So let's have a chat. It's been a minute since we shared a chinwag and now theres lots to talk about. First of all, where have I been? At work...being a dad...playing "Majora's Mask" on my N64, working on a super-secret project *coughs* who said that?! *coughs*, long story short I've been around, I've just been lazy and though I've been wanting to write an article the will do so continues to elude me. But thankfully today I decided to sit down and actually write an article (obviously) and BOY HOWDY do we have a topic considering so much has happened in this particular sphere and by that I mean entertainment. I've been saying for a LONG time now that the current producers within Hollywood have NO creativity and I've been proven right time and time again. Now I'm not here to write about how I'm always right about these topics (and I am and I'd love to but that'd be self-serving and I don't do that on this blog...shut up!) and I'm not exactly going bemoan the lack (or non-existent) creativity of the Hollywood system, I am however going to discuss the topic and posit a few questions that hopefully I can answer.
However, before we get into the article proper I think it's wise to define some terms because people use certain terms interchangeably and that's not how those terms work so allow me to define my terms before we dive in;
Reboot: This is usually reserved for TV shows. Reboots are NOT Revivals! For example "Rosanne" returned to the airways now under the title of "The Conners". This is NOT a Reboot, this is a Revival. They're continuing the same story with the same cast. A Reboot would be the current "Charmed" series on The CW, different cast, new storyline. Essentially starting the series over from square one. With little to no connection to the previous series except in name only.
Revival: A Revival is also reserved for TV shows. When a show finally reaches its series finale and bows gracefully off the small screen that's usually the last time we'll see any of those characters UNLESS of course, the show gets a revival. For a revival, the main cast (or lead actor) usually returns to squeeze one more adventure out of their character. Note also the same actor and same characters. This is NOT a spin-off the features the lead character, rather the lead character is BACK and the show is back. Perfect examples of this would be: "Dexter", "24", "Prison Break" and the previously mentioned "Rosanne/ The Conners" revivals. All of the shows have had their respective series finales years ago only to return years later.
Remake: Now this is a tricky one because while remakes and reboots are often the same things there is a subtle difference between the two, a remake CAN retain the same actors, a remake is often a re-tooling of what's come before it. Since movies can be redone to death, more often than not a remake will either breathe new life into the material or update it for a modern audience. For example "The Shining" came out in 1980, Stanley Kubrick's version anyway, Stephen King hated that version and decided to have his own version in 1997 via TV mini-series. There's also "Carrie" which came out in 1976 and "Carrie" which came out in 2013. Remakes are usually about updating old material, think of it as giving an old car a new engine and a fresh coat of paint. Some are better than their originals, others are not (looking directly at you "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory"...you know what you did.) but ultimately remakes are something that is here to stay and are not in and of themselves a bad thing.
Finally, we have;
Adaptation: Adaptations and remakes are very often the same things except for a one caveat, adaptations are often a transferring of medium or language. For example, all of the Marvel movies are adaptations, the source material is the character's respective comic books and while what's in the books don't entirely reflect what's on-screen, all of the primary trappings that make that character that character are present (or at least they should be...) The same goes for "Romeo and Juliet", it was a Play before it was a movie. Basically, all movies whose origins are not movies count as Adaptations. Likewise, foreign films remade for American audiences are adaptations as well, and while Yes, you can call them remakes and be perfectly accurate, the point is that considering the film in question began life in a different culture and different language, certain things might not come across as poignant to audiences unfamiliar with said culture. Case in point the original film "Oldboy" featured a hypnotist at the end of the film with Oh-Dae-su (the main character) asking to make him forget a certain event in the film (I'm not gonna spoil "Oldboy" if you haven't seen that movie you NEED to watch it...seriously, that movie rules), the American adaptation featured no hypnotist as American culture doesn't have much mysticism to it with regards to hypnotism and things of the like. Therefore this aspect was "adapted out" of the remake, therefore disqualifying it from being a proper remake, you understand?
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And YES, before you start I do understand that "The Shining", "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory" and "Carrie" are all adaptations as well but as I've said they were made once and made again so while YES the original films are all adaptations the remakes are remakes, hope that makes sense. Anyway. Now that we've defined our terms, let's dive in!
