Reboot

I think whenever someone hears that something they love is being rebooted, rather than continued or renewed, they instinctually flinch and hope for the best but expect the worst. I understand that entirely. We've all seen fantastic things be remade into something bland and terrible. In recent years, tons of old series have been getting rebooted, both in film and gaming, and I don't think a single one of those has gone by without criticism. Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Final Fantasy 7, and Devil May Cry are all within recent memory.

There are four kinds of people involved when it comes to reboots. There are the nostalgia bound fans of the original who are terrified that this new reboot will be the death of their franchise, taking the things about it that they once loved and twisting them into something bizarre and unappealing. There are people who never liked the original to begin with, and either want the new version to crash and burn, or surpass the original in every way, both options allowing them to rub it in the faces of those who liked the original. And there are the people whose first exposure to the franchise are the new reboot, which gives them a very different view on the series than anyone else involved.

All of these are fairly common, and are certainly the kind of people one hears about most while listening to the talk surrounding reboots. The fourth person on the other hand is very different. It doesn't matter how much exposure they've previously had to the series. They go into the reboot neutrally, just hoping that what they get will be worth their money, and will be happy to see that happen, regardless of how similar or different it may be to the source material.

I've personally been a part of all four of those groups, and I'm sure most people have, though I imagine many people have only been in two or three of those groups for one reason or another. Though I don't particularly enjoy Final Fantasy 7, I still worry that it's upcoming reboot will remove too much of what made the original game what it was. With the reboot of Devil May Cry, I hoped that the new game would be miles better than the original series that I hated, and was ecstatic when that proved to be true (at least for me), and frequently point out how much better it is than the original when the topic arises. I never really got into Star Trek before the new movies came out. And I really couldn't care one way or another about the new Ghostbusters movie.

But regardless of what stance you're taking, I think it's always important to remember something vital about reboots - they're called that for a reason. It's a new start. The point isn't for it to be perfectly in line with the older material. The point isn't for everything to line up. The point is to take that same concept, those same characters, and run them through a new gambit, and seeing how they react to different stimulus. And when doing that, you end up with something that has the same spirit, even if everything else is different.

Or at least that's how it should be. Doesn't always happen.