence and making a gargantuan, hollow space epic with little in the way of involved plot and much in the way of over-the-top action and suspension of belief.

Instead, the movie crashed and burned at the box office. The planned trilogy was shelved, and nobody gives a damn about Riddick or the Necromongers or whatever the hell they were trying to push with that film.

One can take a pessimistic look and determine that the public only cares about pretty effects and absurdly epic action and doesn't give two spits about character, drama, or atmosphere. But from what I can tell, the trends have been the other way around lately. Huge, beautiful dumb movies like The Chronicles of Riddick have tanked, while character/actor-focused ventures with intimate drama like Casino Royale have set new records.

In the cinema, perhaps. I was referring more specifically to TV.

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

Edit: Then again, seeing as you loathe The Great Gatsby, I assume such inticracies as mood and tone (not to mention profoundly difficult-to-pull-off narrative techniques) don't really mean too much to you anyway.

Thank you for your bitchy, and quite pointless comment. I can see exactly why intellectual debate has flourished as it has around here.

The Great Gatsby is written in a style which can only be described as monumentally bland. The characters are two-dimensional and soulless. The dialogue is empty. It lacks anything to draw you in. All you are reading is a plot synopsis of someone's rather boring life. Mood and tone do matter to me, and that is precisely why I hate this book - it's overrated trash that has almost none of either.

[ijdgaf]

Sorry, Casino Royale and Battlestar Galactica are two very clear examples in my mind where the so-called reimagining equals or trumps the original.

I am a fairly huge Original Series Trek fan who adores about 98% of its televised material and finds the relationship between overall quality and movie sequel number an inverse relationship. Yet this talk about trying to embody Roddenberry's optimistic spirit is good enough for me. It sounds like the heart is in the right place, and I would go as far to say that I'm looking forward to the next film. First time in ages.

We're talking about a huge film with huge actors that will potentially draw a huge audience, so long advertising and word of mouth are positive. That is a good thing. That is exactly what the franchise needs to resurface. Could it be done without a reimagining/reboot? Perhaps. But I can't blame the producers and writers for wanting to de-bog themselves from the hundreds of hours of material that I bet less than 10% of their target audience will have any real familiarity with. These reimaginings are the in-thing right now, yes. But the two successes I mentioned earlier prove that it can work and work well. A critically acclaimed sci-fi drama and a movie that's 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes? Have fun arguing with that.

It can work. It might not. But passing it off because it's a reimagining? Foolish.

[Celeste]

Least we remember they tried to do this with Enterprise and it failed miserably? (even though it was ultimatly a good show) I frankly ain't looking forward to Kick and Spocks academy days. *Sigh* I want a future movie. 29th Century, Damnit!

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

It can work. It might not. But passing it off because it's a reimagining? Foolish.

Absolutely Right™.

If I'm going to write something off, it will be because of what it actually is, not because of what it might be, and certainly not because some people are tossing around a particular word. (Didn't we already see quite enough of that nonsense with Enterprise and "prequel" alone?)

Besides, getting all in a froth over "reimagining" is silly. Sickening? The word itself is already woefully obsolete, having been replaced with "re-imaging" more than a year ago.

Dunno, maybe the old word confused too many people.

Or something.

As for Star Trek XI, I'm thinking that waiting at least until a few things are nailed down a bit more securely than they are at present -- story, cast, stuff like that -- is probably not a bad thing. There'll still be plenty of time to get excited later.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I think you'll find that it's actually 'custard'.





Ugh, now I feel horribly queasy.

[Burt]

NO no no.
It's the idea I don't like. It's like when a political party say's 'Hey! We're gonna cut tax! And have no scandals! And everything is gonna be rosy!'
You sigh. Because, hey maybe you've become disillusioned or whatever, but you know it isn't going to happen.
It's the same will this I feel. I know the idea that is going thru the minds of these 'producers'. They're gonna try and restart the trek, by changing everything it is. These people really do stupid things like this. Remember the Coke 'incident'? Plus they're gonna do it with a movie. Movies can be dodgy ground anyway. They need to appeal to a wide audience so can't be too Sci-Fi or in-depth.
BSG was different. the old one really hadn't been on that long anyways. And also, the new one is pretty...well good.
Bond? Oh. Well. I can't stand it. It's an action movie, for me. Just another action movie. They took Q and Money Penny...and the things I really love about bond away.
I don't know. I really, really hope I'm wrong about it. I so do, but I just feel...bad about this. I read the article and got a sick feeling in my stomach. I really hope it's me just being foolish, but I really don't think this is going to end well.