In the world of cinema when did everything get decided to be rebooted versus movies being remade? It seems through many different kinds of media news towards the moving picture many classics, franchises, movies no older than 10 years are being rebooted.
The first time i heard this term used was with Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins". His vision for the Batman franchise was going to reboot (start over) life back into it. But before this term all other second interpretations of previous films were considered remakes. Now like wild fire all new interpretations of movies are reboots, of course i maybe generalizing. To my understanding a remake is just another directorial perspective on a previously made film. The term of "reboot" seems to go towards a series of films based on the same characters being re envisioned by creative powers (this can be studio driven) to help increase box office sales. Now this definition i propose is not entirely clear or solid. For example, if we take the Harry Potter franchise, the first two films were directed by Chris Columbus. However, the third film took on a different director Alfonzo Cuaron, thou these films are part of a continuous narrative up until this chapter in the story the series took on a drastically different direction in visuals, story telling, etc. to craft a superior movie. Is this considered a reboot to the franchise?
Now when the idea of starting over is clear, as reboot suggests, i cannot agree more such as the recent Friday the 13th series. This was a license that needed to be forgotten or completely redone. This is also happening with the Nightmare on Elm Street series, another franchise that is being rebooted.
There are a few movies that i'm not sure which category they can be placed, for example 1998's Psycho. This version of Psycho is almost an exact copy of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho, i say almost because there are some added scenes that the director, Gus Van Sant, has spoken on which were not possible due to the censors of 1960. The same can be said with 2007's Funny Games, here is a film that was reshot exactly and its previous incarnation was only 10 years before. The original is from 1997.
The term of reboot is being strongly used towards the upcoming release of Star Trek headed by J.J. Abrams. Here is a license that has suffered some ticket sale failure, so much that it is said all odd numbered Star Trek films suck. In Abrams case maybe this is a reboot since instead of continuing the adventures of the Next Generation crew (where the series left off) he is starting over with the characters of the original series in their younger years.
For a point of discussion, what is your perspective on the terms Reboot versus Remade? How about Redone, Retold, Re imagined or plain old updated?
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