Yeah, if you want to lean on nostalgia by reviving an old intellectual property, you need it to be entertaining for all the reasons people originally liked it. That means appealing to the original fans, but as they are now.
I was too old for Goosebumps when the books were popular, but for me a good example was the Willow revival. Willow was like an off-brand Hobbit movie with a bit of claymation and body horror. The charm came from the contrast between the sincerity of Willow with the irreverence of Mad Martigan. The revival had none of the sincerity or charm, and tried really hard to modernize the vernacular because that’s how kids talk now. It alienated people who loved the original, and did nothing to appeal to new fans.
I wanted to like it. I wanted to introduce it to my kids. But I hated it and they would have hated it.
Yep Val brought a bit of charisma and irreverence to something that would have been a bit too dry and dense for many. He was always good as the rougish sort. Without him, even if they’d made no other changes. It would have been a hard sell.
Val was amazing, but the problem with the new series wasn’t the actors, it was the writing. It could have worked if they had better writers. In fact, I feel like you could tell when different writers and directors were responsible for the episodes or scenes. It was occasionally good, but the shitty parts ruined the show.
It didn’t help that bigots were predisposed to hate the diversity and LGBTQ+ inclusiveness. I’m not one to ever complain about a show being “woke,” but the terrible writing made it impossible to defend the choices made with the characters.
Yeah, if you want to lean on nostalgia by reviving an old intellectual property, you need it to be entertaining for all the reasons people originally liked it. That means appealing to the original fans, but as they are now.
I was too old for Goosebumps when the books were popular, but for me a good example was the Willow revival. Willow was like an off-brand Hobbit movie with a bit of claymation and body horror. The charm came from the contrast between the sincerity of Willow with the irreverence of Mad Martigan. The revival had none of the sincerity or charm, and tried really hard to modernize the vernacular because that’s how kids talk now. It alienated people who loved the original, and did nothing to appeal to new fans.
I wanted to like it. I wanted to introduce it to my kids. But I hated it and they would have hated it.
Yep Val brought a bit of charisma and irreverence to something that would have been a bit too dry and dense for many. He was always good as the rougish sort. Without him, even if they’d made no other changes. It would have been a hard sell.
Val was amazing, but the problem with the new series wasn’t the actors, it was the writing. It could have worked if they had better writers. In fact, I feel like you could tell when different writers and directors were responsible for the episodes or scenes. It was occasionally good, but the shitty parts ruined the show.
It didn’t help that bigots were predisposed to hate the diversity and LGBTQ+ inclusiveness. I’m not one to ever complain about a show being “woke,” but the terrible writing made it impossible to defend the choices made with the characters.
the show was awful overall but probably the best part was Amar Chadha-Patel’s character which was essentially the mad martigan replacement.