Three generations of Batman reboots. From left to right: Adam West (1966), Christian Bale (2008), and George Clooney (1997).
Last week, I discussed my belief that remakes have an unnecessarily bad reputation. Though I discussed many of the conventional ways that movies use to continue stories (such as sequels, prequels, and remakes) I did not touch on one that is becoming increasingly popular with studios these days: the reboot. In fact the reboot is so new that trying to define it on its own is rather difficult.
A reboot is something of a mystery. Most of the time it appears to be simply a remake with a few more liberties taken with the source material than usual, as in the case of Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009), and The Amazing Spiderman (Webb, 2012). Frequently it looks like a sequel but with all of the main characters suddenly ignorant of any of the events of the first film, as in the case of The Incredible Hulk (Leterrier, 2008), and Evil Dead 2 (Raimi, 1987). Sometimes it even looks like a prequel, but at the end of the movie a sudden plot twist makes it so that the original story could never have happened, as in the case of Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), and Highlander: Endgame (Aarniokoski, 2000). That’s the trouble with reboots; they have so little identity to themselves that they are hard to define.
Essentially the difference between a reboot and anything else is that a reboot is designed to remove from a franchise any unwanted bits of continuity that could get in the way of sequels. The reboot is a way of streamlining a franchise down to only the bits necessary to continue forward as a film series instead of burning itself out prematurely. This way even after an audience has grown tired of the direction the franchise’s story has taken, a new director, writer, producer, actor, or all of the above, can come in and change the story completely, or even just slightly, to fit the audience's taste. They’re not remakes because (most of the time) they’re still telling a new story; it’s just that continuity has now been changed so that none of the other stories we’ve seen ever happened, or if they did they happened in a slightly different way.
A reboot is something of a mystery. Most of the time it appears to be simply a remake with a few more liberties taken with the source material than usual, as in the case of Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009), and The Amazing Spiderman (Webb, 2012). Frequently it looks like a sequel but with all of the main characters suddenly ignorant of any of the events of the first film, as in the case of The Incredible Hulk (Leterrier, 2008), and Evil Dead 2 (Raimi, 1987). Sometimes it even looks like a prequel, but at the end of the movie a sudden plot twist makes it so that the original story could never have happened, as in the case of Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), and Highlander: Endgame (Aarniokoski, 2000). That’s the trouble with reboots; they have so little identity to themselves that they are hard to define.
Essentially the difference between a reboot and anything else is that a reboot is designed to remove from a franchise any unwanted bits of continuity that could get in the way of sequels. The reboot is a way of streamlining a franchise down to only the bits necessary to continue forward as a film series instead of burning itself out prematurely. This way even after an audience has grown tired of the direction the franchise’s story has taken, a new director, writer, producer, actor, or all of the above, can come in and change the story completely, or even just slightly, to fit the audience's taste. They’re not remakes because (most of the time) they’re still telling a new story; it’s just that continuity has now been changed so that none of the other stories we’ve seen ever happened, or if they did they happened in a slightly different way.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the left: Leonard Nemoy as Mr. Spock and William Shatner as Captain Kirk. On the right: Zachary Levi and Chris Pine taking up the same roles respectively.
For instance, Casino Royale (Campbell, 2006) is an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name featuring his most famous creation: Super-spy James Bond. There have been many adaptations of Ian Fleming’s books and short stories as well as original Bond stories in this franchise before, but in Casino Royale we see a James Bond who is much younger, and more inexperienced, than the one we knew. The previous Bond films kept continuity between them from Dr. No (Young, 1962) all the way to Die Another Day (Tamahori, 2002), creating the impression that Bond was immortal. In the last few films, Judi Dench was introduced as a new character who took on the position of “M”, Bond’s boss. In Casino Royale she’s still there training an inexperienced Bond on his first mission. Originally Bond was a secret agent who’d been in operation since the 60’s, but now he’s a young man helping MI6 take down terrorists in the modern era. As Casino Royale was never adapted as a film within this franchise before, it is technically a new story; yet continuity has been carefully reshuffled to turn Bond into a far younger more relatable action hero a-la the Bourne series for the audience’s approval.
Actually the concept of the reboot existed long before the aughts, but no one gave it a name until just recently. All the way back in 1940 The Mummy’s Hand (Cabanne, 1940) was released as a sequel to the Universal classic The Mummy (Freund, 1932). However in the film the Mummy has a slightly different backstory, is brought back to life through magic tea rather than by a magic scroll, walks around in bandages rather than dressed like a normal person, and has a different name ("Im-Ho-Tep" in the original, now "Kharis"). The aforementioned Evil Dead 2 (Raimi, 1987) has a short scene at the beginning which restages all of the events of the original film as only taking place in a single night to only two people, as opposed to taking place over several nights to a whole bunch of people like in the original.
Actually the concept of the reboot existed long before the aughts, but no one gave it a name until just recently. All the way back in 1940 The Mummy’s Hand (Cabanne, 1940) was released as a sequel to the Universal classic The Mummy (Freund, 1932). However in the film the Mummy has a slightly different backstory, is brought back to life through magic tea rather than by a magic scroll, walks around in bandages rather than dressed like a normal person, and has a different name ("Im-Ho-Tep" in the original, now "Kharis"). The aforementioned Evil Dead 2 (Raimi, 1987) has a short scene at the beginning which restages all of the events of the original film as only taking place in a single night to only two people, as opposed to taking place over several nights to a whole bunch of people like in the original.
 The Mummy as played by Boris Karloff in 1932. |  And by Tom Tyler in 1940. |
Reboots have become extremely popular in recent years. Studios tend to now refer to most of their upcoming projects as reboots, whether they fit the description or not. Even Transformers 4 (Bay, 2014) had early marketing that referred to it as a reboot. The appeal seems to be that if a film doesn’t perform well, or is reviewed negatively, the studio reboots the franchise, deleting the offending film and in effect saying to the audience, “Yes, we know you were disappointed in that last one, but it is all better now.” It is almost the opposite effect from a remake. Instead of making the fans feel betrayed by “replacing” something they loved, studios not only replace something fans weren’t fond of, but they also give a brand new story separate from what they may have liked about the original.
The danger with reboots of course is that sometimes producers can become overly reliant on them to the detriment of the franchises they are attached too. Franchises like Godzilla, The Highlander, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre have been rebooted almost too many times to count, leaving some fans confused and a little frustrated. Some studios have started rebooting franchises just because of the popularity boosts that it has given to other franchises. After the conclusion of the wildly popular Dark Knight Trilogy brought Batman back into the pop culture main stream, Warner Brothers decided to reboot Batman in a team up movie with Henry Cavill's Superman. True the ending of that trilogy was intended as a literal ending of Batman's career, but the studio didn't need to leave it like that. After all in the source material Batman has retired, gone missing, and even died, and he always goes back to work the next day. But no they decided that a reboot was the best medicine for the franchise.
The danger with reboots of course is that sometimes producers can become overly reliant on them to the detriment of the franchises they are attached too. Franchises like Godzilla, The Highlander, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre have been rebooted almost too many times to count, leaving some fans confused and a little frustrated. Some studios have started rebooting franchises just because of the popularity boosts that it has given to other franchises. After the conclusion of the wildly popular Dark Knight Trilogy brought Batman back into the pop culture main stream, Warner Brothers decided to reboot Batman in a team up movie with Henry Cavill's Superman. True the ending of that trilogy was intended as a literal ending of Batman's career, but the studio didn't need to leave it like that. After all in the source material Batman has retired, gone missing, and even died, and he always goes back to work the next day. But no they decided that a reboot was the best medicine for the franchise.
On the left: Spiderman (Raimi, 2002) On the right: The Amazing Spiderman (Webb, 2012).
Well good on them for respecting Christopher Nolan's work, but I still find this trend troubling. Personally I am a fan of long winded stories and large mythical universes. I like film franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, or the Universal monster films from the 30's and 40's. I like to come up with new ways that the story can continue, new places that could be explored, or character development to be had. Thankfully there are still a lot of people who agree with me. The Marvel Cinematic alone has enough universe building material to keep my continuity loving heart happy for years. However, even through my curmudgeonly eyes reboots do hold an important place in film history and in the box office, and I have no doubt that for better or for worse they will be with us for a long time.
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