Remakes

Today, I discovered that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is getting a reboot.

I want to back up a bit. I love vampires. I’ve always loved vampires, from when I first saw the classic Dracula with Bella Lugosi through my parents’ showing me Interview with a Vampire when I was way too young to deal with that level of violence. I don’t blame them, since I’d already read the book, but it was a little different for 12-year-old me to see all that violence and sex on the big screen. And besides, I’d seen Braveheart by then and wasn’t affected by that violence. Not sure why Interview was worse. shrug. The mind of a child, am I right?

Anyways, back to vampires. I’ve consumed a ton of vampire fiction. Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, Lynsay Sands, gods I loved that stuff! I ate it up in high school. It was all dark and tortured and sexy and violent and powerful and I was totally into it! I recently found out that there’s a shit-ton more Argeneau books written by Sands since I was in High School, and I’ve been enjoying the audiobooks on my long drive to work. I went out and happily found more vampire fiction to consume, and loved it! I was so much worse during my adolescence, and Buffy was one of the mainstays of my vampire fix. I can tell you right now that Buffy and it’s spin-off Angel are two of my absolute favorite TV shows of all time (Firefly being the best, with Star Trek: The Next Generation following close behind). I still rewatch both series every year or three, just because I enjoy them so much.

So when I say that the news of a new Buffy filled me with absolute depressive apathy, I want that point to be perfectly clear.

A few months ago, my then-fiance showed me that Netflix was doing a live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender. A few years ago, I would have been excited. I love Avatar and Korra, and would like to see more of that world. Even a remake would have been exciting to me.

But now? Instead of excitement and anticipation, I sighed. It was a strange experience, looking at evidence of a project that a few years ago, I would have loved, and not wanting anything to do with it. After a bit of soul-searching, I think I’ve found out what’s changed to make me feel this way.

I’m just tired.

I’m tired of shitty remakes of things I loved. Good remakes would be appreciated, but not every remake can be the 1939 Wizard of Oz or The Muppet’s Christmas Carol. More often, we get Tin Man or The Muppet’s Wizard of Oz. People see a good movie or novel and say, “I want to do that, but different.” The problem is that they usually do it worse.

“But it still exists!” people tell me. “You get more of what you love!” But I don’t. I get a pale imitation of what I love. JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movies did not give me more Star Trek. It gave me a series of stupid (and occasionally offensive) movies wearing the skin of Star Trek. Before, I could simply say “I like Star Trek.” Now, I have to clarify which ones. Before, I could find people with similar likes and dislikes with a simple sentence. Now I have to write a paragraph to get my point across.

And it continues with other franchises that I liked. The Force Awakens doesn’t feel like a Star Wars movie, with the awesome pulp action. It feels like another JJ Abrams movie, with its stupid Mystery Boxes littered around. Really, JJ Abrams is like the Hannibal Lecter of science fiction. He finds a thing I love, then skins it and eats its face.

Sadly, JJ is not the end of the issue. A lot of remakes have made me angry recently, usually because the new version doesn’t understand what made the original great. Jurassic World is an excellent example. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are attractive and charismatic people, but their characters still should have been eaten by dinosaurs because Howard was more interested in profits than people (the lawyer from the original comes to mind) and Pratt thought he could dominate and defeat raptors (like the infinitely more interesting Muldoon from the original. Yeah, I said it. Fight me).

Star Trek was defined by its utopian vision of the future. It does not need 9/11 Truthism thrown in.

Star Wars is a samurai fantasy set in space, an exploration of the hero’s journey. Why am I getting a critique of Iraq War Politics?

Instead of rehashing already good properties, it seems to me that the really rich ground for remakes are the properties that did not do that well the first time around, but still had promise. What do I mean by that?

Well, take Jupiter Ascending. Pretty much everyone agrees that the movie stinks, and I agree, but I desperately hope that we get another movie set in that universe. The idea that humanity is older than Earth, the galactic civilisation of bio-engineered semi-human aliens, harvesting planets to provide immortality juice, the Skyjackers and Fields of Warhammers? It’s all intriguing. The problem is with the characters. The villains are weak, a couple of kids squabbling over one of their mom’s properties, and the main characters are worse. Channing Tatum is a generic “damaged” hero. And as for Mila Kunis?

I had someone womansplain to me at Comic-Con that Jupiter Jones is interested in her family! She wants to care for her family! Okay, I get it, but which is better for her family? “Hi family! I’m queen of Earth. Wanna come be stupid rich and live forever in my space palace?” Or going back home to lie to her family for her entire life and live in poverty cleaning toilets while fucking her cybernetic alien angel-dog boyfriend on top of the Sears Tower?

THAT’S the problem with Jupiter Jones. She never gets beyond the “I wanna go home” part of the hero’s journey. Damn it, Jupiter, go beat up your jealous siblings, take over their empires, and go explore all of known space in luxury with your family!

Imagine that movie, where Jupiter gets everything she’s ever wanted, a chance to view the stars that her father so loved, to escape the poverty that’s haunted her, to provide for the family who she loves, all while experiencing glorious wonders? But then has to fight her more experienced, savvy siblings to not only claim her inheritance, but also to save her family, her planet, and her life, aided only by a pair of exiled space soldiers and a lawyer-bot who believe in doing the right thing. Throughout the movie, she’s motivated by the idea of providing a better life for her family and saving the lives of everyone on Earth, which gives her the strength she needs to confront the alien horrors of space! I’d watch the shit out of that.

Another good remake would be the Star Wars Prequels!

Hear me out.

At its heart, under the Jar Jars and bad city council meetings, the Prequel Trilogy houses a dark, nasty tale that expands the Star Wars lore, where government corruption and blind religious faith allowed a power-hungry individual to corrupt a youth and bring down the republic that had lasted for thousands of years, establishing the Empire we saw in the later movies. It plays on preconceptions of the hero’s journey and deconstructs it. Everyone trusts Anakin and gives him power because he seems to fit into the divine narrative of their prophesy, which Palpatine uses to destroy the Jedi and gain control over the Senate.

How deliciously, darkly fascinating.

What if they had leaned into the issue? The problem is not that there were politics in Star Wars. There’s politics in Game of Thrones, and nobody seems upset by that. Lean into the dark, the corruption, the murder and coercion that leads to the fall of the Republic. Let’s develop the friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan before watching it fall apart as Anakin dives ever deeper into the Dark Side. Let’s see the Jedi try to force Anakin into their prophetic mold, and him eventually bend and break under the pressure. Make us care about the characters, and shatter the Galaxy as a backdrop to their personally losses.

I’d watch the SHIT out of that.

But we all know that won’t happen. Studios write off failures and beat successes long past the point that the corpse stops twitching, rather than letting them ride off into the glorious sunset. Heck, most of the shows I love either struggled to stay on the air or were straight up cancelled (cough cough Firefly never forget cough). They were able to write badass stories and maybe knew their last season, and thus ended well.

Which is why studios are currently picking up great stories like Buffy and trying to wring some blood out of that stone.

So with the knowledge that remakes will keep happening, let’s explore how to make them better. To whit, don’t make remakes. Make expansions.

Say what you want about prequels and sequels, at least they offer new stories. Star Trek: TNG is a sequel, for crying out loud! But they did it right. They set it a hundred years after the events of the original series and took a look at how the Federation had developed, all while keeping the utopian ideals of the original intact. Lord of the Rings picks up at the end of Bilbo Baggins’ natural life and follows his adopted nephew to expand the world of Middle Earth. Terminator 2: Judgement Day kicked the cinematic crap out of the original by focusing on a new character, John Connor, and his struggle to cope with the destiny his mom has dumped on him, along with his desire to have a real father. Possibly the best sequel ever was Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. That movie showed that the Death Star was not the end of the Empire, that the Rebellion was fighting an entrenched, galaxy-wide military-industrial, socio-economic system, and one victory did not win the war. It made Star Wars into the cultural juggernaut it currently is! I’d even argue that the Star Wars Prequels have merit (but more in the movies they could have been, not what we got). Had they been made well, the prequel movies could have been devastating, and a damned sight better than the new movies, because at least the prequels have something to say.

Instead of Aang again, why not Avatar Kyoshi? Why do we retread Kirk’s beginnings again when I want to know what happens after the end of Deep Space 9? Firefly should never come back, but a series about the ‘Verse before the Unification War, with the tensions leading up to the conflict, or during the war as a military sci fi, or even another ship and crew in the same ‘verse? I’d watch the shit out of that.

And as for Buffy? Why are you redoing a show that was already practically perfect? I promise you, it’s not going to be as good as what we already have. You could make a great sequel that takes place after the end of Buffy and Angel, where dozens of Slayers walk the Earth, taking the fight to the demons that haunt us. Heck, there could be an older Slayer who’s the popular girl, and the new Slayer has to learn how to use her developing powers while dealing with high school and the fact that her mentor is the school bully. I’d watch the shit out of that.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they are doing a cool sequel that I’ll love. But I’ve seen enough reboots of the things I already love, and I can tell you that based on the existing evidence, I’m going to have to sigh and clarify which versions I enjoy with yet one more property that I used to love unconditionally.