I once asked what media franchises need to just stop, that have run their time. Now I want to know which ones DID stop, and could be restarted with new content.

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[–] 45 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The problem is not « what to reboot » it is How to reboot.

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  • [–] 69 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    The Expanse

    The show didn’t cover the Laconia story line, and given the time that passes before the final three books, we’re coming up on the perfect time to get the same cast back to do it.

    The last few books are, in my view, the most compelling part of an already superb story.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Isn't the time skip in the books like 20-30 years? its a while to wait until the actors have aged that much. I'd love to see it though.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago

    Yes, but you certainly don’t need to and wouldn’t want to wait that long. You risk lower interest, retirements, loss of acting ability through death or injury, etc. You can convincingly age adults pretty soon. I think they could start filming now or easily within the next 5 years.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Aging 20-30 years in that future should be portrayed as ~10-15 years of aging in our timeline. People (esp. Inners) are far more long-lived thanks to advanced pharmaceuticals. See the coroner's bit about life expectancies in S1.

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  • [–] 31 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    There was this late 90s show called Sliders where this team travels to different parallel Earths with different histories. I would like to see that rebooted.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I would love to see a good reboot of Sliders. That was the show that got me started on the internet. The Scifi channel used to advertise their chatrooms on commercials and I would go to the library to chat with other Scifi channel nerds. Good times.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Lots of early 2000's Scifi channel shows deserve a reboot

    Eureka

    Warehouse 13

    Dresden Files

    Librarian franchise (technically movies, but still)

    Legend of Earthsea

    Sanctuary

    Just so many shows that either didn't get the budget/attention they deserved, or were killed by the writer's strike.

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  • [–] 29 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    I did enjoy the recent Scrubs reboot.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Good to hear. It had slipped my mind

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    Max Headroom could work, IFF they went full-bore with the mockery of media, corporatism-as-government and cynical view of advertising. Though the desolation inside and outside the cities and the plight of 'blanks' might hit too close to home nowadays as it's pretty much a literal reality now.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    They did attempt a reboot decades ago and completely dropped the ball taking Max from a satirical commentary about mainstream media and capitalistic nonsense into basically a talking head for capitalistic nonsense.

    The actual original show was way ahead of its time and that change to it is what killed it.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Ow. That sounds horrible. I'm glad I'd never heard of it then, I guess. :(

    I'm at the age now where I actually feel relieved if I hear news that Hollywood has decided not to go ahead with a prequel, remake, 're-imagining', or whatever... and I purposefully avoid now the ones that sound like they're going to be a disaster.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago

    I'll take the obvious one: We owe it to ourselves to never stop rebooting the 1990s classic SciFi, "Reboot".

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  • [+] 28 points 5 months ago (16 children)
  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (13 children)

    A bad reboot or sequel ruins nothing. It's just in your head.

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  • [+] 10 points 5 months ago* (10 children)
  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    That means if you can learn mental techniques to change your beliefs and perceptions, you'd become a wizard, reshaping reality with a thought.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Is that you, Tommy Westphall?

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  • [+] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    I was more referring to the Tommy Westphall Universe theory where nearly all American TV shows exist in the same universe within the mind of the St. Elsewhere character Tommy Westphall.

    In case you weren't aware of this phenomenon:

    https://www.mentalfloss.com/entertainment/tv/tommy-westphall-theory-unified-tv-universe-explained

    https://thetommywestphall.wordpress.com/the-master-list/

    https://nightingaledvs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Tommy-Westphall-Universe.pdf

    I've never actually seen St. Elsewhere lol

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Tell that to Gane of Thrones after the finale. People would go mental over the show while it was airing and immediately after the ending tarnished everything, they stopped talking about it completely. There's even a spin-off currently airing and still nobody ever brings up the show.

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  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Not a particular franchise, but I miss parody movies like Hot Shots or Airplane. Barring one of those being remade, I'd settle for a reboot of Tremors.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

    My 10 year old and I just watched airplane! And started top secret this weekend.

    The tower! The tower! Rapunzel! Rapunzel!

    Johnny was fucking hilarious, by far the funniest character. I could imagine the stuff he'd be in today if he didn't pass away.

    Oh and tremors 1 and 2 are in my top 20 favs.

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  • [–] 24 points 5 months ago

    Nice try, Hollywood.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    There was a Captain Planet parody with Don Cheadle like 15 years ago which was very much like The Boys + Captain Planet. I think that could actually work well now and have a more mature tone of Captain Planet who is like Homelander.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    I saw that series a few weeks ago and I didn't like it. "Captain Planet starts killing" is a great premise, and I really liked it in the episode of Rick and Morty where Morty dates Planetina until she starts murdering coal miners.

    But in the Cheadle version, he's just an asshole for no reason. I don't think Captain Planet is the right character to use for a "corrupting influence of power" story unless you're going to do a very nuanced critique of Soviet ideals.

    I mean Homelander is also an asshole for no reason, but that story works, because he's a capitalist and an abuse victim. The story makes sense. It's telling us that capitalism and superheroes are incompatible. But what's Cheadle Planet telling us? That environmentalism and superheroes are incompatible? I don't believe that story. I have an easier time believing that environmentalism and pacifism are incompatible, like in Rick and Morty. But I don't think environmentalism and being a good person are incompatible.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago

    I feel like Buck Rodgers could get rebooted to today and do well.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (6 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Oh yes! I would watch the shit out of a Gritty Space Ghost movie. That's an opening night theater ticket purchase, for me.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I miss black and white. Also I would like to play something like viva piñata.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    I've wanted a vr black and white since Oculus first took off. Change view by pulling and pushing the world around.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Here's one out of left field- Bucky O'Hare

    The franchise has been dormant for about 30 years, and even back then there wasn't that much established lore for a modern reboot to tiptoe around- a comic book that frankly not too many people read, a couple pretty good video games, and a Saturday morning cartoon made to sell toys, and there was little to no continuity between those different properties, you pretty much have free reign to go in and do whatever the hell you want with it.

    And there's was some pretty good stuff in there to work with that's maybe even more relevant today than it was when it came out- plotlines about inept bureaucracy, imperialist/capitalist toads controlled by an AI, pollution, climate disruption, slavery, etc.

    And the property was kind of hamstrung by its budget and stuff. I definitely enjoyed it as a kid, and when i went back to rewatch it a few years ago as an adult I thought it held up well enough but the animation and voice acting was definitely pretty janky at times, but even still it managed to have some bigger overarching story arcs. It also had a couple strong female characters without getting preachy about it, though there's certainly some room for improvement in how they were written.

    And if nothing else, today we can probably count on the furry community to watch a show about a green rabbit space ship captain, a cat space witch, a 4 armed pirate duck, a muscly baboon, and their nerdy human audience surrogate.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    In addition, many 90s cartoons would work, not just Bucky O'Hare. There was a lot of good shit that only got 12-13 episodes and then was never heard of again between 1994 and 1999.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    I’m surprised nostalgia hasn’t resurrected the Turtles knockoffs that sprung up- Battle Toads, Biker Mice from Mars, Street Sharks. Biker Mice probably has the strongest potential for an interesting story.

    Captain Planet relaunched last year and is supposed to be live action soon. He ditched the mullet. The reviews of the comic are generally positive, it’s got the spirit of the cartoon show instead of nostalgia bait, the Planeteers have more realistic depth, Cap still preaches like it’s a Saturday morning PSA about separating your recycling.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    Andromeda. Yeah, the Kevin Sorbo show.

    The premise is actually great, and the overall plot until Robert Wolfe got pushed out showed a lot of promise. The poisonous factor largely came from Sorbo wanting to intentionally turn the show into campy trash, and TV executives who somehow agreed with him.

    Reboot the show, get actors who won't sabotage production, and hire some half decent writers who want to do a Star Trek-like new franchise.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    It was originally envisioned by Gene Roddenberry, hence the quality of the concept.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I'll be honest, I've no idea if that's a codemnation or an endorsement lol.

    I like Trek just fine, but it almost entirely stems from catching TNG episodes on daytime TV growing up, as well as the memes. My understanding was that TNG didn't start to get gud until Roddenberry had largely been sidelined.

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  • I've seen this a lot in popular sci-fi. George Lucas did it, Gene Roddenberry did it, Steven Moffat did it.

    They have great ideas, they make excellent media...with a team that can on occasion say no.

    I remember, I had that VHS set of Star Wars back in the 90s, the one that's basically the theatrical cut except in 480i, each tape started with an interview with Lucas about what a genius he is. You can find interviews with the cast at the time about how off the rail he already was; Mark Hamill talks about undeliverable lines, his then wife basically saved it in the edit. Star Wars hit mythical status, Lucas was elevated to the rank of turbogod, when it came time to produce the prequel trilogy in the late 90s and early 2000s, what we got was the most disappointing thing since my son.

    Steven Moffat wrote many of the best episodes of 21st century Dr. Who. As a showrunner, he is physically incapable of calming his goddamn tits. All he does is shout at you about how awesome the main character is, and over-produce inconsequential shots. There's an episode of Sherlock that takes place at Watson's wedding, it's basically one long monologue by Sherlock, the bridal photo scene is shot like the goddamn Matrix. The man can write! But he prefers to just say "He's the Dokta! He's the coolest and most badassest of the cool badasses. His dad could beat up your dad." And then spend the entire budget on wooshy camera effects.

    Gene Roddenberry was a fantastic screenwriter, but by 1987 he was THE man. Series creator. He got a lot of what he wanted, and he wanted what any forward thinking progressive man in his twilight years wants: A group of vegan space socialists who are always right, and women in short little skirts. He was so into his vision of a post-scarcity utopia that he didn't allow character development, and he knew his boners were rapidly running out so he wanted to sex it up as much as he could. His health declined to the point the team took over, and the show got better. They realized the cast was so damn good that all of them could carry episodes, so they started formatting it as an ensemble cast where each main cast member is the star of a few episodes a season, and they made some of the best television ever broadcast.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    A lot of the ideas of andromeda ended up in the later seasons of star trek discovery

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    I always thought that every 30 years they should reboot back to the future. No connection to the original in terms of production team or cast. The writer and director can’t be old enough to have many memories of the time (Zemeckis and Gale were both 4 in 1955)

    Just someone doing their own take on “teenager goes back in time and meets their parents as teenagers”

    See how the “past” of 30 years ago compares to the “present” of the previous version

    Long term, that could be a really interesting experiment

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Do we also remake bttf2, so you can see what people think 30 years into the future is like?

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Since 2016, I've wanted a Back To The Future remake just to have a scene where Doc Brown disbelieves Donald Trump is president like the original had him disbelieve Ronald Reagan was president

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    I seem to remember that bttf has some kind of binding agreement or such that someone from the og movies put into place that they can’t/won’t reboot it.

    We did get the adventure game from telltale. Which was pretty good. (Did a lot of stuff with the storyline and it had og cast doing voices).

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    The Rifleman. A good old campy western series about a man and his son. I would love a modern neo-western re-imagining, but with the same father-son lessons on character and human dignity.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago*

    100%. Great show, deserves another reboot.

    And...Uh...in case you've slept on "The Mandelorian", be sure to give it a chance. Lol.

    I guess "The Mandelorian" lacks some of the life lesson stuff. But the best things that make it great, it stole from "The Rifleman".

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  • [+] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago*

    I think we should reboot Arthur (PBS)

    But, and get this, make it a gritty realist drama about Arthur the Aardvark coming to terms with the death of a loved one

    And it would have to be 18+ of course.

    And the finale should have an avengers team up of all the classic PBS characters, to beat up Mickey Mouse in a fistfight. No holds barred of course.

    Final scene will be Arthur walking away without looking back as all that the series represented is destroyed systematically by reboot after reboot destroying all value from all entertainment and nothing original being made, and then a nuke goes off, and there's a cameo from SUPERMAN, MR ROGERS AND THE GREEN MEANIE

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    The Venture Bros. The world building was massive for a show that started out as a Jonny Quest parody complete with supervillains/heroes, spies, politics between these groups, a deep history spanning over a century and mysterious characters that hinted at a deeper story. They were planning to do an arc using a Magneto analog voiced by Matt Berry and how he was dethroned by David Bowie. The entire series was written by two guys so it's likely the reboot's quality would still be great.

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