A few weeks ago I was showing a friend of mine Kevin Feige’s Marvel Phase 3 announcement, and we got to talking about identification, privilege, and how changes to characters affect fans. His specific point was that as a kid he always identified with She-Ra more than He-Man, so he assumed growing up that girls also identified with male characters I had always provided a helpful example for him, since, as a kid stuck in a town I didn’t much like, craving adventure and excitement, I identified wholly with Luke. Leia, the beautiful, self-assured royal diplomat, was not someone I felt in tune with, despite our similarities in name and gender.
So he was a bit taken aback at my excitement for the upcoming Black Panther and Captain Marvel films. He certainly isn’t against them, but he was surprised when I talked about how important it was that superhero movies, and SFF in general, was finally becoming more diverse. And the more we talked, the more I realized that I always identified most with characters like Indiana Jones, Peter Venkman, Raphael (the turtle, not the painter), Al Calavicci, Arthur Dent… I spent most of my childhood thinking my way into perspectives that were all male, and usually white. Of course, I’ve thought about this before, but the conversation put it back in the front of my brain. And then Paul Feig announced his Ghostbusters reboot cast.
I’ll admit, I’ve only dipped into #Ghostbustersgate slightly, because it doesn’t take much to tip me into a Travis Bickle-style HUMANITY NEEDS TO END ALREADY rage, but the little bit that I’ve seen has been predictably disgusting, and the counterattack of humor has been predictably fun to watch. Personally? Yes, Ghostbusters was a huge part of my childhood; yes, I identified with Venkman; and no, I didn’t care that Venkman was a dude. (What really bugged me was that Egon was transformed into a blonde for the cartoon, but that’s a whole other thing.) But I still think it’s awesome that a new generation of kids will get to see women busting ghosts. I think it’s slightly beyond awesome that a generation of boys will see it, and my hope is that the new film is awesome and funny and that today’s children will have THREE WHOLE GHOSTBUSTERS MOVIES to choose from, and that they’ll like all three of them for different reasons. (What? There’s great stuff in 2! The toaster scene alone is worth it.)
Humans tend to like retelling certain stories over and over again. Every once in a while a story comes along that becomes a cultural touchstone to the point that bits of it get repurposed and recycled, and it finds new resonance with people. So why does it freak people out so much when stories are rebooted? I mean, I’ll admit that there are certain things that upset me, too (I may have yelled “Aw, hell NO” the first time I saw the new Ninja Turtles, for instance) but in general, I’m confused by the furious reaction to a new take on a classic story. I also understand the instinct to want new stories, but why the kneejerk hatred for recasting old ones? I have an idea about what all this recasting is doing to us as a people, but I’ll get there at the end.
Another friend talked about a relative of hers who was initially upset by the Samuel Jackson version of Nick Fury—not for any racially-motivated reasons, but simply because Sam Jackson isn’t his Nick Fury, nor is the Ultimate Marvel Nick Fury, Jr. / Marcus Johnson his Fury. His Nick Fury is the crew-cut, cigar-chomping, grizzled, WWII-era Howling Commando he grew up with. I know several people who, for similar reasons, are violently opposed to the rumor of Chris Pratt as a new Indiana Jones, and a few who are mad about Jurassic World.
I guess resistance to reboots could also be standard case of memento mori—when you’ve grown up with strapping Harrison Ford, and then suddenly he’s replaced by newly-strapping Chris Pratt that can be a shock. Bill Murray can be a sprightly trickster character in his actual life, crashing engagement photos and bartending at SXSW, but as an actor he’s portraying the mentors to Jason Schwartzman and Jaeden Lieberher. Luke Skywalker will presumably be a more Obi-Wan-esque figure in the Star Wars sequels, and usher in a new crop of young Jedi. And this is good! Allowing fresh blood into the world will reinvigorate it, if they do it well. So why then do some people tip over into actual anger, right from the start?
Over at The Dissolve, Nathan Rabin points out one of the elements that goes into reboot fury:
There’s an unmistakable element of generational chauvinism to these complaints as well. I want my son, who is now just under four months old, to watch and love Ghostbusters the way I did when I was eight years old.
Now I don’t have a kid, and that may actually be part of this…my childhood was my childhood, and it sits there in my brain with all the memories of Luke and Venkman and Raphael, and I don’t need to worry about trying to somehow shove those exact memories into my child’s brain. I’m mostly excited to see what new people can do with these stories. But I do think that creators need to put serious thought into why they’re retelling certain stories, and how they can expand the stories into new areas. It was the thing I kept yelling about after I saw Ridley Scott’s Exodus: why are these stories still important? If we’re choosing to make changes, what purpose do those changes serve? Each DC reboot has changed Superman a bit—the 1978 film with Christopher Reeve was charming and sweet, while Bryan Singer’s reboot took some of the mythological imagery that was always a subtext in the Superman story and made it text. Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, meanwhile, gave us a dark, troubled, extremely alien Superman. What—if anything—about this version speaks to us now? What does turning the Ninja Turtles into aliens, rather than mutants, achieve? And why does it still say “Mutant” in the title? What can a new Ghostbusters cast do that hasn’t already been done?
This question also leads me to my next thought. The reboot turnaround time is shrinking pretty rapidly. We’ve had three different Superman franchise attempts since 1978, two different Batman series (with four different Batmen, two Robins, and three Catwomen) since 1989, and we’ll soon have two different Fantastic Fours (I’m ignoring this one) since 2005. Each of these iterations at least attempted to explore a different angle, though, so it makes sense… but then you get to Spider-Man. I happen to prefer Raimi’s even with the problem child that is Spider-Man 3, but my frustration is more based in the fact that Amazing Spider-Man didn’t do anything new! If they’d pulled from a different plot, rather than giving us the mentor turned bad story with the Lizard instead of Otto Octavius, or, um anything other than Peter’s dad’s secret lab, I’d have felt better about it. What if they’d used it to explore Miles Morales, and his particular relationship to the Spider-Man mythos? That would have been amazing.
If a Chris Pratt-led Indiana Jones reboot takes us on new adventures and introduces us to more of the world, while staying true to Indy’s character? I’ll be ecstatic. If we get the Abner Ravenwood story that Chronicles didn’t give us, with a solid role for a young Marion? I’ll be extra ecstatic. If the new film leaves more room for a diversity of explorers, rather than just, um, white guys? I will be super ecstatic. If Jurassic World gives us a look at a functioning dinosaur park and also looks at ethics and science in a ridiculous context, all while Chris Pratt leads the team of specially-trained velociraptors that all of us have wanted since childhood? ECSTATIC. But if it’s just a retread of Jurassic Park III, and if Indiana Jones Redux is just a bunch of white dudes? …Less ecstatic.
The same day that people were losing their ectoplasm over the Ghostbusters reboot, Jonathan Chait wrote a much-discussed article about what he believes is a rise in PC language. I think he’s getting at something interesting, but he’s coming at it from the wrong direction. We’re at a fascinating moment in culture when people are trying to redefine terms, and while it can be debated how successful these redefinitions will be, what’s sure is that people who have traditionally had little or no power in the US, and have spent much of their histories being defined by those in power, are pushing back. Emmet Asher-Perrin wrote an essay yesterday about headcanons, and how they can be used to empower people, and I think one of the greatest things in fandom is that those personal interpretations are coming out into the world.
Naturally people who are used to having power are frightened by this, and Chait’s essay, though it makes a few good points, mostly reads as a reaction against change. As Ian Malcolm taught us, paradigm shifts are scary. But our language, the words we use for each other, are the building blocks of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves—and sometimes those words need to change so the story can grow.
In the context of Ghostbusters, given who’s attached to the project, I’m pretty optimistic. Paul Feig has made some excellent, heartfelt work over the years, in TV, movies, YA novels, and memoirs. Co-writer Katie Dippold did great work on The Heat and Parks and Rec. And Feig loves the OG movies, as has been made abundantly clear. In updating that, Feig has found four women who will have very different chemistry with each other. We’ll have four women of different races and body types, who are all well over 30, starring in a film that isn’t about marriage or weddings or babies. This is fantastic enough, but the thing that no one’s mentioning is that they’ll also have four different comedic styles. If you’ve seen Bridesmaids or watched any recent episode of SNL, you can see that the four actors have different styles, just as the original four did, and meshing them into one film will be amazing.
Ghostbusters was in many ways a synthesis of the snobs vs. slobs ethos that Reitman, Ramis, and Murray popularized in the early 80s. Where Meatballs, Stripes, Caddyshack, and Animal House were about brash outsiders sticking it to the Man, Ghostbusters is about a pair of nerdy scientists and a shlubby charlatan who work within the elitist structure of Columbia University before being kicked downtown. Even after that, though, they stick to their nerd cred—the human villain is a humorless, unthinking bureaucrat, whom they defeat with wit, the supernatural villain is a god named Gozer, whom they defeat with research and scientific inquiry. This is the core story, I think: four funny, creative people using their wits in the face of death. As long as Feig and his actors remain true to that, we’ll get a film that will expand the universe, and allow more people to play in it. Plus maybe this won’t come up first when you type the words “Female Ghostbuster” into an image search.
So…allow me to hit you with my crazy theory. I think all these reboots, and becoming comfortable with them, is changing our wiring, and I think that’s an incredibly important thing. I think this might be the thing that saves us as a species, actually. This sounds…stupid? I’ll admit that. But, as has been commented on ad nauseam, these stories are our modern myths. These are the stories we’re choosing to tell ourselves, and they’re changing at an extraordinary rate.
When Bryan Singer’s first X-Men movie came out in 2000, ushering in the new era of superhero films, we had a group of primarily white mutants, and it was marketed to the default nerd stereotype of white, bespectacled middle-class boys. The story could be read as a parable of racial segregation, and the sequel hung a lampshade on the gay rights aspect, but other than that? We had Storm, whose African-ness is actually muted in the films, and we had the other three women, Rogue, Jean Grey, and Mystique, who were tossed around between the male characters like hackysacks.
Now? We have a much more diverse X-Men cast, we have Mystique as a fully-formed character who breaks away from both Charles Xavier and Magneto to forge her own path. We have a Captain America who went from being an idealistic, red-blooded, WWII-era American kid from Brooklyn, to a slightly more cynical man who relies on on two African-American men and two women (one of them a Russian defector! Gasp!) to fight evil. Nick Fury is no longer a white, cigar-chomping guy—the character who was once played by David Hasslehoff (yup.) is now embodied by Samuel Jackson.
We have diverse casts for Flash, Arrow, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., promises that Black Panther and Captain Marvel will get their own movies. The current Spider-Man thinks it’s Miles’ turn. We went from an all-white Fantastic Four in the mid-00s to the biracial Storm family that we’ll get later this year. In the comics, Nick Fury, Jr. is now the (black) man in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America is African-American, Ms. Marvel is a Muslim woman, Thor is a woman, and there are characters who fall on every part of the gender and sexuality spectrum. We have a trans Magic card now.
The latest edition of D&D was partially inspired by Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler. And as for Star Wars, if the sequels and spin-off films are half as diverse as they look so far, children coming to the SWU for the first time won’t need to choose between the one white girl and the two white guys like I did (I’m assuming that no little kid identifies with Lando) and they also won’t have to deal with the problematic politics of the prequel trilogy. Between The Clone Wars, Rebels, the new trilogy, the standalone spin-offs, and all the books and comics, they’ll have a whole galaxy of characters of different races, cultural backgrounds, and genders to choose from.
Kids won’t have to do the emotional gymnastics that I did, or the far worse mental contortions that people further from the “mainstream” than I am have had to do. They will see themselves everywhere. But maybe even more importantly, they’re growing up in world where change is the norm. Anyone can be anything. And their brains are being trained to accept that as the default. What are their stories going to look like? Will reboot fury itself be a thing of the past, if stories are in a constant state of flux?
Leah Schnelbach is excited beyong the capacity for rational thought about the new Ghostbusters, and The Force Awakens, and Chris Pratt’s Raptor Bike Gang. Tweet at her! Share in her joy!
Forgive me if this was mentioned (it was a LONG article), but the only feeling I really get regarding reboots that could come close to anger (and it’s mostly more sadness/nostalgia) is the feeling that “the movies/shows/whatever from before no longer exist. This is the new truth from now on”.
It’s not that a new all-female ghostbusters won’t be COOL; I mean… GHOSTBUSTERS! There’s just either a “this is the new, only truth going forward”, or, at the very least, knowing that what you (fondly) remember is definitely no more. Any turtle movies going forward will NOT be the 1980’s turtles (or the 2003 turtles), but the new 2012 nickelodeon turtles or the new movie turtles.
Of course that’s just me…
Quickly, I can work the the comic movie reboots because I’m used to and expect reboots to the characters – it can be frustrating when a take you like is abandoned for one you don’t, and it can be gratifying when one you hate is dropped for one you like.
With other types of movies, I can work with expanded universe projects – think the Stargate and Star Trek iterations, even Episodes 1-3. What I get annoyed with is when the story is reset. New Trek, TMNT, the announced plans for Ghostbusters. This is why I have no joy or interest in the plans.
Regarding TMNT, yes they were a comic first, but to the vast majority they were a cartoon or movie. Which is how I see them. But, that’s just me.
I don’t know how others feel – this is just me.
It’s weird, I don’t mind recasting within a franchise. If Chris Pratt is the same Indiana Jones as Harrison Ford and River Phoenix then I’m cool with that. It is recasting, and I’ve lived through enough James Bonds and Doctor Whos to accept it.
The exception to that is Craig!Bond where they wanted to be clever about recasting and go reboot. But not full reboot. I’m happy with reboots too, as long as they are sufficiently different from the source. NuBSG, for example, I’m fine with that one. It was a very different show from old BSG and it worked really well. The difference made it. Craig!Bond and Nu!Kirk though. They are just similar enough to the old franchise to make it seem like a deliberate insult to the fans of the franchise up to the reboot to hurt. In fact in Skyfall they made that insult very explicit and very intentional with NuQ’s attitude. That was an intentional spit in the face and no two ways about it. However New Ghostbusters, well I am fine with that and I am excited for the sequel to come.
The reason I’m waiting for its sequel is that the first Ghostbusters reboot movie is going to be yet another dull origin story, and I have no interest as a viewer in those. Origin stories are gifts for writers, actors, directors, and various creatives who are developing them, but as a viewer I find they suck hairy goat balls. I don’t mind the concept and premise of this reboot. It isn’t a recasting, but it is sufficiently different from the old franchise to not feel like it is stepping on my nostalgia. So it looks good. I’ll be there for the sequel and will encourage others to go see the first one so the sequel gets made.
Oh, and one more thing.
When is my Due South reboot coming? Come on guys, make with it, please? Benton Fraser was the best super hero the 1990s ever saw.
I, too, am keenly interested and enthusiastic about the idea of a new Ghostbusters. Just as Peter Jackson’s films—like them or hate them (I like them)—do nothing to diminish Tolkien’s original and epically awesome books, there’s absolutely no harm in this. And especially with Melissa McCarthy, it’s bound to be some kind of good. Why the heck does anyone need to choose favorites, anyway? There’s no cosmic ranking system in our subjective world.
And though this probably doesn’t mean anything, I always identified with Sy-Klone than with He-Man. He-Man’s great, but who the heck can actually identify with “the most powerful man in the Universe”? Sheesh.
Brian_E, I get what you’re saying, but no one has ever come out and actually said “This is now canon, everything before it is GONE”. Hell, it hasn’t even been in production yet! Some people just saw four women get cast, and lost all sense of reality and perspective.
Think of it this way: The last Superman film was what, two years ago? We still know that the comic books exist, and the prequel show (Smallville) and the spinoffs from that show, and the Christopher Reeve films, and the George Reeves show and film (oh yes, we remember you, Mole Men), and the radio show….there is no fear that the past is erased (unless they EXPLICITY say it’s going to be a retcon). So why assume that now?
Fact is every few years, some new guy puts the S, or bat, or spider on his chest, and a howl doesn’t rise up from the Internet screaming MY CHILDHOOD IS NOW RUINED, why the gnashing of teeth when the Ghostbuster symbol will be on the chest of someone with an extra X chromosome?
If people are really that concerned that once a new film comes out of their favourite childhood thing, they can let the younger generation know that there is a whole WORLD of backstory/canon they can check out on this magical machine called the Internet. But to call for what amounts to stasis over what is little more than fear is silly.
The new Ghostbusters may be as great as G1, or as crappy as G2. But it does not diminish the work done previously, and it sure as hell doesn’t diminish the love I had for the originals.
I ain’t afraid of no ghost, and I ain’t afraid of no reboot.
For me, it depends a great deal on who they cast for these reboots. Chris Pratt as Indiana Jones? Great idea! Michael B. Jordan as The Human Torch? Again, great idea. Pretty much the whole cast of the Star Trek reboot? Yep! (Except for Chris Pine. Sorry…he’s just not Kirk. Hemsworth would have been better.) Why? Because it feels like these actors can (or do) embody the spirit of the character they’re playing. When they first said they were gonna remake Ghostbusters with an all-female cast, I thought…sure, that could be cool. But then they unveiled the cast. Kristen Wiig? Just about as tired as I could be of seeing her. Melissa McCarthy? Could not possibly be *more* tired of seeing her. And to round out the cast? Two nobodies from SNL. Really? There are so many talented, funny female actors out there, and this is the best they could come up with? This is not the cast you get to replace Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.
Your article sometimes seems to incorrectly conflate people who don’t like reboots with the people who are opposed to increased diversity in media. The latter do exist and are a problem, but the two groups aren’t the same. Also, some of the films you mentioned, like Star Wars 7 and Jurassic World, are direct sequels and not reboots. They might face some of the same issues, but they still maintain the existing story framework from previous movies (probably).
I’m not a big fan of reboots for a few reasons. The first is that I’m concerned that the new movies won’t be similar enough to the existing franchise. Using an entirely new cast with a different story set in a different universe carries the risk that this movie will be tonally different as well. I think a lot of the success of the original Ghostbusters came from the setting, premise, and character interaction. If those elements aren’t similar to the previous film (or at least equally entertaining), the only reason to call this “Ghostbusters” is to try to lure in the existing franchise fans.
That’s tangentially related to my concern that this will turn into a cynical cash grab based on Ghostbusters nostalgia, with a new movie every year, an Alternate Reality Game, a tie-in app, a bunch of low-effort shovelware video games, a hundred thousand t-shirts, and who knows what else. This is a more minor concern, since the same thing basically happened to the original movies (Ecto Cooler?), but I’m still pretty sick of the ham-handed and insulting way that things can be marketed to millennials now (see: Campbell Go! soup).
Another reason I’m skeptical about a reboot is that I’m concerned that the new movies will be similar to the existing franchise. Modern media has a tendancy to include superficial references to other popular works. In this case I’m worried that the writers or producers will attempt to insert lines or references or concepts from the original movies into the new one in lieu of writing actual jokes. Those kind of callbacks usually aren’t as funny partially because they lack originality and partially because their context also now includes twenty years of being filtered back and forth through all kinds of other popular culture. Similarly, the writers might set up situations that seem to parallel the original movie closely but then have a different final outcome or a twist that defies expectations. To me that seems like lazy writing.
It’s entirely possible that I’ll be wrong, though. The writers and director and producers might avoid all of the concerns I have. Having a team of women is a neat idea and it’s possible the actresses will have really good on-screen chemistry. Based on their backgrounds, they might help add to the movie directly with some improvisation, which seemed to help flesh out the characters in the original movies. Until we find out more information I’m going to try to temper my excitement though.
@7, It’s funny you say that, because Murray and Ackroyd were about as overexposed as you’re complaining Wiig and McCarthy are.
It’s almost like it’s really sexism!
@3, This is one lifelong Bond fan that loves everything the Craig Bond movies did. The old movies worked for the time they were made in. And Skyfall wasn’t a slap in the face, but an acknowledgement of that rich history, that no longer defined the character but certainly informed the character.
@9 Fair enough. I enjoyed parts of Skyfall but the sneery attitude of NuQ, and especially that line about exploding pens, really got my goat. It did, I will never agree it was anything other than a deliberate insult to the people that liked the gadgets and the fun of Desmond Llwelyn’s tenure. And frankly the rest of the movie supports the previous Q gadget stuff. If they’d had a few exploding pens or laser watches then Dench!M might have been alive and there would have been no need to resort to crushed lightbulbs and all that stuff. It was a misjudged line that insulted parts of the fans for no reason, and it was also robbed of any legitimacy by its own finale.
I just don’t see why they suddenly decided there was a reason to reboot instead of recast, and once rebooted why they stayed close enough to profit from the previous fanbase instead of trying to do their own thing properly. It was too much a case of trying to have their cake and eat it too, and I don’t like that in franchise. If a new guy wants to put their mark on something, they should go all out instead of trying to cheat it. If they don’t think their reboot can stand on its own, then they should just stay in the franchise proper. Its a tricky balancing act, I’ll admit.
In summation, if Craig!Bond had dropped origin story bit from Casino Royale’s prologue, and Skyfall had dropped the Q-sneering and the Moneypenny Origin story bit, then I’d have been fine with it. If they were going to make a point of including those, then they’d have been better with a new franchise entirely.
Hmm…I wonder if some of it also has to do with the amount of emotional investment in the work. I was never a huge Ghostbusters fan – we had the first movie, and I watched it occasionally, but that was it. So when the reboot with the female cast was announced, I thought, “Oh, that’s really kind of cool!” but honestly don’t have any intention of seeking it out (nor would I specifically avoid it if somebody else wanted to go see it. Actually, I’m kind of intrigued, so it may end up a rental…).
But if somebody proposed a Lord of the Rings (which for me has been a huge foundation of my life) reboot with a mostly female cast, quite honestly, I would probably flip the eff out, mentally, because that story is MINE, my own, my precious. I could barely tolerate some of the changes PJ made already (although for the record, Tauriel is NOT one of the changes I was mad about) that had nothing to do with gender, without getting angry. So, what that says about me and whatever latent hypocracies I have, I don’t know, but I definitely have a different emotional reaction depending on the work when I think about doing gender flips.*
Over time, I’ve made my peace with it, and accepted the two stories side by side. I’m still in a way, making my peace with the huge changes in the Star Wars canon, but am overall okay with it – but I definitely understand and feel a sense of loss about the version of the story that is no longer being continued.
I also think sometimes the dislike of reboots can come if they are not done well, they just come off as exploitave/money-making grabs.
And, since everybody comes to a fandom with a different perspective, depending on what changes in the reboot, it might change what that person perceives as a key element of the franchise. Like, for me, my Star Wars fandom is mostly centered on Luke’s heroism/goodness and the redemptive arc there (and is another work that had serious influences on my personal development)…so if the new trilogy takes a more grimdark direction, or decides Luke is more interesting as a ‘shades of grey’ cynical character (um, not THAT shades of grey. LOL.)…it’s just going to feel like a complete betrayal to me, even though I may enjoy that type of character in another work. But for people more focused on other aspects of Star Wars, it might just be an interesting change.
*I don’t find that I have the same emotional attachment to race though and don’t really bat an eye when characters are portrayed in a different race. So I guess my ideas about gender flips are a little complicated/contradictory. On one hand, I’d like to think I’m pretty egalatarian and that in general I want to see more well rounded women in a variety of roles, and I hate when movies with primarily female casts are basically considered movies for women. But on the other hand, I think changing gender does mean something for the character since I view gender as a pretty crucial part of a person’s identity (perhaps a little interesting that I apparently don’t view race this way, and I am willing to admit that it’s because I’ve never really had to think about my own race and how it shapes my identity/perspective/experience)…which actually also begs the question, if you are going to do a reboot in which your character changes gender, how much should that impact the story? Are you doing the gender change to explore a story from a different perspective/dynamic? Or are you going to keep the story exactly the same, simply to shed a light on the way we assume male as default for most characters in a story even though it doesn’t have to be? It seems like most stories that DO have a lot of women, only do because the stories are about very specifically womanly things. Hmm.
To expand on what #8 @pnr060 said:
Leah I think you’re mixing up reboots, expanded universes, and recasting. When you say:
That doesn’t describe a reboot. That describes a continuation of the existing story. Most people are really excited about that! Sure we’d all like Harrison Ford to be Indy forever, but when 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not.
Reboots do erase previous adaptations in the sense that the “story” has been truncated and wiped from the culture. For example, the Star Wars *story* is alive. It has been partially told over 30 years and it will continue to be told over the next decades by a wide variety of voices and storytellers. It becomes a bigger story. I can talk to my kids about Ezra Bridger and know he fits into the same story as Aunt Beru. The best part about Star Wars is that there’s more to the story today than there was 5 years ago. Reboot it and you’re starting a new story, which is great and all, but honestly worlds are big enough that you can have whatever characters you want and still fit into the same framework.
Would it have killed Paul Feig to have his new Ghostbusters set in San Francisco or Atlanta? Maybe after GB2? Maybe concurrent with GB1? Maybe they’re inspired by the OG. Maybe Spengler stole the idea of containment units from them and they were doing it first? But that would have expanded the story and I think people would have been much happier to make the Ghostbusters world a bit bigger instead of fracturing it to pieces.
After reading @10 I realized that I was also pretty nonplussed by the dismissive, “all the tools you used are worthless now and everything you do is unnecessary, grandpa” attitude that new Q had in Skyfall. The more I think about it in this case, the more I think that it’s because it represents the end of the Ghostbusters that I already like. Another poster pointed out that the new movie doesn’t eliminate the original Ghostbusters movies and that we could still choose to watch the ones we wanted, but rebooting the continuity also means that no (or much less) new media will be produced in the Ghostbusters universe that I grew up with. Even up until 2009 and 2011 they were making some new Ghostbusters video games that weren’t half bad, but anything new will feature different characters and different situations. The new stuff might be very entertaining, but that doesn’t mean that I’m happy that the old stuff has been dead-ended.
I rewatched Ghostbusters on the weekend actually. I guess my issue with reboots is that frequently they are not needed. Ghostbusters can still be watched and enjoyed, so I don’t get why they need to reboot it. Continue the franchise? Sure, do we need them to go through the university profs getting fired and finding their way? No, just a new adventure with new ghost busters is fine.
But they will reboot Spider Man, again…so stupid.
Reboots and remakes are certainly nothing new in culture, but the current hyper-cynical mining operation of the past 40 or so years doesn’t inspire confidence in Hollywood.
As a counter argument, I give you George Lucas. In the ’70s, so the story goes, he wanted to reboot Flash Gordon but couldn’t get the rights. So he was forced to make his own space opera. And the modern blockbuster business model was born, which ironically created the situation we’re in now. So, hmm, a few billion dollars later, I think an attempt at originality might be worth the effort after all.
@14, That’s exactly what they are doing. The characters are not professors.
“Why Do Reboots Cause Such Mass Hysteria?”
Because
a) people don’t like their beloved films of yesteryear being replaced, and
b) we’ve learned over time that 99% of all reboots are crapola.
The cartoon also switched around Ray and Peter for some reason.
I think there is some temptation with new parents to want your kid to have the same kinds of memories as you, but I think if you’re expecting to inject your exact childhood into this new life, in a sense, you’re seeking to create a reboot of your own. So that would kind of clash with a hatred of reboots.
I think the classic remake example I can think of in terms of movies is King Kong. Even the 70s remake was done before I was born (and as a kid, I was a little confused for a while because I thought this was the original but it certainly didn’t seem as old as I thought this movie was supposed to be). And now there’s the Peter Jackson one…but people can still go watch the original one from the 30s if they want. But my point is, the original is so far in the past that most people don’t seem to care anymore, and even the first remake has a “classic” sense to it now. And I think the same thing will eventually come to pass with all these 80s franchises…for new generations, it will be so long ago that no one cares. But those originals will still be available to watch. And I mean, who cares if my kids grow up on some new version of turtles as opposed to the 80s cartoon? It’s enjoyable to them.
And I think it’s fine for people to come into new versions of things if they are appealing. Is it for people with experience of an earlier iteration of things to say that the new version is not appealing to someone else? Certainly they can say it is not appealing to themselves if that truly is their experience of it, and maybe you can even strongly dislike it (I’m looking at you, new Star Trek), but an “omgtheworldisgoingtoend!” reaction is a bit much. And comic books are a medium where it’s easier now than ever to get the old versions of things. You can walk into any store and find anthologies of reprints of even the oldest issues, and you can buy issues online for your digital devices.
As for Ghostbusters, I can’t help but notice they still cast three white women and one black woman. So the setup is exactly the same. So it’s kind of not really more diverse, just gender flipped.
@17, I see your problem
From your use of the word “replace” you are operating under the mistaken assumption that a reboot erases the previously existing movie from existence.
This is not the case.
Also, I find it amusing that you use “hysteria” in the headline when the leading picture is of a franchise with a reboot changing the main characters to women.
@20 – I took the use of ‘hysteria’ to reference Venkman’s rant in the Mayor’s office.
@7 Kate McKinnon is really funny and one of the few bright spots on SNL for me. Her Olya Povlatsky character cracks me up everytime. I look forward to seeing what she does on the big screen. She is the brightest spot of the cast as far as I am concerned.
@@@@@Aeryl #19 :
I think it kinda does erase the previous one, from the culture and the conversation. Ask anyone under the age of 20 who was Willy Wonka, and I guarantee you they’re not going to say “Gene Wilder”. The original sticks with the older generation and fades away.
@22, That’s a problem you have, not the movie. My daughter, a 13 year old, has a vociferous desire to know where the new stuff comes from. She’d say Gene Wilder AND Johnny Depp.
Yes, everyone who sees remakes is diligent about seeing the originals. That’s why most Star Wars fans went out to see The Hidden Fortress and every Oceans’ Eleven fan compares George Clooney to Frank Sinatra.
Remakes and reboots are replacements, and yelling at people that they’re wrong to feel a sense of loss isn’t going to change that.
I think we’re entering a curious age. Apologies if this has been covered already — there’s quite a few comments here: but the advent of recorded media has meant that the 20th century saw the birth of a time in which it was possible for most people living in developed countries to watch the same performance over and over and become precious about it.
Prior to this, if you saw a remarkably good play or heard a very good storyteller tell a tale, that was it. The night was the night and time moved on. Think of all the hit songs prior to 1900 that are gone forever, save the sheet music. Songs did sweep through the populace, with everyone humming or singing them. 19th century essayists sometimes complained about the phenomonon. But we don’t really know exactly how the songs sounded and very few people in 1914 could be very precious about a dramatic performance from 1884 in their childhood except through memory alone. The bugbears of 1884 pantos didn’t haunt the 1914 culture in the same way our present day is haunted by old films.
I’m probably not presenting a really cogent argument or anything here, but I actually wonder if the whole reboot thing goes deeper than personal preference. Holding past media as too precious a thing to reimagine and reinvent runs the risk of cultural stagnation. It runs the risk of embalming culture.
This flip side is the argument that reboots are taking the place of new, original material, but good stories have always formed the basis of subsequent retellings. I also think that there is plenty of new interesting stuff happening today, just mostly not in Hollywood.
I guess I don’t in particular want to get into an argument about copyright, but perhaps that’s where I’m going with this. If Ghostbusters were out of copyright (it is three decades old…), the whole argument about reboots would be rather moot.
Just my two cents.
Chris
With the new Star Wars stuff (which are technically sequels, but the EU DID get rebooted) I think there is kind of a knee jerk feeling that the EU is being erased in the sense that it is no longer the ‘true’ story (and yes, yes, I know none of it is true, which is why it’s a bit silly once you really examine that feeling), or the story that is being continued. It doesn’t really ‘matter’ anymore, at least not according to the people on high who decide what is and isn’t canon. So I can understand that feeling for a franchise/continuing story.
But in the case of single movie remakes/reboots (such as Willy Wonka), I at least don’t get that sense. I grew up with the old version of Willy Wonka, and I was excited for the remake, just to see a fresh spin on it. But it didn’t invalidate the old one to me, and we own both movies and will show our kids both. And to feel a sense of loss because the current generation is going to be more familiar with the new one…I think that is just kind of a general problem with people always wanting to go back to the ‘good old days before everything was crap’ even though that’s really not what things were like.
@@@@@ 26 I’d be a lot more upset about the EU reset if I’d kept up with the books once New Jedi Order got rolling.
In a commercial context, “reboot” does carry a connotation of replacing the prior incarnation of a given franchise (see Wikipedia’s definition). It also implies dissatisfaction with the prior iteration on the part of the sponsors, whether on the business level (it didn’t make enough money) or the creative (the writers/actors/director screwed it up). Moreover, the release of a “reboot” usually closes off any further creative development of a franchise’s prior iteration.
There are exceptions. Notably, the Star Trek franchise continues to publish novels arising from several of the different sub-franchises, and Marvel and DC have a bit of wiggle room given that both comics milieus spawned multiverses before the modern mega-franchise business model sprang up. But for most corporately owned story-universes outside the comics, the custodians seem to be convinced that they can only juggle one “official” version at a time.
A broader look at drama and literature suggests that readers and viewers are more flexible. We have room in our imaginations for dozens of different takes on Hamlet and lots of different Sherlock Holmeses. Modern authors have given us a host of unique King Arthurs and Robin Hoods, and nobody complains that Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood has been pre-empted by Russell Crowe’s, or that Cary Elwes’ portrayal diminishes either of those.
Which is why, by my lights, the female-cast Ghostbusters isn’t a “reboot”. Artistically speaking, what Paul Feig looks to be doing with that project is precisely the same thing that a new director brings to a fresh production or adaptation of Macbeth (in which context see Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood).
Re-imagining stories has been an artistic endeavor for centuries, with widely varying degrees of acceptance. Where we tend to get into trouble is in the attempt to rank the legitimacy of particular re-imaginings, and “reboot” is, in this regard, something of an unfortunate coinage.
Know what bothers me about reboots? It means the death of original canon. I’ll watch a plot play out through various installments, even if the overall quality of a book, TV or movie franchise is horrible, as long as the plot is worthwhile. I like complexity and I like to see things develop. When a reboot happens, that’s the death knell for the original storyline.
Exactly! And not only that, but they’re building something on the corpse of it!
Sure, sometimes it ends up good (or better – the 2003 turtles for example is GREAT. I prefer the newer Willy Wonka, the Dune and Shining miniseries over the originals, etc), but up until you find out, it’s a desecration of the original! (I say that half-in-jest, but I make my point)
I will never understand the anger that comes from people when a reboot happens, but I guess the first comment summed it up: People are under the mistaken impression that a new version means it’s the ONLY version.
What? NO. That’s not how it works!
I love the hell out of the old fantasy/action/scifi stuff, even though as someone who is not a white cis male, I had to love almost exclusively those types because it’s almost all that was out there. Believe me, whenever I saw a female character given an inch of badassery, or a POC character just EXISTING, I was super excited. It doesn’t mean I don’t still love the old stuff.
If the new stuff gets rebooted, you should be HAPPY because here’s a chance to take another look at something you love and it might ALSO be awesome! If it sucks, then you never have to watch it again. Just rewatch the stuff you love. Problem solved!
As for the “I want my kid to like the old stuff….” give me a break. Kids (like adults) don’t just have room in their hearts for only ONE thing. When I was a kid I devoured media from before I was born. I had a babysitter that showed us stuff from a decade before, and my mother who had us watch stuff that was in black and white. I loved it all and looked for more of it on my own later. Chances are if you think it’s cool, a kid is going to think it’s cool too, even if the effects are cheezier nowadays. :)
I’m over the moon excited by all the diversity and roles for women that are coming up. It’s only going to get better. CisWhiteDudes shouldn’t be scared of this, they should be excited! They’re going to get to see new stories, new characters, new types of people than what is normally represented. How can that not be awesome? If I can love old Egon even though he’s not like me, surely a guy can love the new femme Egon!
(I actually hope the Ghostbuster girls are A. Completely new characters and B. have a male Janine. That would be awesome!)
As #13 pointed out, I think most fears regarding reboots – a category which the new Jurassic World and Star Wars films do not fall under – are about the death of the original in mainstream media consciousness. That, and the fact that most reboots definitely have not been even good.
When it comes to Ghostbusters, it isn’t the female cast I have a problem with, its who they cast – I do not find Whig and McCarthey’s usual humour really funny – and the fact that the original doesn’t really need to be updated to be relevant. The fairly recent video game and IDW’s ongoing comic series – frankly the best and closest thing to a Ghostbusters 3 we’re ever going to get – both showed that great stories could still be made in this universe. As media will turn to the new iteration, the reboot renders this possibility moot in future.
I don’t like reboots mainly for the reason that I can’t remember the last time I saw some genuinely “new” live action sci-fi or fantasy in a cinema. Even Serenity was the film version of Firefly. Are there no writers out there with genuinely new and interesting ideas that Hollywood’s prepared to take a punt on in the hope of creating a new franchise rather than just recycling old ones until the viewers are so conditioned to that sort of thing that the market definitely won’t support anything without a pre-existing fanbase?
And if they don’t want to take a punt on something completely new and untried (after all, my friends say there’s probably a *reason* no-one has used my genius idea for a franchise before, though I choose to ignore them and continue working on it), there’s a wealth of great literature out there they could get the rights to. With the right cast and the right writers to do the adaptations, a Vorkosigan film series could be brilliant. The right casting for Miles would, I grant you, be problematic. And could have serious repercussions for the sanity of the actor, especially a method actor.
@31
THIS.
It sums it up so perfectly.
I have trouble getting too worked up over reboots. As people have said, its not like the old stuff goes away. At the same time, I can see why people get upset, especially if its a long-running saga like the Star Wars EU.
And I can certainly see why people would be upset to see something they love rebooted as what they perceive as a gimmick. That’s the heart of the issue with the Gohstbusters reboot in my mind. From the very beginning, the danger of making this a gimmick has been front and center.
I don’t think it WILL be. Paul Feig is too good at what he does, and the cast is great. But I think the marketing will likely lean towards pushing the gimmick in viewers’ faces–because marketing departments are notorious for taking the easiest road possible, since they are simultaneously marketing 40 movies at once.
I think its likely that a lot of people who loved ghostbusters will see the marketing, read some of the back and forth on social media, and receive a message that white, middle-income males are evil and the enemy, where none is intended. And that’s unfortunate.
Lisa Marie’s first five paragraphs @11 speak for me too! I also agree with her at @26. For me, there’s a huge difference between rebooting an ongoing, serial story, and just a telling a story that’s a different take on an older version of the story. The latter is great; the former, not so much.
In other words, the reboots *I* get worked up about are in the comic books – because they do frequently erase or alter what came before. I don’t mind different versions of those characters – new characters taking on and redefining the mantle, or a whole new universe, for example. Old tv Flash and new TV Flash and various movie iterations of Marvel and DC super-heroes are all fine.
What bugs me is violations of continuity and rebooting (here my beloved Legion of Super-Heroes comes strongly to mind) that does explicitly erase what came before. Some of the new stories may be good, and some of the new characters may be excellent – but to my mind, serial fiction is about forming an interest in the characters. You come to see those characters as real, and you want to know what happens to them next.
So I get quite annoyed by “the stories you like still exist, go back and read/watch/etc. those.” That’s not the *point*. Of course the stories I loved still existed. But I kept coming back for the *characters*. I identified with them, thought of them as friends, wanted to know what happened next. Are they fictional? Of course. But the *feeling* that they are real is a driving force behind fandom. And I find it irritating for businesses to rely on that love of the characters when they want my money, and to toss it out and say “get over it, they’re not real anyway, look at this shiny new character” when *that’s* how they want my money.
So yes, when the LSH characters I loved were wiped out, I was hurt. I refused to go see NewTrek for about 3 years, because it meant losing TNG.
All of that said – Ghostbusters, for me at least, was not a continuing story. I’ve seen the two movies several times but not any of the cartoons or video games or whatever else. So I’m perfectly happy for the new movie and with the casting. I’m not overly familiar with the actors but yay diversity, yay women who fight. Maybe one of them will have to save a dude-in-distress. All good, at least potentially so.
I do hope that it’s either a complete reboot – with no similarity other than basic concept to the original – or that it maintains complete continuity and these Ghostbusters are successors or another franchise or something. What I’d be disappointed to see is something half-assed that tries to have its cake and eat it too.
I’m not sure how coherent any of that is. I guess I’d sum it up as – reimagining, alternate histories, parallel universes, etc., all good. *Actual* rebooting that wipes out one and replaces it with another? *THAT*’s what I hate.
The two biggest reboots are the Star Trek Abramsverse and the Star Wars Abramsverse.
It’d be a better idea to not reboot and just extend the prior storyline.
Unfortunately, instead of extending the prior story line and telling more of it, the current crop of execs appears to prefer to totally mess up the prior story line and rewrite the entire theme/premise/plot.
I agree with the first comment.
The problem is the attitude of the reboot producers and sponsors. They weren’t the original author/creative talent. Yet, these people have the nerve to tell the viewing audience that the prior story line is false/wrong/incorrect. Instead, it is ONLY THEIR storyline that is “canon”.
When the new storyline is utter nonsense, who’s fault is it?
Tor’s author seems to argue that it is my sensibility that is wrong. Well, no, it is not my sensibility that is wrong. It’s the audacity and utter disrespect of the new reboot makers who are missing the point of the original’s delight.
First things first, I’m not “angry” about this reboot or any others. If they want to make this, that’s their prerogative – I’m not going to waste energy getting “angry” about it.
What I am, though, is bored. The reason I dislike the idea of this reboot (and most others) is that I’m just sick to death of all these non-original movies and IPs.
(Yes, you can argue nothing is truly original, I will get to that point soon)
There was an article on Cracked recently, amusingly enough, that touches on some of these points, and I tend to agree with the points in the article, if not the specifics. First, the author pointed out that of the top 16 grossing films of 2014, only Interstellar, at #16, was an original. Everything else was either an adaptation or a sequal (or a sequal of an adaptation in many cases). Hollywood is so far gone from making original content, it’s depressing (to me, at least). This is part of the reason I tend to branch more into indie or foreign films lately, because they still have the guts to make really original pieces.
And so onto the topic of “original”: One can argue that nothing is truly original, and I would agree to an extent. But another point in the Cracked article is that they should stop making “reboots” and instead just make rip-offs. Phrasing it that way may sound negative, but really think about it. By not having to stick to the nostalgia and “rules” of the IP, they are free to add a little creative license, while still sticking to a general premise.
For example if the Ghostbusters reboot was not really a reboot but instead just a movie about 4 chicks that humorously fight ghosts/The Man — well, sure there might be cries of “what a ripoff!” [in the same way people complained Avatar was a ripoff of Dances with Wolves/a billion other movies] but at least there wouldn’t be all this negativatiy about “They’re going to ruin it!”
In a similar vein I think it’s why I prefer the “re-imagined” versions to the plain old “reboots” because at least with ones like 007 and Batman, you get a completely different tonal shift and exploration into maybe some different aspects of the original work (if done well) that can make it interesting. But I would still put these works lower on my list of “things I’m really excited to see”.
TLDR: I’m just sick of all this non-originality and “play it safe” mentality that Hollywood has. It was bad enough when movies were always released in pairs (competing studios doing the same thing) but now we have legitimate “We’re too lazy to think anymore so here’s the next 10 years of Avengers movies lined up”
@31
This is definitely the attitude I have tried to cultivate in myself (I’m sure high-school self would be very indignant about such things)…it’s for the most part a win-win situation. The exception being when a continuous storyline you actually were invested in and wanted to know more about gets abandoned (such as the Star Wars EU. Ironically, there were several times I ranted to my husband about how much I wish Darth Cadeus could be wiped from the canon. LOL. Got my wish!).
There is an interesting paralell discussion going on in the thread about headcanon and what does canon mean (and I think Emily wrote an article about this abouta year ago too) and should the idea of canon even be a thing determined by anybody other than a fan?
I do prefer some sense of ‘officialness’ to my canon for a common reference, and also because, well – it’s hard to explain, but it’s a little hard to get really invested in a character or story if everything can just be reversed and rewritten higgeldy piggeldy. As much as I know it’s ALL imaginary…I think there is still some sense of creating a reality in your head that is a reality in some sense, and should thus abide by consistent rules/logic. (Hmm…related to Tolkien’s ideas of subcreation? Not sure. Despite being a big nerdy Tolkien fan, some of that meta stuff he wrote was a bit over my head!).
Also, if I were an author (I’ve dabbled in writing here and there for fun) – to me there WOULD be a reality in my head, and it would kind of bug me if people just disregarded that and said, ‘no, this is what really happened’. Although I know full well that kind of thing happens. But I do think the author/creator, at least, gets some kind of right to declare what is canon. But I suppose the beauty of it all is that if you disagree with that idea, you are free to disregard it!
Funny thing is, the more I think about it, the more I want to see the new Ghostbusters movie…
@32:
To be clear, the reason the new Star Wars films get lumped under this category isn’t the films themselves, per se, but the tie-in media. Granted, the desire to tell whatever story Ep 7 will have without the clutter of all the tie in media is the driving force behind the decision.
But, 30 years of stories, some tightly coherent, others only loosely associated, ARE being rebooted. Hundreds of millions of fans consumed these media, and at least millions viewed them as canon. Not only that, LucasFilm said they were canon after a bunch of retconning was done to salvage the early material and tie it in to the prequel trilogy.
So it IS a reboot. And its not a soft reboot like a comic series, or NuTrek. Those exist in new continuities, but stories are still being told in the old continuities. The reboots were set up in such a way that new Star Trek novels are still following the exploits of Jean Luc Picard from TNG, and the Borg, and all of it. It all still happened, and that storyline continues. Same with the comics, they can still jump back to old timelines at whim and tell whatever stories they want.
Can’t do that with Star Wars. They rebranded it Legends, and no new stories will be set in the Legends continuity. THIS is why Star Wars is considered a reboot… About 2000 novels, comics and video games are being axed, and 6 movies and one cartoon series were kept to launch a reboot of the whole franchise, which extends far beyond the films.
@38
I agree that my major problem with reboots is that they smack of laziness and unoriginality. I also feel like they perpetrate the sense that Hollywood thinks the general public is made up of stupid, boring, uncreative people who only want to see more of the same movies they’ve always seen. And Hollywood is afraid to try anything new because of the financial risk.
Which brings me to the other thing that annoys me about reboots: they always feel like a cash-grab to me. It’s like “how much more money can we squeeze from this franchise?” And I know it’s a business and it’s supposed to make money, but it just always seems so obvious and greedy (and unoriginal, boring and timid).
@25, on rereading:
An interesting observation, although I think you may be unintentionally conflating the concepts of preciousness (memories that are cherished) and precision (the degree to which memories are precisely recalled). The issue also arises in the context of myth and folklore; there are particular subsets of pre-contact Native American mythology that we’ve probably lost completely because the relevant memories weren’t passed down before European diseases more or less wiped out the storytellers.
That said, I have trouble with the idea that human memory is categorically less precise than electronic or other artificially stored memory. There’s considerable evidence in the historical record that early storytellers and lorekeepers were extremely good at preserving the specific details and nuances of important texts and stories via oral tradition. They had to be, in a time when written records either had yet to be invented or to become widely accessible.
And that’s relevant to the present discussion, because there’s also speculation that human memory is in fact worse than it used to be, precisely because we are now so strongly reliant on artificial and external media for information storage. Honing memory was a significant part of my parents’ and grandparents’ education — but nowadays, it’s no longer in fashion to have students memorize the Gettysburg Address or the Declaration of Independence or even a decent-sized chunk of the Iliad.
Luckily, this is perhaps less of a problem for reboot-detractors than it might be, because in most cases (a) the original material is still available to at least some degree, and (b) nowadays, it’s highly likely that fans of the pre-reboot material will keep the original milieu alive in the fanfictional realm.
@40: That’s actually a good point about the tie-in media. I guess I didn’t consider it because: a) I haven’t been that invested in the EU, only occasionally getting the better Dark Horse comic stories; and b) it operated from the outset with the assumption that its canon could be trumped by other media, starting with films, TV and so on. When it came to The Clone Wars, for example, the TV series already took precedence over anything else which covered the same period, despite the convergences and divergences with existing EU content.
I understand that Episode VII and rebranding of the exisiting EU as Legends could be considered a reboot, but it’s not like it hasn’t been done befre. I guess the only difference this time is the scale of the possible changes.
My gripe with reboots will happen in the near future, once Stargate is rebooted. I’m a fan of Stargate SG-1, and the reboot will completely kill that storyline. So there’ll be no further stories of Sam Carther or T’ealc.
@43:
LucasArts and LucasFilm worked really hard post-RoTS to keep everything tied together.
I actually LIKE the decision to reboot the EU, as long as it means that, moving forward, I get more visual media and the same amount of tie-in fiction, and it is purposefully canon. I can live with the loss, under those conditions.
@45 “I actually LIKE the decision to reboot the EU, as long as it means that, moving forward, I get more visual media and the same amount of tie-in fiction, and it is purposefully canon. I can live with the loss, under those conditions.”
Ironically, rebooting kills my interest in tie-in fiction. If the stories can be wiped out on a whim, I lose interest in that fictional realm. I can’t get lost and enveloped in that kind of setting.
In fact it’s prompted me to get rid of nearly all my EU Star Wars books. They just don’t matter anymore. I’m keeping only a handful of my favorites.
Still, the EU had a 25 year run. That’s not bad. If we get another 25 out of this continuity, and it is more tightly cohesive, and there’s more movies and TV shows… that’s a good thing, right?
It horrifies me that anyone regards reboots and retcons as remotely forgivable.
Sequels are one thing…but don’t contradict what has gone before if you want to be part of the same story.
If you want to add new material to an existing canon treat your fans like hobbits,of whom Tolkien wrote,”they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew,set out fair and square with no contradictions.”
And remember that some of us are into F&SF as a refuge from change,in search of a stage on which inalterable changelessness can be celebrated on a sufficiently grandiose scale.