Sequels, Remakes, Reboots & Reshoots - The Day The Film Blogosphere Came Together

Wow, that was fun. The finest film bloggers in all the land (no offence to film bloggers who live on sea) came together to write on the topic of 'Sequels, Remakes and Reboots.' It was a pretty open ended assignment, just a chance for everyone to express their feelings on the topic. Much fun was had, some of the articles were detailed and informative, others were light and hilarious.

It all began yesterday morning when The Kid In The Front Row got into a confused mess as he struggled to get a grip of his feelings on the topic, "Will a new 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' stop people re-watching the original? Does anyone lose sleep over the fact Gus Van Sant did a shot for shot remake of 'Psycho'? No, everyone just watches the original."

Luckily, that wasn't the only post of the day, and the sequels provided a lot more insight. Over at Memoirs Of A Word Nerd, Manda Diaz delivered possibly the funniest moment of the blogathon with the worryingly spot on analysis of 'Oceans 12,' "It still makes me angry that the general public paid money just to watch a bunch of celebrities on holiday in Europe."

The Sugary Cynic makes her point bluntly and honestly, "In practice, these usually suck because they are slapdash, shitty, with no respect paid to the source material and done for the money."

A Nerd Like Me makes a simple point which, to be honest, sums everything up pretty well; "Good sequels, remakes and reboots are good. And bad ones? Well, at least they’re fun to argue about!""

"History is destined to repeat itself. Hollywood just gets around to it faster than most," mused Mike Lippert, from You Talking To Me?; who was probably the most pro-remakes blogger in the blogathon.

Patrick O'Riley and Sofluid both took the time to break down each section seperately and share their opinions on Sequels, Remakes, and Reboots. Patrick stands up for the point of view you'd hear from a studio head, with "Sequels have an undeserved negative stigma. From a producorial standpoint, the reason a sequel is even considered for production is because an original film proves successful." Similarly, upcoming screenwriter Sofluid brings awareness to the dreaded word that anti-remake/reboot people hate to hear, 'franchise.' Solfluid explains, "Shrek in particular is an impressive franchise. It's got a loveable set of characters (perfect for merchandise!) and the writers manage to keep it fresh and exciting."

The Intermittent Sprocket gets straight down to business and makes a list of films that he thinks should be remade, and one point in particular I couldn't agree more with, "ANYTHING WRITTEN BY SHANE BLACK DESERVES A SEQUEL WRITTEN BY SHANE BLACK." Four Of Them wrote a simple yet heartfelt article which many people will relate to, "You see, they're all too glad to attach the original's good name in press releases, but when it comes time for execution, well, what they do can land anywhere between ineptness, scorn, and all-out hatred."

We end on two distinctly different takes on the topic. Wellywood Woman, from New Zealand, took the conversation away from bantering back and forth about 'Shrek' and 'Toy Story 3' and focused on something more fascinating and important; "I've chosen to focus on gender and audience, and on the reboot-and-remake of the New Zealand Film Commission, following its review by Sir Peter Jackson and David Court," which makes for a fascinating read. 

I hope I've mentioned everybody. If I've missed any blogs out, please get in touch, and I'll add them in. Feel free to copy and paste this round-up onto your own blogs-- it'd be really great if we can spread awareness of each others work. as much fun as it is to mount up your own reader base and shield them from everyone else; I think community is far more important. I can supply the HTML code of this blog if it helps you enter it into your own blogs.

Thanks for joining in, and thanks for reading. Until next time.

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