Reboot this!

If you in any way follow movies these days, you've probably heard the term reboot. In essence, what the term implies is that a film series needs to be started over, as it has begun to lag in quality. You know how a few years ago, everything was being remade, and everyone was talking about what should be remade next? Well, it's the same thing, except instead of sitting there and saying "I'm remaking an older film", what the studios and "filmmakers" are in essence doing is saying "look, the series is in the toilet, and no one cares anymore, so let's just go back to square one, start all over again, and do a great series of movies, this time." A good example of a reboot would be the Batman movies. Tim Burton did two really great Batman films, and then Joel Schumacher, with heavy studio interference, did two not so-great Batman movies. Then Christopher Nolan stepped in, and did 2 films that were pretty good, but fall somwhere in the middle between the Burton and Schumacher films, at least for me. So, why even write this post? Well, because as in most things, it's going too far. It's getting time to reboot Hollywood altogether, and here's the reason why.

As most people who read movie news is aware, they are planning to reboot Spider-Man. To me, this is the pointless reboot to end all pointless reboots. Superman needs a reboot because of the awful Superman Returns. Transformers might need a reboot, to make up for the crappy Michael Bay flicks. Fine, you can argue that with me. But Spider-Man? Okay, why? Sure, 3 was a letdown...but thanks to the studio! Sam Raimi wanted just Sandman in the movie, it was that numbnuts Avi Arad who wanted Venom! Okay...[deep breath]...I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's examine the 3 Spider-Man films we've already seen:

Spider-Man - 90% Rotten Tomatoes ranking, made $821 million world-wide
Spider-Man 2 - 94% Rotten Tomatoes ranking, made $783 million world-wide
Spider-Man 3 - 63% Rotten Tomatoes ranking, made 890 million world-wide

So, what can we see here? All three movies received "fresh" ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, thought to be the gatherer of all things critically, so yes, 3 did not fair as well in the critics eyes as 1 and 2, but no one said it sucked (and evidently, when Mr. Raimi is left to his own devices, people seem to like it). Also, the 3rd film outdrew the other 2, so it clearly wasn't bad at the box office. So, this lends the question: why reboot the series? I mean yes, I don't think you'll find anyone who says 3 was the worst of the bunch, but does this really warrant starting again at scratch? Why not just make part 4, and give the reins back to Sam Raimi?

But you see, that's not what Hollywood wants. Especially Sony, who is probably sweating, because of the stipulation that any Marvel properties owned by another studio, who do not make a film in a set time period, featuring said character, the character reverts back to Marvel. So, Sony has to make another Spider-Man film to maintain the rights to make Spider-Man movies. Then there came the revelation that Sam Raimi was unhappy with the script, and that he wanted major changes...changes that the studio wasn't willing to make. So, off goes Raimi and his guys, and in comes Marc Webb, he of (500) Days of Summer. Next we hear, of the reboot, and not only is it a reboot, but it's going to be The Ultimates version of Spider-Man (so back to high school), and it's going to be about the angst of a teenager in high school who get bullied.

Wow...doesn't that just want you to run out and buy a ticket? I sure do! Forget the ridiculously rich rogues gallery Spider-Man possess, I want to see him take on Flash Thompson! Are you serious? Only in Hollywood baby, only in Hollywood. You see, these guys don't care about providing a quality product to the public. They were d0ing that, sort of screwed that up, and instead of righting the ship, they're just rebooting it, as if 3 never happened...but then the yahoos come up with an idea far, far worse than 3 ever could be. I don't want Ultimates Spider-Man. I don't want to have to go back to high school with Peter Parker. I don't want this teen angst bullshit. I...WANT...SPIDER-MAN! A Spider-Man who is done properly. The first two movies weren't bad at all, why can't they do that?

Well, they can't do that, because they don't understand why those movies were good. Plain and simple. The Hollywood execs have been living so long in their ivory tower, they have become completely disconnected from what actually makes a good movie, anymore. How often have you heard movie people speak about how "shocked" they were that a film they made actually did well. Here's the problem: people make movies for themselves, but in order to support this job, they need other people to pay to see the movie. If you see a good movie from a director, you may be inclined to pay again to see that director's next movie. This is how movies have functioned since the beginning of time. Hollywood doesn't seem to get that though, they don't seem to get anything. They don't understand why Ghost Rider was critically panned, why Daredevil was critically panned, why X-Men 3 was critically panned. Do they try and understand this, to go back and understand, so they don 't make the same mistakes twice? No.
They're answer is blow it up, and start over again. Usually, the preceding film isn't so bad that it requires a complete reboot, but they don't understand that. They're like a kid who breaks a toy, demands a new one, and then breaks that one, too.

The most damning thing though, is that a lot of these films that people didn't like would probably have been better off without the studio interference. Did anyone see the Daredevil Director's Cut? It was awesome! It was like a whole different movie! It made sense! Why didn't Fox just let Mark Steven Johnson make Daredevil like he wanted to? It would have done better critically, and probably made more money. Nope, the studios had to put their stamp on it, pulled out their pie charts, their demographics, and they wanted this changed, this changed, this changed. Movie came out, it didn't do so well. They release the Daredevil Director's Cut, everyone loved it. Hmmm! That's odd, isn't it?

So, what's the bottom line? The bottom line is, these reboots we're getting are really unnecessary. All they have to do is fix what didn't work in the film that came before, and things would be fine. Film studios don't want to do that, because that would mean admitting they screwed up, and as everyone knows, no one has ever screwed up in a Hollywood film studio. Never greenlighted a film that was garbage. Nope, not them. It was always "well, things didn't work out like we envisioned", and "we were excited with what we had, but for some reason, it didn't really translate". In other words, you guys suck. Your little pie charts and graphs, yeah, they didn't work. You should all do the film industry a favour, and resign, jump out of your ivory towers, and rejoin the little people who are actually the ones who pay to see your crap.

Please end the reboots. They aren't needed, just make a better sequel. You've effectively killed Spider-Man with your next movie. How many more are you going to kill?

I bid thee a fond reboot.

- Stephenstein.