Remember the movies and TV shows that you grew up on? The movies and shows that made a positive impact on you, to the point where you felt inspired to be either a movie director or TV producer. Imagine if that childhood nostalgia was recreated to a degree where it feels suffocating and overwhelming?

That’s the attitude that many people have these days when it comes to the constant overflow of movie remakes and TV reboots. “People are growing tired of these Hollywood studios pushing so many reboots and remakes instead of new, original content.” Bryant Craig stated in the description of a video. “Is this a result of the studios being lazy and greedy, or are they just giving the people what they want?” 

First, it’s important to remember why remakes and reboots exist in the first place. It’s mainly because of the nostalgia and the desire to share it with a newer audience. People in the creative business are aware of the movies and TV shows that worked so well in the ‘90s, 2000s, and even the 2010s, and they understand how the adults who grew up in those generations would love to relive the magic they once experienced as children.

When you add the current generation to the equation, you get an opportunity to introduce this audience to beloved stories from the past, and you can even add some modern elements so that the current generation can feel included, too. 

So naturally, the concept of remaking a movie or rebooting a TV show from the past sounds like a brilliant idea because you get the opportunity to help adults reconnect with their inner child, modernize it so it can appeal to a newer audience, and make money off it as well.

“The idea of remaking movies can be very appealing to producers and directors.” Staff Writer Ignacio Toro stated in an article for TJ Today. “It allows them to use a beloved movie or franchise and update it to fit more modern standards.”

However, when you allow yourself to rely so heavily on childhood nostalgia rather than create your own original ideas, the consequences would most likely result in a bankruptcy of creativity and imagination wherein no one is able to produce their own original ideas and content.

This concept may not seem like a big deal at first, but when you look at this in the long term, a lack of originality can become a big issue for the entertainment industry.

“The idea of less creativity as a consequence of remakes doesn’t seem very grievous at first thought, but when viewed through a larger scope this can become very bad for the movie industry in general,” Ignacio stated. 

“Movies depend on the evolution of new ideas, and techniques, but when the same ideas and stories are recycled, it can cause this change to stagnate. When directors choose to remake and reboot past stories the outcome will generally be a more generic counterpart to the original and will rarely bring anything new to the table.” 

One example of this would be the 2010 remake of the horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street. The actor who played Freddy Kruger explained why the remake of the film failed due to its lack of connection with the characters. 

“I thought the movie was a little cold. We weren’t really given time to see the kids when they were normal before they were frantic and haunted by Freddy,” Actor Robert Englund stated in an article for The Diamondback News. “That made it harder to connect with them, harder to care what happened to them.”

Then there are the sequels. Sometimes, whenever a movie does well, the sequel that follows can be just as good or better. When the 2001 film Shrek came to theaters, it was a successful hit, but when the 2004 film Shrek 2 came to theaters, it became so successful that it’s still beloved by many to this day.

“Shrek 2 is one of the best DreamWorks features and one of the best-animated sequels ever made.” Youtuber Mat Brunet (AniMat’sReview) stated on Rotten Tomatoes. “It takes everything that made the first film a phenomenon and amplified it to create an unforgettably hilarious experience.” 

Then, there are times when a successful movie develops into a sequel, and the sequel falls flat on its face due to its lack of producing the same energetic spark as the first film. Many people who know about the 1988 film Coming to America know it to be a comedic classic hit. When the 2021 sequel Coming 2 America was released to Amazon Prime, the film lacked in recreating the magic.

“Critics are generally agreed that while the movie offers sufficient laughs for those who know the original, the sequel treads too many of the same story beats and that it’s clumsy and lacks the same energy that made the first one great.” Features Editor Mitch Brook stated in Screen Rant. 

Coming 2 America represents another issue that comes with rebooting and remaking nostalgic media, and that’s dealing with lazy writing and storytelling. When people remake movies or reboot TV shows, often a writer can produce lazy content by recycling the same storylines and elements that have been displayed hundreds of times.

One example would be the many different versions of Bruce Wayne’s parents dying in Batman. Another example would be the many other versions of Uncle Ben dying in Spiderman. Recycling storylines can quickly become tiring and boring, and they can make essential elements of a story lose their value and meaning.

In conclusion, reliving in nostalgia through freshly new adaptations may have its benefits, but creating something new and unique that’s your own is even better. Right now, creators have lost their way of being original and creative due to multiple releases of remakes and reboots. We need to bring imagination back to studios.