Why not invent new characters?

[Greg Cox]

Remakes and reimaginings are quite literally nothing new. You have to know very little about film history to think that’s just a recent trend.

“Wizard of Oz?” Remake.
“Dracula?” Remake.
“Ben-Hur” (the one with Charlton Heston?) Remake.
“Scarface?” Remake.
“Phantom of the Opera” (Lon Chaney)? Remake.
“The Maltese Falcon?” REMAKE.

And so on and so on.

Exactly. Hollywood has been in the remake business since the silent era, and many beloved films are actually remakes. See also Some Like It Hot, Victor/Victoria, The Thing, The Fly, etc. I remembering rolling my eyes when folks complained recently about Universal remaking THE MUMMY, given that the "classic" Brendan Fraser movie was at least the third remake of the original 1932 Karloff movie.

Granted, the line between "remake" and "new adaption" gets blurry, depending on how much a remake draws from the previous adaptations as opposed to the original book or play or whatever.

One nitpick: The Phantom of the Opera has been remade many times, but I believe the 1925 silent movie with Lon Chaney is the original movie version, based on the novel by the Gaston Leroux. Perhaps you were thinking of the 1940s remake starring Claude Rains?

 

[ScottJ85]

Hollywood is getting lazier and stupider.... Look at recent sci-fi series story-line, character-building.....lousy quality... they want fans quick-$$$ but unable to produce shiny brand new ideas, so they just chop here, smash there, add some seasoning, and viola "stir-fly" a dish forcing you to eat... "They're so thirsty for it, they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand."

Go watch all three seasons of The Expanse, then come back, look me dead in the eye and say that again keeping a straight face.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

One nitpick: The Phantom of the Opera has been remade many times, but I believe the 1925 silent movie with Lon Chaney is the original movie version, based on the novel by the Gaston Leroux. Perhaps you were thinking of the 1940s remake starring Claude Rains?

I was thinking of the now-lost German film made in 1915. (I wouldn't have known about it except that the wife is a Phantom buff.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Phantom_der_Oper

 

[Greg Cox]

I was thinking of the now-lost German film made in 1915. (I wouldn't have known about it except that the wife is a Phantom buff.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Phantom_der_Oper

Interesting! I was unaware of that one.

 

[Qonundrum]

Instead of messing up the canon in the jjverse, why can't they simply create new characters, like they did for the next generation?

I'm glad that they did this for Discovery; hopefully the new crew will have feature film as well.

Without digressing into tangents, the name "Star Trek" and its movie legacy resonates. While the franchise has (IMHO) generally done better on the small screen, it would have a draw since it often made success on the big screen. Along with "cultural zeitgeist", "mo' money" "mo' money" "mo' money", or whatever it's called. After years of zilch, here's this new movie, reviving and exploiting characters (based on names and accorded stereotypes for the most part) was done.

As a generic popcorn movie without the Trek trademarks, the 2009 movie would still do rather well on its own merits as a sci-fi action thriller, but the use of Star Trek names just felt out of place. It didn't feel like Star Trek. But it did feel like a high school reenactment of some veneer given a tremendously huge budget. And Leonard Nimoy graciously getting involved to hopefully reduce the shock of the formula change for more established fans.

But the Trek name might bring in more money than a bunch of rando names with rando title, regardless of plot. It's not creative, it's not risky, it's not bold, but it's not easy to build something from scratch or to innovate while making its own be seen as its own (e.g. the makers of TNG trying not to use TOS as a crutch, but that was then.)