Ask Lemmy

I learned a while ago that I don't have to go see things that don't interest me. Once you accept this, a lot of the media made that you don't like will bother you less.

I'm tired of people complaining about remakes and reboots. Original movies are released every week. If you care enough to complain, you should care enough to keep track of what movies are coming out and not rely on marketing to tell you what to see. Nobody is making you see remakes and reboots. Millions of people are seeing them so clearly, they are appealing to millions of people. If people would stop seeing them, Hollywood would stop making them.

The oldest and most natural form of human storytelling is to take stories people are already familiar with and extend them or retell them in new ways... and copyright broke that form of storytelling, but we still have a thirst for it. So we get entertainment companies buying the right to exploit that thirst, for sums that make it too risky to entrust the outcome to actual artists.

I heard that the contract for fantastic 4's IP meant the movie company had to make a movie with it at least every 10 years or they'd lose it. They subcontracted it to 20th century and because nobody gave a flaming shit about it, they put out a shitty f4 movie every 10 years.

Disney now owns the company that they contracted the rights to so they had a hand in the most recent one, but not the others afaik.

No, number of shits given 0.0. You know you don't have to watch them right ? They make them becase they work

Kind of? I was tired, but then I stopped caring and just accepted most hollywood shit as garbage for morons.

Ya but they're gonna keep happening until it becomes financially riskier to do a reboot than a new IP. Reboots will have to consistently flop hard.

I want the rule that any IP rebooted twice in a 20 year period (the age music and cars are both considered "classics" and for cars emissions tests don't apply), the IP and any derivative works immediately becomes public domain.

Number 4 movie of the year:

Jurassic World: Rebirth $339,640,400

Last year:

Number 111 Megalopolis $7,629,085

So it sure doesn't look like people are tired of reboots and remakes yet.

Depends. There are good reboots occasionally, e.g. Dune.

But most, primarily Disney IP stretching and recycling is usually not worth watching. Regardless if it a "real life version" of a classic animation or the twentieth Star Wars movie or series.

I got tired of the movie industry in general. Just stopped going to the cinema and/or buying Blu-rays.

Went to through the entire effort of making an arr pirate ship only to realize there is jack to watch, and I would rather just spend $12 to see a movie in theater once a year, since that's about all I ever see something new worth watching.

As usual the most useful thing that has come out of it is just getting easy access to old and foreign media which otherwise impossible to access online anyway, so now my career of sailing the high seas turned into yet another media archive collection.

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The real crime here is people paying cash money to see this slop in theater. I mean I guess $12-15 is not that much, but why not use that for a different movie or even a better form of entertainment? I feel like people settle for mediocre value way too much, or find it valuable enough despite some genuinely excellent alternatives to choose from.

Personally, yes.

But it's clear from box office numbers that remakes make more money and people are hesitant to spend their money on untested, new properties. It costs a lot to go out to a movie nowadays, which is a separate problem in itself. When you're taking your family to see a film, do you want to risk a new universe that you may not enjoy, or just go with something that you KNOW you'll at least be able to somewhat enjoy.

The Gorge is a perfect example of this. Good premise, but flopped. In fact I think the last "genre" new I.P that made any sort of splash that I can remember was "A Quiet Place", and that was due at least in part because it was the directorial debut of Jim from the office.

Because of this, original I.Ps get smaller releases, get faster onto streaming services if no immediately, and are less advertised.

So it's all a vicious circle, but an understandable one from both a moviegoer and a business perspective.

You know you don't have to watch them. They're only being released because people watch them.

I recently made an Unpopular Opinion post about this (TL;DR I'm supportive of remakes/reboots if done with genuine passion for the material, just as I am with cover versions of songs or transplantations of stage plays to modern settings/Disney cartoons, etc.):

https://lemmy.world/post/35309322

The originals aren't going anywhere (unless you're George Lucas 😒), and there are new films coming out every week from all over the world, the reboots/remakes are like less than 1% of what gets released in any given year. Marketing and social media can make things seem bigger and more pervasive than they actually are. Having said that, I'd honestly be happier if the number was more like 5% (with the aforementioned caveats about passion, talent and quality).

But yeah, there are lots of remakes/reboots that are borne of pure cynicism and boardroom sociopathy. Fuck those. But they aren't the only ones on offer. Baby/bathwater.

Been tired of it since Total Recall's remake. The sole exception has been KOTH season 14.

McDonald's and the MCU/popcorn flicks/cheap remakes and sequels of recognisable IPs are all the common man needs. I stopped getting mad at this kind of thing a long time ago and just learned to live with it.

I'd be happy with the one reboot rule. can we use it on wheel of time immediately?

It is baffling to me what gets remade over and over again.. I guess someone is making money off the Peter Pan and Robin Hood remakes, and the Alice in wonderland… then there is the Christmas Carol remakes.

I am tired of them, pre pandemic there were original movies during the summer and Xmas movie seasons, now there is nothing but remakes, in those seasons but I am pretty much Done with going to movie theaters though, so I don’t really GAF about remakes.

I think your maths is off. If every, or most, popular films in 2010 were remade, I think you would be even more irritated.

I think a better idea is to expand the universes of those movies.

I've still yet to understand what the purpose of the How To Train Your Dragon remake was.

yeah it gets a bit frustrating when i would like to see more invested into new stories (not saying this never happens, it does! i just mean...even more lol). i do think its possible for remakes to be good (or even great!) so i try to keep an open mind about them but imo an ideal remake/reboot needs to have a strong vision and forge its own identity, nod to the original but also very much do its own thing. tricky balance and maybe its just that theres rarely enough time/money/patience/risktaking given to support good, fresh writing :/

Come on, you don't want to watch another King Kong? Jokes aside, yes. Especially since it all comes from ignoring the other obvious problems of the industry (e.g. bad ideas written horribly).