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Penny Arcade - Comic - Ouroboros
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - Comic - Ouroboros
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
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It might also involve necromancy.
And Eggman would look more insane than usual.
And now, here we are, a decade later. And the alchemistry of talented VFX artists is being harnessed to bring us pointlessly realistic lions, a dull and lifeless genie who somehow can’t sing his way out of a paper lamp despite the casting of a chart-topping music star, and an endless parade of exterior shots of the Millennium Falcon being chased by TIE Fighters with a new, more sinister paint job. Let’s hear it for innovation.
Right there with you. Walking with Dinosaurs was great (and had a decent amount of practical stuff, though not nearly as effectively as Jurassic Park). And there were several other "Walking with" type shows that had all kind of cool extinct creatures. Ambulocetus. Gastornis (likely the terror bird show you saw). Hyaenodon. Entelodon ("hogs from hell").
Granted, those shows were rife with speculation and errors. But it really felt we were heading on a path where being able to put yourself in those ancient settings and see the amazing creatures come alive around you. Why isn't THIS a thing I can do in VR? I want to chill with a Megatherium, dammit.
If it will make them billions, that's why.
And if re-introducing it will make them billions more, that's fine with them.
Copyright renewal. That's all these remakes really are.
This is all for the sake of Mickey Mouse. (According to whatever article or whatever it was that I read a while ago).
You need to read more. Or less.
"Mickey Mouse" isn't protected by copyright. He's protected by trademark. Trademarks don't expire.
"Public domain" doesn't mean every work with a character enters public domain. It means that specific work does. It means you can download the film legally. It means anyone can legally sell a copy of it.
It's worse than that. The minds behind all these endless sequels and remakes seem incapable of understanding there is more to stories than the literal plot devices involved. Great works have themes.
I can't remember where I heard it, what the source was, or anything. But I recall a Solomon "split the baby"-eqsue parable about two authors who go before a judge both claiming a work belongs to them. To figure out who the true author is, the judge orders them both to write a sequel, the reasoning being, only the true author will be able to continue the work.
I think of that parable every fucking time I see another sequel or remake. Aside from Ash VS The Evil Dead, which is way better than it has any right to be, largely thanks to so many of the same people being involved, and not having been replaced with pod people creative hacks over the years.
The fact of the matter is, most great stories have central themes. And those themes get teased at, poked, prodded, tested, weakened, reinforced. Ultimately, much of the story revolves around these themes just as much as they revolve around the characters or the literal mechanics of the plot.
Take for example Lord of the Rings. Very strong themes of a world in decline. Magic is leaving it, the elves are all leaving, most of the noble bloodlines of kings are vanishing. And probably the biggest theme of absolute power corrupting absolutely. And then you have the literal themes of the war against Sauron.
Imagine if some fucking hack at Amazon for their new series decided to have the elves return to middle earth, and they all help to reforge the One Ring, to defeat some new big bad. Sure, maybe they have contrive some plot devices to have it make sense at a bare bones mechanical level. But on a thematic level? That'd be some hot bullshit, and undermine the message of the rest of the story.
While not disagreeing with your point, I have to point out that it's just irrelevant to "why the fuck does Hollywood...?" The answer is money. The answer is always money, when it comes to a large corporation (and plenty of smaller ones and individual people). That Aladdin remake has made almost a billion dollars worldwide (gross). The "live action" Jungle Book? Also a billion dollars. Beauty and the Beast? $1.2 billion. Hell, even Alice in Wonderland made over a billion.
Thought Coco was a much better movie than any of this drek? Well, it barely broke $800 million worldwide. Moana didn't even manage to hit $650 million.
So they're just going to keep making as many of these suckers as they think they'll be able to sell. That's their goal. And like we've mentioned before, when people get tired of that they'll swing back to their animation printing press.
They make what brings in money. If remakes weren't making them money, they wouldn't be doing it.
The consumer public is as much to blame for this as Disney is, because the consumer public is empowering them with fat stacks of cash.
Nobody is saying it's not successful. That doesn't mean it's not lazy, exploitative or artistically barren which it is.
I know it's the thing to point this criticism at Disney but
All the major studios are lazy, exploitative, and artistically barren. Disney does not have a monopoly on this.
Well, not yet. There are a few studios left for them to buy before they get to that point. :P
...Yeah. I didn't say they did. I didn't say we couldn't criticize people for being lazy, exploitative and artistically barren, either. I am criticizing people for being those things right now.