Reply To: [unofficial weekender] Return of the VOID

[jeffersonpowers 370xp 1]

I still haven’t finished my pledge from last week (I think it was also my pledge from the week before) so I think I’ll refrain from pledging this week…

Regarding game reboots: I’m not familiar with VOID and haven’t played Walking Dead (never seen the TV show either) so I can’t comment on those. Two recent game reboots/2nd editions that recently did the rounds on Kickstarter got my attention, as they were both games I play: Gangs of Rome and Dead Man’s Hand. These might be too recent to be considered true “reboots,” I think they fall more into the “second edition” category. The Gangs of Rome one interested me, as it seemed like a major retooling of the rules that adds emphasis the things I like about that game, while clearing up (or doing away with) the things I didn’t like, so well done there. With Dead Man’s Hand, it seemed like mainly a rules consolidation without any major changes — the main value add is the plastic buildings, which are nice but didn’t interest me over much, so I gave that one a pass. In conclusion: if a reboot brings something new to the table, it’s more likely to catch my interest.

Regarding TV/Movie reboots: A lot of the material that is sometimes called “reboot” isn’t really. It’s a continuation taking place either before or after the original (as with the Disney Star Wars stuff, or even post-2005 Doctor Who). Occasionally it’s a new thing based on something that previously had an adaptation. For example, Dredd isn’t a remake or reboot of the Stallone film, they’re both based on the same source material but are otherwise unconnected.

As has already been mentioned, I would hold up Battlestar Galactica as a near-perfect example of a reboot done right. Its recognizably the same thing (rag-tag human fleet in danger of annihilation by Cylons) but it covers a lot of new ground, and it updates the material for modern audiences. A not-quite-as-good example would be the recent Planet of the Apes movies.

I think rebooted properties often fail because they want to have it both ways, as with the Terminator series which keeps trying to recast the characters so they can change the story to make it work better as an ongoing franchise rather than a stand-alone film, but at the same time they want Arnold to be in it, so they come up with increasingly silly reasons why a killer robot would look older.