Reboots... why?

[R.Graves]

i mean on the most superficial cynical level i know why.

1. Marketability
2. Brand Recognition
3. Fucking money

but look at star trek, they rebooted in 2009 only to outright ignore the reboot with star trek: discovery.
so creativley speaking what what was the point? i mean into darkness was just wrath of khan but with no context and dropped on its head. the 2009 reboot also got in the way of a new series called star trek: federation which actually had an interesting premise, and was poised to take the franchise in new directions.

i also heard they're rebooting buffy the vampire slayer. this one is the most infuriating to me because this was an ongoing series in the middle of an arc. this reboot left season 12 a measley 4 issues to wrap everything up. by comparison season eight had a hefty 40 issue run. that's a direct attack on its own franchise. seriously what the fuck?

i mean rebooting fallout woulda made sense because fuck all nobody knew about it before fallout 3 and bethesda had no interest in the fallout spirit or continuity. a reboot would've made perfect sense there because they'd have a solid foundation to build a new series on and i couldn't spend the rest of my life winging about continuity.

so i suppose a reboot can make sense creatively if the three reason listed don't apply, particularly the first two

hell there are franchises that reboot before they even start. look at red dead. redemption was a reboot of a franchise that had literally one entry in it. fucking why? why go out your way to say to whatever fans you may have "yeah that thing you loved doesnt count anymore" it immediatley leaves a bad taste in your mouth. right out of the gate.

GTA just reboots without telling anyone. GTA III was a reboot that had a 7 entry run before GTA IV rebooted again. why? fucking dont ask me especially as each new continuity goes out of its way to have references to previous continuities.

point is reboots are almost always a middle finger to the established fanbase.

anyone else as annoyed by reboots or am i just being an asshole? it just seems to me that outright saying that the shit you loved growing up is no longer applicable to a franchise is both unneccesary and infuriating.

 

[SMBComix]

Personally, I'm not against reboots. I'd prefer to keep the story alive and well for every generation, and unfortunately a lot of this current generation would balk at going and watching the originals due to "bad graphics" or "poor special effects" or some shit like that. The same can be said for pretty much every story ever told that ever got retold.

Essentially... you're bitching about something humans have been doing for centuries, at least. Let it go, dude.

 

[naossano]

Franchise owners don't care about audience loyalty or about their own franchise.

Rebooting buffy... the whole point of this show was the creative team behind it. Good luck doing anything with just the pitch...

 

[SquidWard]

Man, the stuff frustrates me too but even though I see games, movies, music, books, etc. all as pieces of art, the big names aren't worried about artistic integrity. Those three reasons are exactly why they do reboots and shovel sequels to a series/franchise.
#3 is literally what drives the world. You don't have to farm and barter with goods anymore because most people use money. Sure, some smaller studios want their vision of their art done right while also making money (because if you spend most of your day while awake working on something, you probably expect whatever you were working on to put food on the table).
But when we get to big companies like Ubisoft, EA, Blizzivision, Valve, Bethesda rising to this height as well, etc. They don't really care about artistic integrity. They care about it as much as the general person from the general population cared about the accuracy and the quality of the Transformer movies. It looks like that brand and mostly suits it even if lazily or poorly? That's fine, it'll pass as long as it's fun and/or addictive. Hell Valve figured they'd make more money by not having dev teams on games and focus on monetizing the hell out of Steam and games on Steam. The markets for in game items that give a small percentage to the original owner and then throws some Steam's way, the trading cards to entice this in a non game way that unlocks profile additions and customization that could easily already be there.

If you're worried about big name franchises holding artistic integrity close, you'll find yourself more and more disappointed in my opinion.
I love Star Wars but I don't expect much from a SW movie because it's HUGE and kinda always was meant to be.

In my opinion Fallout 1 and 2 (and plenty of games around that time and before) were games like movies from before the blockbuster take over. You could sell something very artistic and cared for in special ways and make good enough money doing it. The market didn't have the audience it does now. Gaming is also in the blockbuster field. If you're looking for something more cared for you gotta look at smaller works.

Yes, I'm annoyed but I usually just kind of ignore it unless the specific entry/title/whatever actually piques my interest. Otherwise, I either just enjoy it like I enjoy blockbusters or I ignore it.

Also, I'd say it's kinda like pop music for the most part. You're allowed to like pop music and I do like some of it, but I'll never hold it as high up on in an artistic sense when your song was literally written to climb charts of sales. That goes for anything art wise.

 

[Big No]

I'm pretty sure GTA was rebooted because the 3D Era cities didn't look very good from a design perspective and it'd be highly unrealistic for an entire major US city to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch without rebooting the series. I'd take IV's Liberty City over 3's any day.

 

[TheGM]

but look at star trek, they rebooted in 2009 only to outright ignore the reboot with star trek: discovery.

Well that is Paramount Pictures licensing Star Trek from CBS but CBS saying it's won't effect the main franchise. Haven't seen STD though, looked like shit.

 

[Einhanderc7]

Reboots if done right can yield positive results, for example Battlestar Galactica was actually a really well done reboot/continuation of the IP. 2012's Dredd reboot may have not done well but it was a well made movie that stayed true to the source material.
Some other decent or good IP reboots:

• Planet of the Apes.
• Batman
• V
• Queer eye (Some actually good tips there btw)
• Samurai Jack
• 007 (+/- personal taste)
• Sweeny Todd (The Jdep version)

I'm sure there's a bunch more. However I do agree that reboots as of late have had the unfortunate luck of being garbage money snatch attempts.

 

[Big No]

I don't think Samurai Jack is the type of reboot that's currently being discussed. Season 5 of SJ, while new and different, is a direct continuation of the original series with previous characters and events brought up. The reboot being described above is like a "fresh" reboot, whole new story that ignores any previous events or installments, i.e Classic Tomb Raider/Square Enix Tomb Raider.

 

[iridium_ionizer]

I worry that reboot/sequel overload prevents more original ideas from ever getting made, but the truth is that most things are a spiritual successor, an alternate take on something, or a mash-up of different things. And this goes back for centuries (and millennia).

When companies make good reboots/sequels, it prevents the brand from growing stale and fans rejoice at the new stories being told. When companies make bad reboots/sequels, it does tarnish the brand. We might feel bad that young whippersnappers don't learn about the original good version first, but we can always use the new version as a starting point to build interest in the things of the past. Also make your own head canon (see the bottom strip).

They don't really care about artistic integrity. They care about it as much as the general person from the general population cared about the accuracy and the quality of the Transformer movies.

In the long-run quality matters. People with taste in good movies realized that Transformers movies were terrible (even for big-action blockbuster movies) by Transformers 2. By Transformers 4 most movie-goers (except in China) had realized that Transformers movies had become terrible. They stopped being cool and original, and they knew this because eventually they heard this enough from people that are actually cool.

Unless you really like just CGI action, once the cool is gone from Transformers, the story and the characters (which are terrible) are not going to keep you interested. Eventually even people in China will realize that Transformers isn't cool. But maybe a new reboot will happen, fix all of the quality issues and it will become cool again.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=transformers.htm

 

[SquidWard]

In the long-run quality matters.

But they aren't worried about that. Most aren't. They want short term gains. Quality makes something last a century, sure but what does that matter if you're dead or your IP and royalties are in someone else's hands?

 

[WeissYohji]

Reboots aren't new. They've been around for ages, longer than you'd think. Shakespeare rebooted Romeus & Juliet as Romeo & Juliet, and did the same stuff with other people's plays. The Warriors was a reboot of Xenophon's Anabasis. The Flintstones was effectively a reboot of The Honeymooners, albeit scientifically inaccurate as all hell (i.e., we've only coexisted with one group of dinosaurs--birds). Robin Hood has seen its share of reboots as well. So has Beauty and the Beast. NOTHING NEW.

I wouldn't want to see Fallout rebooted so much as the Interplay games given HD remasters for those who didn't experience these games when they were new, as well as those who did play them before and want the games in shiny 1080p/4K. I've tried running some old PC games before with a modern display; many of them don't display properly. I tried playing Age of Empires III a few weeks ago and part of the picture was cut off no matter what I set the resolution to! Same went for Rise of Nations before that game's HD remaster came out. The original Doom, Half-Life, Counter-Strike--all suffered the same problem regardless of how I set the resolution. If I'm going to play these games, I'd like to be able to see the whole picture so I can see what I'm playing.

 

[R.Graves]

Reboots aren't new. NOTHING NEW.

i don't understand how something having been around for a long time is an arguement for its merit.

Shakespeare rebooted Romeus & Juliet as Romeo & Juliet

i'd hardly say that a second draft qualifies as a reboot.

The Flintstones was effectively a reboot of The Honeymooners

being an ouright ripoff is also not a reboot.

The Warriors was a reboot of Xenophon's Anabasis.

lol come on dude the warriors was at best inspired by anabasis and completely changes the setting and context of that story.

seriously two ips being similar does not a reboot make.

Robin Hood has seen its share of reboots as well. So has Beauty and the Beast

both of these are fairy tales and legends that have been passed down through generations. hardly the same thing as a franchise reboot.

The original Doom, Half-Life, Counter-Strike--all suffered the same problem regardless of how I set the resolution.

lol what doom and half-life display fine are you high?