Coffin Comics

Howdy Yall!  Sorry, I’ve been away for a bit… Hope that doesn’t happen again.

Well, let’s get back into it then.  This is something that’s been highly irritating for the last few years.  Remakes and reimaginings galore!  Now, some have done an amazing job like Battlestar, Star Trek movies, and Dr. Whose.  But for the most part, we’ve all heard the same dang story over and over.

This is my problem with the whole “remake” industry.  It’s not just taking the franchise and rolling with a new incarnation with new ideas and new continuing “serial” episodes.  It’s taking the franchise and starting from episode 1 each time.  I mean, how many Spiderman origins do we need?  If you don’t know how it started by now then you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade.  Same with Batman, same with Hulk, same with TMNT, and so many more.

I would have no problem if they would continue the story, but when they reboot it from the beginning to only get about 2 episodes in before starting all over, I just get burnt out.

There was an interesting webisode out there that covered this (I think it was the Extra Credits crew), which stated that the reason for the remakes (and poor ones at that) is because studios purchase the licensing for that particular IP.  However, these have short timeframes to hold.  Meaning that if the IP is not used in x years, then the studio could lose it.  Thus the many subpar remake movies.  Also the same reason you’ll never see spidey or xmen in the avengers…  licensing.

Not only that, but when it comes time for a new movie to be approved, old IPs are viewed as stable and reliable.  That’s because they know the statistics on it and what to expect in terms of revenue.  If they make something new or edgy or unique, then the risk is high and not many producers want to back that.  The return could be anything.  It could flop, it could do great, but when you talk about tens to hundreds of millions in backing, that isn’t something many want to gamble with.  Thus, the death of artfilms and new IPs.

Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, and some studios will produce new things as well, but overall the more stable the project, the more likely it will be approved for production.  There is also a new hope with crowdsourcing apparatus such as Kickstarter where projects that would never be approved by studios get backing from the fans instead.

But what say you?
Remakes, reimaginings, and reboots: Annoying or just more of a good thing?

It’s kind of funny, because the field I work in (marketing) there is a strange duality when it comes to data collection.  With cookies and cameras and software all watching what you do… all day… all the time… it stands to reason that there may be such a thing as “too much”.

The joke is, what search engines and companies do to see what you are doing, what you like, what your habits are, etc.; the same tactics used by a guy with a camera and a raincoat would be considered, well, stalking.  You go to jail for that sort of business.  Yet, we (the consumers) freely give out tons of data to big companies so that they can pitch their wares to us better.  Sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming…

Buuuut the other side of me is actually pretty intrigued.  Watching analytics is really fascinating! Granted, what I do is hardly intrusive in any sense; just looking at web activity on our own site (heck, I do that with my own websites (such as this one!  mwahahahaha) to see what needs to be optimized).  Still, I find myself sometime frustrated with the lack of data available.

Case in point; Google (our overlords, lol) makes a lot of money with Adwords.  We all use these to get our little links out there and hope someone clicks them so that we can eat another day.  But Google actually plays both sides.  On the one hand, they sell you this oportunity to put your ads up in relevant searches and analyze the data so that you can see if you are actually doing something good and making progresses with the LOADS of money you toss at them… But on the other, they boast their ability to privately browse and search, thus rendering that whole first bit completely useless!  It’s like selling missiles to one country while selling anti-missiles to the other!

But what can ya do?  Not a whole lot of other options out there.

Still, I guess I’m divided when it comes to this data jive.  As someone in marketing and owner of 2 websites, analysis of what visitors do and if your advertising is actually workings is absolutely essential for the operation of your business.  But as soon as a big company like Facebook or Microsoft or EA starts watching what I do on every website, what I buy, where I go, and even (looking at you Xbox Three) peering into my living room and listening to my conversations; that is when I have a major problem with the system.

I suppose at the end of the day, we’re talking about two polar opposite sides of the same line.  Too little data and you fly blind and will probably go out of business.  Too radical and you might as well pay a guy to follow someone around at night and look through their sock drawer.  I just wonder what that middle point is.  Where that dividing line is drawn when insight becomes intrusion.  And unfortunately, when some very large company steps out of bounds, it’s going to be us little guys wearing the white hats that will get caught in the backlash.