Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Sunday Question: Reboot vs. Remake

The Sunday Question is back and ready to go. So get your minds ready, and here we go!

This Week's Prompt: Is there really a difference between a reboot and a remake?

Considerations: The new go to "word" for a new film series where one already exists seems to be "reboot." Which to me basically means 1 of the following two (or perhaps both):

1. a remake for something we are out of ideas on how to continue but still want to keep doing it anyways because it's a proven commodity.
2. a failed, or dead, series, or upstart, that we would like to enter once again, and hope we don't mess up in the same way as before.

Still, no matter how you coat it, it's still, by most accounts, a remake. Taking something that's already there in form, reorganizing it, perhaps changing a handful of elements, and presenting once again for the viewer to see. Now, whether or not an appropriate time needs to pass in between these reboots/remake things is entirely up in the air.


Let the debate, begin!

4 better thoughts:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I look at reboots as remakes. Shame that so many appear to be just cashing in on an idea, too.

SugaryCynic said...

A remake is a remake by any other name

Fletch said...

It's contextual. No two are alike. Was Batman Begins a remaking of anything? Of Burton's Batman? Not even close. But it was a reboot of the series. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone would consider Tarantino's Basterds to be a reboot. Nay, that was a re-imagining...

Most are remakes, though.

Rodney said...

I agree with Fletch: a reboot is usually a re-imagining of an idea, while a remake is simply taking a previously made entity and doing it the same again but with better special effects and hotter actors.

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