Hollywood, Stop Breaking my Childhood.
On my facebook news Feed, I came across a post with a “Jem & the Holgrams” meme in the comments. (Don’t look for it on my timeline). And it reminded me of a repulsive habit of Hollywood and their inbred suits. There were a raft of fun, silly, lightweight, animated and kids shows from the 60s through the 80s that were the utter JOY of American Kids’ Saturday mornings for decades, and in later decades, guilty adult pleasures on the Cartoon Network, Nick, and TVLand.
Then some genius marketeer in Hollywood will get it into their heads to reboot, or worse – make a live action film, of one of our childhood treasures. And their track record is… less than stellar. These films have overwhelmingly been horrors, badly scripted, acted and typically dumb as a bag of hammers and disrespectful of the source material. Audiences and critics alike run screaming into the night leaving fans with a burning sense of betrayal and dismissal.
The aforementioned Jem and the Holograms film received an IMDB rating of 3.9 and a Rottten Tomatoes freshness score of 19%. OUCH. General consensus, it sucked. Star Trek: Nemesis and the cut-short Enterprise nearly tanked the Star Trek Franchise till the successful Abrams Reboot, but the next offering – Star Trek: Beyond again has fandom nervous.
Typically these misguided efforts will leave a once-treasured franchise dead – murdered, and forever toxic in the media marketplace. When new projects are announced, fans react with a mixture of geeky excitement and creeping dread. We pray, “Oh God Oh God Please don’t Fuck It Up.”
Zack Snyder’s version of Superman in Superman vs Batman: Dawn of Justice has fans recoiling in horror from Snyder’s dark interpretation, revealing his utter disdain for the characters and their iconic legacy. It has placed the entire DC Extended Universe in some real jeopardy. There may never be another Fantastic Four media effort after a third wipeout.
If I ever hear of a live action version of Space Ghost or Johnny Quest being kicked around Hollywood, I’ll have to suppress an overwhelming urge to BURN THAT F**KING PLACE TO THE GROUND.
