You’re friends with your next door neighbour. He’s a nice guy, someone who invites you over to watch the game on TV and have a beer. You go out and have some laughs together. What would you think if the guy completely changed and became sullen and angry and anti-social? Someone who wasn’t the guy you knew and liked?
You’d be pretty much turned off and likely want to avoid him if humanly possible.
That’s how I feel about re-boots of cartoons.
You may have heard read that D.C. Comics wants to reboot some of the great Hanna-Barbera characters of the 1960s. The Flintstones, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Scooby-Doo and others. D.C. Entertainment co-publisher Dan Didio is quoted on screenrant.com:
Why?
Why if the “characters resonate...so much,” why must they be changed to something that aren’t the same characters that resonated? And why would they be any different if they “were created and interpreted today”?
Scooby Doo was about some fairly ordinary teenagers, with a comic-relief dog, getting to the bottom of mysteries. It wasn’t about tatted-up hipsters with “futuristic weapons,” so why should it be now? Granted, I’m not a big Scooby fan, but why not hue to the story structure of the original show that attracted millions of fans? And why does anyone think the way it was structured is neither entertaining nor relevant to today’s audience?
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And I’m sorry, the “classic look” of Fred Flintstone isn’t like some steroid monkey who gave up on the gym and decided to grow a gut by overeating. He’s supposed to look like Ralph Kramden. Or even Alan Reed.
I realise there are fans who dote on anything if you slap the Hanna-Barbera name on it, no matter how misguided or inane. If they’re entertained by something, that’s their prerogative. I’m sure they’ll comment here and tell me I’m full of something or the old stand-by justifications “Give it a chance” or “You haven’t seen it yet.” But I just don’t see the need to take characters who are loved and then reinvent them so they’re not what anyone loved.
Your next door neighbours don’t change drastically in real life. Why should they in comic books?
You’d be pretty much turned off and likely want to avoid him if humanly possible.
That’s how I feel about re-boots of cartoons.
You may have heard read that D.C. Comics wants to reboot some of the great Hanna-Barbera characters of the 1960s. The Flintstones, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Scooby-Doo and others. D.C. Entertainment co-publisher Dan Didio is quoted on screenrant.com:
“...these characters resonate with so much of our fanbase. It was so fun to go out and look at them, but not just bring back versions that existed 40, 50 years ago, and really look at it the way of saying, if these characters were created and interpreted today, how would they exist?”Here’s my question.
Why?
Why if the “characters resonate...so much,” why must they be changed to something that aren’t the same characters that resonated? And why would they be any different if they “were created and interpreted today”?
Scooby Doo was about some fairly ordinary teenagers, with a comic-relief dog, getting to the bottom of mysteries. It wasn’t about tatted-up hipsters with “futuristic weapons,” so why should it be now? Granted, I’m not a big Scooby fan, but why not hue to the story structure of the original show that attracted millions of fans? And why does anyone think the way it was structured is neither entertaining nor relevant to today’s audience?
I realise there are fans who dote on anything if you slap the Hanna-Barbera name on it, no matter how misguided or inane. If they’re entertained by something, that’s their prerogative. I’m sure they’ll comment here and tell me I’m full of something or the old stand-by justifications “Give it a chance” or “You haven’t seen it yet.” But I just don’t see the need to take characters who are loved and then reinvent them so they’re not what anyone loved.
Your next door neighbours don’t change drastically in real life. Why should they in comic books?