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So it looks like Hollywood has ran out of classic movies to milk, now it's working on TV series. First, they're rebooting Lethal Weapon as a TV series, and now MacGyver.

I'll be honest, I do find the trailers interesting...but they have some really big shoes to fill and I'm not at all confident they'll be able to do it, especially after the pending disaster that is the Ghostbusters reboot.

Why is Damon playing a re-envisioned "To old for this shit" character instead of making Blankman 2? Damn, he's 56? Glover was under 50 when Lethal Weapon came out. Damon looks good for his age.

Anyway, both trailers look awful, but that's not exactly surprising. I don't want to empathize with either new Riggs or new MacGuyver. I want to punch them in the face for making smug looks constantly. Guyver Jr. seems to rely on that "punch me" face like he's in a Dreamworks movie. Not a good sign.

TheFeniX wrote:Why is Damon playing a re-envisioned "To old for this shit" character instead of making Blankman 2? Damn, he's 56? Glover was under 50 when Lethal Weapon came out. Damon looks good for his age.

Expect half of those good looks to be CGI work.

MacGuyver is too damn smug.

Anyone care to place a bet as to whether or not this MacGuyver's packing heat?

Well, frankly, realistically, someone in his business (constantly confronting criminals/villains) probably ought to carry a gun...

Though I appreciate the odd break from convention. And hey, if Batman can get by without a gun...

Anyway, I hate the knee-jerk anti-Hollywood/anti-reboot mentality that always seems to emerge over things like this (not referring to any post in particular, just the general response this sort of thing tends to provoke). Is it too damn hard to wait for something to come out and then judge it on its merits? Their have been successful reboots, you know (Daniel Craig's Bond, Abrams' Star Trek going off of critics and box office (and hey, at least it wasn't Berman and Braga), Nolan's Batman...).

Now, Lethal Weapon and McGuyver don't terribly interest me as franchises. But I'd give them a chance unless I had a very good reason not to.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Is it too damn hard to wait for something to come out and then judge it on its merits?

Based on history? Yea, pretty hard.

Their have been successful reboots, you know (Daniel Craig's Bond, Abrams' Star Trek going off of critics and box office (and hey, at least it wasn't Berman and Braga), Nolan's Batman...).

Movies. One which was basically turned into Star Wars the other of which has been successfully rebooted/updated numerous times across multiple actors. Also based on books.

As for 20th century "gold" turned into 21st century garbage: Robocop, Total Recall, A-Team (which I actually enjoyed, but it's pretty rough), The Thing, Karate Kid, Conan, Clash of the Titans. That's just off the top of my head. A somewhat related part of this is taking R-rated content and making it PG/PG-13. For MacGuyver, Anderson is ridiculously hard to replace and the actor has a BAAAD case of smug-face. And do we really need a case of sexual harassment as a character introduction?

Lethal Weapon is a stupid violent and great movie franchise (well, first 2 definitely), destined for mediocrity and bad jokes as a TV series.

I've never watched Lethal Weapon, so all I've got to go on is the trailer. It could work, but probably won't.

The Magyver trailer gives me the message "This video is not available.", so I can't comment on that.

Both can probably produce something better than the upcoming Tetris movie. Yes, there are serious plans for a Tetris movie. Which is planned to be the first part of a trilogy.
TETRIS MOVIE WILL BE A 'SCI-FI THRILLER', PART OF A TRILOGY

Following its announcement last year, Threshold Entertainment's film adaptation of the classic puzzle game Tetris is moving forward, and will serve as the first installment in a trilogy.

According to Deadline, the movie is "billed as a sci-fi thriller" that producer Larry Kasanoff says is "not at all what you think," but will instead "be a cool surprise."

China and the United States are said to be co-producing the $80 million project under Kasanoff and Bruno Wu's new company Threshold Global Studios. Filming is expected to begin next year in China, as well as other locations, and will feature a Chinese cast.

According to Kasanoff, their vision is perfectly suited for a co-production, with "the necessary elements" currently in place. "The goal is to make world movies for the world market," he said, noting the Tetris movie doesn’t need to "sandwich into a deal" because "it naturally fits."

The Tetris Company has been in collaboration on the project for over a year, and the film's financial backing has been established. Wu and Kasanoff will co-produce, with Threshold's Jimmy lenner executive producing alongside The Tetris Company and Seven Stars.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Well, frankly, realistically, someone in his business (constantly confronting criminals/villains) probably ought to carry a gun...

Though I appreciate the odd break from convention. And hey, if Batman can get by without a gun...

Of course a real security consultant/troubleshooter, especially one doing contract work for the Government, would be carrying a firearm. But for the reboot to do this would be more a concession to the Hollywood action-adventure formula than it would be a concession to reality.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Well, frankly, realistically, someone in his business (constantly confronting criminals/villains) probably ought to carry a gun...

Though I appreciate the odd break from convention. And hey, if Batman can get by without a gun...

Anyway, I hate the knee-jerk anti-Hollywood/anti-reboot mentality that always seems to emerge over things like this (not referring to any post in particular, just the general response this sort of thing tends to provoke). Is it too damn hard to wait for something to come out and then judge it on its merits? Their have been successful reboots, you know (Daniel Craig's Bond, Abrams' Star Trek going off of critics and box office (and hey, at least it wasn't Berman and Braga), Nolan's Batman...).

People are mostly cranky that it's stuff from their childhood being remade, and then it turns into a contest of who can be the internet angriest, hence the phrase "Raped my childhood." I posit that it comes from people tying their identity to specific commercial properties and not wanting to see their value deflate, but that's an hypothesis for another day.

Now, Lethal Weapon and McGuyver don't terribly interest me as franchises. But I'd give them a chance unless I had a very good reason not to.

Exactly. The worst case scenario is that they're terrible. In which case we all go and watch Lethal Weapon 2 again and shout "Diplomatic immunity!" in Joss Ackland's awesome accent.

People are mostly cranky that it's stuff from their childhood being remade, and then it turns into a contest of who can be the internet angriest, hence the phrase "Raped my childhood." I posit that it comes from people tying their identity to specific commercial properties and not wanting to see their value deflate, but that's an hypothesis for another day.

In my case, it's not much that I just hate reboots in principle, it's that 9 times out of 10, the reboots suck ass. Take Ghostbusters, for instance. The reboot is going to suck. The trailer looked horrible and the concept is bad to begin with. However, the original two Ghostbusters movies still exist and I can still enjoy them. So I'm not going to be one of those idiots screaming about how they raped my childhood. My childhood is still there on a DVD next to my television. But I will say that if they're going to reboot a franchise that was widely enjoyed in the past, please fucking do it right.

But isn't that an issue of poor film making, as opposed to reboots in general?

Gandalf wrote:But isn't that an issue of poor film making, as opposed to reboots in general?

It may be just me (and please feel free to prove me wrong on this), but in my experience I found that a larger percentages of reboots are bad compared to stand-alone movies or even sequels. At least from where I sit, being a reboot means it's more likely to be bad.

I think that's because people tend forget that good reboots are reboots while they focus on the reboot aspect on the bad ones, giving the impression that reboots are inherently bad.

Reboots are inherently pretty lazy. People liked this thing, I can sell them more of it!

People can do either do it well or put a new twist on it but that's still the base of what they're doing.

Gandalf wrote:But isn't that an issue of poor film making, as opposed to reboots in general?

Reboots tend to have issues of poor film making because they are quarter assed cash grabs that have the bare minimum of effort and rely of name recognition to sell tickets.

Of course its not always that way, sometimes the reboot is made with as much passion as the original if not more. Tv shows like the nu-Doctor Who (which isn't really a reboot but people call it that and it did reboot the dead series) or neo-Battlestar Galactica before it got terrible. Movies like Casino Royale and Dredd you could tell the filmmakers poured their all into it. Or a movie like Star Trek 2009 where JJ Abrams really gave it his all because of his love of.........Star Wars, because come on that was just his demo reel to get the Episode 7 job.

But for the most part there is no love of the craft or property going into remakes. There is no respect for what they are reusing, there isn't even any financial confidence in it that gets people doing a good job even if they are emotionally invested in the project.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against reboots. Reboots can be good and I'm not so invested in shit I can't handle them remaking it. I wasn't pissed about the remake Ghostbusters because it dares fuck with my childhood or, if what most of the media is saying is true, because them dirty gurls are doing things and that makes my penis angry. No I dislike it because it looks terrible, because the actors look terrible and not even because they have vaginas, because it looks so freaking lazy and unfunny you would swear it was written by Trevor Noah.

Also because Blu-ray, Imma miss you HD-DVD!!!!

Any reboot that takes atleast some effort I don't have a problem with.

Gandalf wrote:People are mostly cranky that it's stuff from their childhood being remade, and then it turns into a contest of who can be the internet angriest, hence the phrase "Raped my childhood." I posit that it comes from people tying their identity to specific commercial properties and not wanting to see their value deflate, but that's an hypothesis for another day.

I buy that completely. But straight reboots of old stuff tend to turn out bad. When there's actual source-material, this isn't always the case. People crying about it don't factor in and they/we have seen enough flaming shitpiles to be immediately put-off when people try reboots.

Dredd got mentioned: I loved Stallone's Judge Dredd. It's no Demolition Man, but it's a good movie. That said, Dredd is actually more a Dredd movie than the 90s version. They took it in a totally different direction and it worked. They didn't just try to ape Stallone with a new actor like directors were trying for years with old Arnold movies. Oh, and the trailer didn't fill me with a sense of ... no, I won't do that. I'm better than that: the trailer didn't make me want to hate myself or the characters. I can say that for a lot of reboots I didn't hate, however few there are.

But I have to ask: Is Dredd even really a reboot?

Exactly. The worst case scenario is that they're terrible. In which case we all go and watch Lethal Weapon 2 again and shout "Diplomatic immunity!" in Joss Ackland's awesome accent.

Just remember they fuck you in the drive-thru!

And this is another problem as far as I can see: a lot of those jokes really don't need to be repeated. Do we need to retell the same plot with different actors? Crack the same jokes? No, those stories and jokes have been told. Same as if someone just came along and took all of George Carlin's material and started doing his own versions of his rants. Why wouldn't people be mad? Why would anyone want to see that when videos of Carlin's old stuff still exist?

The Ghostbusters reboot is an even more annoying version of this for me. From what I know, the original team did not exist in their version. Yet the trailer opened with something about said "didn't exist" crew. How is that not a "hey, your childhood is this way! Nostalgia!""

It reminds me of AAA marketing for video games. It's graphics graphics GRAPHICS! Then when the graphics are garbage (and the game sucks, that's neither here nor there) it's "Why do you guys always focus on GRAPHICS!?" Studios are trying to sell us nostalgia and they fucking suck at it with rare exception. Then they dump on Internet Trolls who never gave the movie/show a chance as the real problem. I have every right to mock the new generation of hacks trying make a quick buck off something they don't understand.

TheFeniX wrote: But I have to ask: Is Dredd even really a reboot?

Not really to me, it's a fresh adaption of the source materials.

You wouldn't call say the Keira Knightly Pride & Prejudice film a reboot of the BBC series either.

Their have been successful reboots, you know (Daniel Craig's Bond...

I don't consider that a reboot - just another in the long series of Bonds...

Anyway, I hate the knee-jerk anti-Hollywood/anti-reboot mentality that always seems to emerge over things like this (not referring to any post in particular, just the general response this sort of thing tends to provoke). Is it too damn hard to wait for something to come out and then judge it on its merits?

Even if it wasn't a reboot, the trailer of MacGuyver looks like crap. All too often, producers use the name of a well-known franchise to basically turn an otherwise crappy show into something profitable, regardless... that's the problem. If the trailer were good enough to stand on its own, then it would just be better by having some well-known franchise named attached to it.

Crazedwraith wrote:Reboots are inherently pretty lazy. People liked this thing, I can sell them more of it!

People can do either do it well or put a new twist on it but that's still the base of what they're doing.

That's not the only reason to make a reboot. That may be the main reason studios fund them, but their are others.

One is "I like this subject, and would like to revisit it for nostalgia's sake". Not the best reason, and not likely to lead to a good result, but there it is.

Another, and the one I prefer, is "I want to explore this concept in a new way/without having to deal with the baggage of past fuck-ups." Like rebooting Batman after the Schumacher films.

In fact, I would argue a long running franchise generally should reboot every ten years or so. The sole exception being Doctor Who, because partial reboots every few years are built into the (ridiculously open-ended) premise.

Oh boo hoo hoo they are doing what's been done for the entirety of media of all kind and damn them for it!

Of course this ignores that some reboots can take something that doesn't work in one medium (film) and excell in another (tv). Like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. Frankly if it rankles the OP so much, don't watch. Or do, you may like it. And if it sucks, you can creatively rip it apart like I did with every episode of the televised abortion 'Heroes'.

I don't know if it was the transition to TV that did it, but Buffy is a fantastic example of a reboot surpassing the original. Although its an interesting case in that rather than the original being remade by someone else, it was being remade by the original creator to more closely follow his vision.

Also demonstrate my point about people forgetting (probably intentionally) that good reboots are still reboots. Kind of how people "forget" shitty physical effects or good CGI, they can maintain the illusion that all physical effects were 100% perfect, while all CGI is total crap by defination.

Yes this sort of Elitism is a pet peevee of mine why do you ask?

Lord Revan wrote:Also demonstrate my point about people forgetting (probably intentionally) that good reboots are still reboots. Kind of how people "forget" shitty physical effects or good CGI, they can maintain the illusion that all physical effects were 100% perfect, while all CGI is total crap by defination.

Yes this sort of Elitism is a pet peevee of mine why do you ask?

You sound like a sanctimonious twat.

Well excuse me if I'm not really nostalgic about how everything was so bloody perfect in in past, there's loads of shitty reboots no-one is arguing that but there is difference between even "most of this is crap" and "this concept is inherently and irredeembly crap and I refuse to accept any counter arguments!"