The Two Sides of Reboots/Remakes

Introduction
Okay! So first I’m going to give examples and then I’m going to explain at the end of both sides of the argument of reboots/remakes of movies and games.

2013 Tomb Raider
The Tomb Raider reboot of 2013 is actually the second reboot of the franchise but is considered an entire retcon of the series since it’s a prequel and the title is just Tomb Raider.

Anyway, the Tomb Raider of 2013 is a bit controversial since it is NOT a Tomb Raider game, at all. Even Lara Croft isn’t really the Lara Croft we know, but the game itself isn’t bad. It just shouldn’t have the name Tomb Raider since it’s not a Tomb Raider game, it’s an semi open world adventure game with a pretty grim survival story.

This is also a thing which is really controversial about reboots. You see, the 2013 game isn’t a Tomb Raider game by any means, it even doesn’t have a single gameplay mechanic or story element of the Tomb Raider series. But the game itself isn’t bad by any means, but that raises the question. Should you buy the game because it’s good? Or should you boycott it because it has nothing to do with Tomb Raider?

But I would still urge you to buy Lara Croft Tomb Raider Anniversary.

2013 Evil Dead
The Evil Dead trilogy is a funny, disturbing and gory movie series. The remake is a combination of the 2 first movies, but there’s a few controversies with it thou.

You see, the Evil Dead remake has a completely new story but still the same setting, it has creepy moments that are really well made but there’s just one problem with this movie remake, it’s not Evil Dead. Again, a pretty good movie but not Evil Dead.

Man of Steel/Batman
Now this is a perfect example of fans and being blind, let me recap. Superman has had some movies before this and Man of Steel takes place in an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE that people for some reason cannot see. But ironically, these very same people love the god awful Batman movies which take place in the same universe.

Man of Steel stays very true to the source material and is indeed one of the best superhero movies of all time, the horrible Batman movies thou…Eeeeeh… The Batman movies have only gotten one villain right, Ra’s Al Ghul and her daughter. Bane and Joker are simply put not Bane and Joker, they have no traits of the characters and barely even look like them, especially Bane. Bane doesn’t even have Venom in the awful Dark Knight Rises and Joker isn’t really insane in the Dark Knight. Neither of these characters have almost nothing in common with the source material, the only one even close is Batman and even he is missing Robin.

Now, a lot of people don’t like Robin but the sad fact is that Robin has ALWAYS been there. ever since Batman was first created in 1939 Robin showed up in 1940 and has always been there. Robin has always been a huge part of Batman, no argument.

Like Dick Grayson the first Robin who later actually formed Teen Titans and when it was remade in the form of the TV show Dick is that Robin. Or how the second Robin became Nightwing, basically a different kind of a Batman and is a reoccurring character in his comics.

Then there’s the third Robin, because Dick Grayson grew up and became Nightwing Jason Todd was his replacement as Robin but because of a story arch Jason became a really violent person and killed a guy, probably. It has never been confirmed or denied. Fans absolutely hated this character because of how dark he was, remember that during this time dark heroes like Spawn didn’t exist yet. Jason was killed off by the Joker who was some sort of an ambassador, don’t ask. But he was retconned and became the Red Hood, who is like Batman except he kills. Yes, he does. Then there was a Tim Drake who managed to figure out Batman’s identity at the age of 9 but no one really cared and then there was Stephanie Brown who was Tim’s girlfriend but she kinda died…She was a huge mess up and Batman didn’t like her so she went on his computer and found one of his plans and tried to execute but she was captured by Black Mask and tortured to death. Batman couldn’t save her since she didn’t tell him about it. But she was retconned and she became Batgirl for a while. And now there’s the recently deceased Damian Wayne, Batman’s son who died pretty brutally. Not gonna spoil since he died last year.

But the point is, Robin is ALWAYS there. In one form or another, Nightwing and Red Hood are still alive and kicking and Batgirl too even thou she is a different person nowadays. Anyway, moving on.

The Amazing Spiderman
Oh lord, The Amazing Spiderman is a reboot esc movie series even thou the 3 Spiderman movies weren’t that bad, the thing is. The Amazing Spiderrman is one of THE WORST movies there are, it’s badly written, it has tons of errors and it extremely disrespectful to source material.

This is one reason why people hate reboots/remakes and it’s getting a sequel and there are already plans for a sequel after that. The Amazing Spiderman is a lot like the Batman movies, they are very disrespectful to the source material, yet they make tons of money. This is a perfect example on how NOT to do a reboot/remake.

Literally the only reason why Sony even did this awfulness was because they don’t want to lose the rights to Spiderman, they made a deal with Marvel more than a few years back in which they agreed that if Sony wouldn’t do anything with Spiderman for a while then the movie rights would go back to Marvel which is owned by Warner Brothers.

This is the reason Spiderman will not be butting heads with the Avengers anytime soon.

Halo Anniversary
Halo Anniversary was marketed as being a true remake, graphical update with the game itself being updated however 343 Industries and Microsoft lied to our faces, again.

Halo Anniversary was an enormous catastrophe, the local 4 player coop like in the original, no local multiplayer like in the original, no online multiplayer at all even thou it was promised, the “updated” graphics option uses the SAME WRONG graphics as in Reach and not surprisingly the game hasn’t been updated AT ALL!

All th old bugs work, all the old tricks work, all the old physics are there, the old AI is there ,there is no Forge mode, no Firefight, no Theater because no multiplayer and obviously no user generated content.

Halo Anniversary is a perfect example on how NOT to do a remake, this was a cut down rerelease, literally. If you want to play Halo Combat Evolved then do yourself a favor and get the PC port of the original game. Gearbox, the company who ported it, made the game MODDER FRIENDLY. Meaning that the 10 year old original’s PC port has MUCH more content than the rerelease which in itself is lacking over half the content of the original, Halo Anniversary is a PERFECT example on how NOT to do a remake.

Resident Evil
Resident Evil for the Gamecube was indeed made by the creator of Resident Evil himself, Capcom’s Shinji Mikami.

The Resident Evil Remake threw away a lot of bad stuff from the original and added tons of new awesome content including secrets, new graphics are obvious but they looked so good on the Gamecube that a person might even think it might be an early Xbox 360 game. The game has new puzzles, new equipment and slightly new story.

It’s basically the same but with new dialogue and more events, the game has a new and amazing sound design, shading, with the locked camera angles the graphics could be pre-rendered with the original and they have done the same here with most assets.

The controls are largely the same as with the classic games but improved a bit, the story can be changed with decisions that affect the multiple endings which if you want to get all you are going to lose days of your life, enemies are terrifying and weaponry isn’t exactly easy to get.

Almost all the enemies respawn and become stronger if you don’t burn them, this in itself adds a lot of depth and scariness into the game as getting the fuel to burn them isn’t that easy either.

The boss fights have been updated and more of them are included, hard as all hell just like avoiding the traps, oh lord how I hate those traps! It’s just an awesome games but the little stiffy controls are a turn off to people who are not fans of the classic games, and people who are not fans of the classic games: HOW DARE YOU!?!?!

Peter Jackson’s King Kong
This is how you do a remake, simple as that. It stays true to the source material and nothing important is cut off, the old great King Kong movie of the 30’s is a big milestone in film history as the stop motion techniques and quality in it is ground breaking and showed that animation in film is a big thing.

The Peter Jackson remake has wonderful CGI and sound design, everything feels authentic and the battle with the V-Rex’s is spectacular just like in the original. The ending is genuinely sad and the scene with the bugs is absolutely terrifying. Also the game was actually good, not great but not bad at all.

This ladies and gentlemen, is how you remake a movie.

The Argument
There are 2 sides of the argument: Classics should be left alone because people tend to screw up the remake and just milk money from Nostalgia. The other side being that old games/movies need a remake for technologies sake and so they can gain a bigger audience.

We are going to be looking at both sides of the argument.

“Leave Them Alone!”
There are always debates about if old material should be left alone, movies that are good as they are and are a part of the media history. Like the Night of The Living Dead. A great movie that simply can’t be remade because of all the thing surrounding the film, the time it was made, the meanings it has and the lessons it teaches. The ending especially.

There are some movies which are even impossible to see as remakes, like animated movies or movies with things that aren’t even done anymore. Like practical effects in major movies, the only recent movie I can think of with something a robot or a giant monster suit I can even think of is the upcoming Godzilla movie. It is a reboot, sort of. The Godzilla movies have original stories all the time and don’t really care about continuity all that much.

Remaking old good games is also a big problem, a perfect example are some of the old Mario games. How do you remake say, Super Mario Bros. 3? You don’t, an HD remake with 3D models wouldn’t be the same. The art style of pixel based game just doesn’t render into 3D graphics.

There are companies who just want that Nostalgia Money with poor rereleases of games, Sega has done this even thou they had perfect changes to fix their games. Perfect examples are the 2 Sonic Adventure games. Yay we got shinier graphics but NONE of the hundreds of problems have been addressed, gameplay issues, limitless bugs and glitches and sound mixing.

Some classic games are simply put classics that broke boundaries of gaming and simply can’t be remade, a perfect example is Tetris. How do you remake Tetris? You can’t, same goes for Bejeweled, Chess, Bobble Bubble, Bomber Man and Space Invaders. It simply doesn’t work, releases with shinier graphics have happened but they can’t really be remade.

Then there are games that simply broke all the rules, DOOM. The definitive version of DOOM is Brutal Doom but the point is still there, it’s a classic and should be played with the Brutal Doom mod.

Then there are always people who make “remakes” but always just want cash, like Capcom and Microsoft. They don’t like putting actual effort into them, most game companies don’t actually care about their fans but to be completely fair most of these are owned by companies like EA.

And I am assuming that everyone knows how Capcom thinks a patch is an entirely new game, I won’t let this go on longer as it has.

Bionic Commando and Alone In The Dark are often mentioned when talking about horrible remakes.

“Update Them!”
The question of remaking games and movies for technologies sake is a popular one and at times is completely reasonable, like remaking DOS games or old console games. I’ve heard that the Strider remake which was released on Steam recently is pretty darn good but I cannot say much because I have not played either of them.

Sonic Generations kinda fits but it’s not a remake of a game, it’s more of a: “best of & more awesome content based on the old stuff” game.

Then there are games that are more like updates like Pokémon first and second generation remakes, Super Mario 64DS, Pac Man Championship Edition DX, Lara Croft Tomb Raider Anniversary and Counter Strike: Source.

The main points of remakes/reboots are simple. First is the nostalgia money, second is keeping old good games alive and third is to get a franchise a new audience.

There are many great games that are getting superior remakes and even proper HD rereleases, like Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds. A Link To The Past was an amazing game but the remake is simply but so much superior in every single aspect, then there are obviously some reboots like New Super Mario Bros. which are pretty good but then there are games like Super Mario Bros. Wii which force you to use dumb motion controls, but that is an another discussion all together.

There are also some games such as Black Mesa, which is the remake of the original Half Life. Half Life is a great game but Black Mesa adds new physics, AI and online Co-Op to this amazing game. And it’s a fan project, but because Valve is Valve they took it and put a price tag on it. It is pretty much worth the money thou.

Then there’s some awesome remakes such as Double Dragon Neon, unfortunately it’s not purchasable anymore because of copyright bullshit.

I just want to end this article on the note that some movie remakes are indeed superior to their original counterparts. Like Star Wars Episode I 3D or Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla.

[Derekvinyard13]

Lack of originality in gaming and hollywood always makes me laugh.

[caseh]

The new Tomb Raider is just as much a prequel (as you mentioned) as it is a reboot. There are nods to the original during the game, such as the dual wield pistols but story wise it pre-dates the originals so it can't really relate anything as far as story goes.

As for the gameplay, if it was anything like the original games I don't think it would have gone down to well these days.

[billpasdmf]

Could not make it all the way through this article. Your english is atrocious. You should spend some time on proofreading, before you post. Just a thought.