The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

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March 21, 2024

Lock and (re)load: why reboots are overdone

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2015 was a good year for Hollywood. Jurassic World shattered the opening weekend box office record and then Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke that same record again. 

These movies might have made a lot of money, but I have an issue with them: they’re reboots.

Don’t get me wrong—I love giant dinosaurs, cars and lightsabers just as much as the next moviegoer—but these movies are unnecessary.

Let’s look at the Jurassic Park franchise, for example. I have vivid memories of watching the first movie again and again as a young dinosaur-loving elementary schooler, and it’s a classic. The movie was unique and exciting, and its effects were great for the time period. It was simple action at its best: protagonists pitted against a range of exciting and (mostly) historically-based creatures.

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And that was awesome.

But then I watched the second and third movies and while I was by no means a movie critic at age ten, I could tell they didn’t offer anything new. The movies can basically be summed up as more dinosaurs, more islands, more chase scenes.

While I did see Jurassic World, and it certainly capitalized on my nostalgia, I was still disappointed by its massive success. The movie feels like the original, just with updated effects and a new CGI dinosaur for the heroes to run from.

The core problem is that the movie isn’t revisiting the world and exploring new ideas, it’s just revising and reselling the same content as the original Jurassic Park.

What I’m trying to say is it wasn’t the most creative film and certainly shouldn’t be raking in the best opening weekend sales of all time.

And my beloved childhood dinosaurs aren’t the only characters getting a new paint job remade and resold as “new:” The Force Awakens was a good movie, but its plot is (without spoiling too much) strikingly similar to Star Wars: Episode IV, which predates it by 40 years. I enjoyed the movie yet felt like I was pretty much seeing the same film I loved as kid. A good movie, but very much the same, just with updated special effects, a handful of new characters and a much pricier ticket.

Let’s compare the two for the sake of argument: both feature a masked villain with anger issues who used to affiliate with the good guys, both feature a wizened mentor to a young protagonist and both movies involve the heroes trying to prevent the end of the world by blowing up a large planet.

My biggest problem is that these sorts of reboots really do ruin a franchise’s sense of closure. Considering that these films are ridiculously profitable, easy to make and pretty much guaranteed to be successful, there is likely no end in sight. We could be seeing Episode XVIIs in a few years, which probably isn’t the best thing for wrapping up these fantasy worlds’ plots.

I don’t need my favorite movies rebooted every year. At some point, I want to know that the good guys have won, the dino is defeated, the lightsabers are put away and the movie makers are actually going to create some original content.

 

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  • AnonymousMar 23, 2016 at 8:26 am

    Unfortunately, even when original content is created, there is little guarantee it will succeed. Most ideas die before they even have a chance to become popular. Those few that make it to the big screen fail often as well. There are some exceptions, but movie makers want a movie that will sell, not one that will have no history of success. They find comfort in big name franchises or companies that have had past blockbusters.

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