I don’t care if it’s stupid, sign me up for the reboot

Every day we learn of a new reboot, sequel or spin-off about to hit our screens. But no matter how much we complain, they’re going to keep churning through the same old ideas, writes Nick Calacouras.

Last week the internet let out a collective gasp as it reacted to the most horrifying news possible: The Princess Bride is getting a remake.

It’s outrageous. Sacrilege. A crime against our childhood.

You might even say, inconceivable.

This is all true. But it still wouldn’t stop me from seeing it.

Reboots? You keep saying this word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Picture: The Princess Bride

A good portion of the entertainment industry is just reboots and sequels these days.

In the ’90s I watched Beverly Hills 90210 every week (#TeamKelly #TeamDylan).

This show led to the spin-off series Melrose Place, which had its own spin-off series, Models Inc.

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Then 90210 got a spin-off reboot in 2008, followed by the revival of Melrose Place in 2009.

All of these spin-offs (with the exception of Melrose Place and its special guest star on every episode Heather Locklear) were train wrecks.

The original cast of Beverly Hills 90210.

But that won’t stop me from sitting down and watching the Beverly Hills 90210 mockumentary when it airs on Channel 10 tomorrow night.

Before I go any further, here’s a quick glossary of terms.

A sequel is something that takes an old story and adds to it.

A spin -off is something that is launched by the original series and goes off on a tangent.

A reboot is when you pretty much ignore the original, take a new cast and start again.

Sometimes Hollywood tries to do all three at once.

Next month James Cameron is going to release Terminator: Dark Fate. This is a sequel because it is a continuation of the 1992 classic Terminator 2: Judgement Day. But it’s also a reboot because he is asking us to ignore the three other Terminator sequels (and moderately successful television series) that we have watched in the past 27 years.

Arnie told us “I’ll be back”. Promises made. Promises delivered. Picture: Terminator 2: Judgement Day

It’s kind of like when movie producers asked us all to pretend that Highlander 2 never happened because it was embarrassingly stupid.

But we shouldn’t be shocked by any of this.

When the Charlie’s Angels reboot was announced earlier this year, I had millennial colleagues outraged that anyone would touch the classic original series.

The original cast of Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett & Jaclyn Smith in the 1970s Charlie's Angels.

The 2011 reboot starring Minka Kelly, Annie Ilonzeh and Rachael Taylor lasted only a month.

It was a good five minutes before I realised they were talking about the films starring Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore.

Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray and Drew Barrymore made two Charlies Angels films in the early ’00s.

And that’s the first reason why studios keep doing reboots. The audience has a short memory.

Something is only sacred if it’s attached to your own childhood. I never warmed to the Star Wars prequels because I grew up with the original trilogy.

But these same prequels have a nostalgic place for people in their 20s (who are instead angered by the latest Star Wars trilogy.)

But none of this is stopping me from lining up at the box office and taking my kids to The Lion King remake.

Everything the light touches is our intellectual property. We can reboot anything in it.

Why watch a new movie when we can just watch a slightly different version of the old one?

And that’s the second reason why reboots get made. If done well, they give us a warm feeling of nostalgia that we desperately need.

We’ve got reboots of Full House, Veronica Mars, Magnum PI, MacGyver and Gilmore Girls on our screens.

It’s also why Disney is redoing their classic cartoons — scene for scene — in live action films.

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We know what’s going to happen in Aladdin. We’ve literally seen this movie before. But that hasn’t stopped it from making a billion dollars at the box office.

And that brings me to the third and final reason why they keep making reboots. Because we keep paying for them.

Every Transformers movie — with the exception of the recent Bumble-Bee (a reboot) — has been panned by the critics. They are quantifiable bad films. Yet for the billion dollars they have spent making six films, they have taken in almost five times that much in the box office. And that doesn’t include the money they made on toys and merchandise.

With almost five billion dollars at the box office, there’s more than meets the eye with these terrible Transformers films.

In parenting terms, this is known as positive reinforcement and it’s used to encourage similar behaviour in the future.

So if this is what we’re facing, I say bring it on.

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Give me a reboot of The Godfather as a ten-part drama series to slowly chart Michael’s rise in the criminal world. Bring back the cast of Buffy to fight vampires in the digital age. Show me a spin-off series set in Casablanca based on the underground black market. Or a gritty reboot of ALF. And what ever happened to Forrest Gump’s son? Did he live an interesting life too?

I’m sure there’s at least one idea in that pile that would draw you in. And that’s the point. Reboots, sequels and spin-offs are stupid, regressive and pointless.

But it’s just entertainment. It’s fun and it’s comforting and it lets us relive happy memories.

So if you’ve got a problem with what’s on TV … stop your whingeing and just change the channel.

Nick Calacouras is a journalist with News Corp.

https://twitter.com/NickCalacouras

Originally published as I don’t care if it’s stupid, sign me up for the reboot