Post by Dirty Epic on Apr 29, 2020 8:18:52 GMT
The Life on Mars posts etc. have got me thinking on the subject of revivals and reboots of things we’ve liked and whether or not these work and/or are a good thing.
This is no disrespect and I can also see many of the attractions of bringing back LoM for one last ride. However it’s been 15 years near enough since we first saw Gene and Sam in action and will it have the same feeling and what of what made it so special and good in the first place. I won’t lie I don’t really take to A2A in the same way I do to LoM but for me it was a good continuation of things it’s just these years on can a revival, reboot or whatever you want to call it really work. Glennister and Simm do look significantly older than they did in 2005-07 and have done many roles since LoM/A2A – some good, some not so although for me I do feel both actors have the skill and ability to pull a new outing off where many others have failed/couldn’t.
What I hope doesn’t happen is they revive LoM and it falls flat on it’s face/doesn’t work and there are so many examples of things being brought back or rebooted where that happens and you simply get the feeling – why?
It’s just I feel revivals and reboots don’t really work. For instance we’ve had the Auf Pet one in 2002-04 which brought the boys back 16 years after the drama in the Med with the San Souci. It’s now 18 years since those Middlesbrough/Nevada outings aired and for me they feel and seem a lot more dated than the 1980’s episodes. I’ve gone on before about the many flaws the Auf Pet reboot had and won’t dwell on these too much here but those BBC episodes for me just felt poor, lacked chemistry (especially with the original and things what happened in those series), some characters like Oz (who became a hybrid of Nail himself and his Crocodile Shoes/Spender roles crossed with bits and pieces of the original Oz) and Barry (irritating and obnoxious) lost their charm they used to have and in fact you couldn’t care less for during the course of what unfolded. What’s interesting for me is I’ve recently watched S1-2 of Auf Pet but have no desire to watch the BBC episodes which perhaps says it all really. Sadly they do have their moments but they’re way too few and they're mired in what I felt was a forced revival which simply doesn't work… the Cuban car crash series particularly. A feature length one off might have been better or perhaps a series featuring say one of the characters but generally I felt too much time had passed on Auf Pet for it really work.
Similarly I’ve watched T2 Trainspotting again recently and also felt that didn’t work and also had too much time pass between the original and what made that special and overall didn’t really need to be made. The original Trainspotting had it’s moment in time and I felt it was right for it all to end with Renton walking over Waterloo Bridge and it left it to your imagination what happened to them all after that. Whether you like or condone what the original Trainspotting was all about it also seemed to handle a touchy subject with humour and a surreal approach (was it the 1980's or 1995/96?) which worked and kept you along for the ride when (whether or not you knew of/had experience of) the reality of the drugs world is anything but funny, surreal or glamorous. Fast forward 20 odd years later and we get T2 a confused adaptation of other Irvine Welsh novels like Porno etc. which doesn’t have any of the things which made the original special. Renton’s seemingly clean/sober and living a happy life in Amsterdam – in reality he’s getting a divorce and heads back to see the old heads in Edinburgh (really?)… even though they’ll hold grudges for past betrayal’s and he’s given his past – including family the swerve for the 20 odd years too. In T2 Renton is everything the original film hated and T2 simply meanders into a rather clumsy nostalgia piece which doesn’t really go anywhere, references the events of the original film way too much and the eventual showdown between Renton and Begbie feels like very forced and p*** poor IMHO. I know it sort of got rave reviews at the time but for me the film just plods along with no real purpose I did feel a bit disappointed with T2 when I saw it in 2017. Time and seeing it again recently hasn’t really changed my opinion of disappointment with T2, in fact I felt more disappointed seeing it recently compared with watching the original again!
Don't get me started on 2012 reboot of The Sweeney. Again we've been over this numerous times and won’t dwell on it too much but like T2 it simply doesn’t work. It might have done if the film wasn’t called/or attached to ‘The Sweeney’ and or the Regan and Carter characters and was perhaps a bit more focused in on modern police techniques within Scotland Yard and the villain’s they’re after. Whether we like them or not the policing techniques of say Operation Trident in the Met, Matrix on Merseyside or Xcalliber in Greater Manchester have absolutely nothing in common with what Nick Love served us up with, with his Sweeney reboot which was a cheap and nasty tale of boorish/corrupt cop Regan – played totally over-the-top by Ray Winstone tries to nick a ner’do well villain Allen (Paul Anderson) gets framed, get’s his nemesis DCI Lewis (Steven Makinstosh) love interest DC Lewis (Hayley Atwell) killed, breaks out of jail and single handedly brings down Allen’s operations, gets his revenge on DCI Lewis and comes out on top in spite of everything else being against him… please! That just doesn't happen I'm afraid! I’m indifferent to Ben Drew/Plan B’s Carter – although he’s not really that good being honest, but it’s a forgettable mess which shouldn’t but does taint everything that was excellent about the original and near enough it’s been almost 8 years since I’ve seen it. Shame really take this idea/concept and work that into an original idea with perhaps a better plot, characters, acting, production – and research it may have been the basis for a good modern British crime film we’ve seen all to few of recently.
There are also many other examples like Hollywood reboots of The Terminator franchise and Robocop which may have better/slicker action and cast compared to the originals but totally miss the point and lack everything that was special about them to things like the Prisoner Cell Block H reboot Wentworth which again is much, much better in the terms of acting and production but could be any other modern drama being made now and the original had the charm of crap scripts, wobbly sets, poor acting and being honest ugly acting/characters which whether you liked it or not kept you interested and in some respects you liked for it being so bad.
The idea of this post is to debate whether a revival or reboot, etc. works and I can think of few instances when this does happen and sometimes you’re left feeling they should have left it with the original… instead of milking things further but in turn destroying the legacy and everything that was special about them in the first place.
Any thoughts?
This is no disrespect and I can also see many of the attractions of bringing back LoM for one last ride. However it’s been 15 years near enough since we first saw Gene and Sam in action and will it have the same feeling and what of what made it so special and good in the first place. I won’t lie I don’t really take to A2A in the same way I do to LoM but for me it was a good continuation of things it’s just these years on can a revival, reboot or whatever you want to call it really work. Glennister and Simm do look significantly older than they did in 2005-07 and have done many roles since LoM/A2A – some good, some not so although for me I do feel both actors have the skill and ability to pull a new outing off where many others have failed/couldn’t.
What I hope doesn’t happen is they revive LoM and it falls flat on it’s face/doesn’t work and there are so many examples of things being brought back or rebooted where that happens and you simply get the feeling – why?
It’s just I feel revivals and reboots don’t really work. For instance we’ve had the Auf Pet one in 2002-04 which brought the boys back 16 years after the drama in the Med with the San Souci. It’s now 18 years since those Middlesbrough/Nevada outings aired and for me they feel and seem a lot more dated than the 1980’s episodes. I’ve gone on before about the many flaws the Auf Pet reboot had and won’t dwell on these too much here but those BBC episodes for me just felt poor, lacked chemistry (especially with the original and things what happened in those series), some characters like Oz (who became a hybrid of Nail himself and his Crocodile Shoes/Spender roles crossed with bits and pieces of the original Oz) and Barry (irritating and obnoxious) lost their charm they used to have and in fact you couldn’t care less for during the course of what unfolded. What’s interesting for me is I’ve recently watched S1-2 of Auf Pet but have no desire to watch the BBC episodes which perhaps says it all really. Sadly they do have their moments but they’re way too few and they're mired in what I felt was a forced revival which simply doesn't work… the Cuban car crash series particularly. A feature length one off might have been better or perhaps a series featuring say one of the characters but generally I felt too much time had passed on Auf Pet for it really work.
Similarly I’ve watched T2 Trainspotting again recently and also felt that didn’t work and also had too much time pass between the original and what made that special and overall didn’t really need to be made. The original Trainspotting had it’s moment in time and I felt it was right for it all to end with Renton walking over Waterloo Bridge and it left it to your imagination what happened to them all after that. Whether you like or condone what the original Trainspotting was all about it also seemed to handle a touchy subject with humour and a surreal approach (was it the 1980's or 1995/96?) which worked and kept you along for the ride when (whether or not you knew of/had experience of) the reality of the drugs world is anything but funny, surreal or glamorous. Fast forward 20 odd years later and we get T2 a confused adaptation of other Irvine Welsh novels like Porno etc. which doesn’t have any of the things which made the original special. Renton’s seemingly clean/sober and living a happy life in Amsterdam – in reality he’s getting a divorce and heads back to see the old heads in Edinburgh (really?)… even though they’ll hold grudges for past betrayal’s and he’s given his past – including family the swerve for the 20 odd years too. In T2 Renton is everything the original film hated and T2 simply meanders into a rather clumsy nostalgia piece which doesn’t really go anywhere, references the events of the original film way too much and the eventual showdown between Renton and Begbie feels like very forced and p*** poor IMHO. I know it sort of got rave reviews at the time but for me the film just plods along with no real purpose I did feel a bit disappointed with T2 when I saw it in 2017. Time and seeing it again recently hasn’t really changed my opinion of disappointment with T2, in fact I felt more disappointed seeing it recently compared with watching the original again!
Don't get me started on 2012 reboot of The Sweeney.
Again we've been over this numerous times and won’t dwell on it too much but like T2 it simply doesn’t work. It might have done if the film wasn’t called/or attached to ‘The Sweeney’ and or the Regan and Carter characters and was perhaps a bit more focused in on modern police techniques within Scotland Yard and the villain’s they’re after. Whether we like them or not the policing techniques of say Operation Trident in the Met, Matrix on Merseyside or Xcalliber in Greater Manchester have absolutely nothing in common with what Nick Love served us up with, with his Sweeney reboot which was a cheap and nasty tale of boorish/corrupt cop Regan – played totally over-the-top by Ray Winstone tries to nick a ner’do well villain Allen (Paul Anderson) gets framed, get’s his nemesis DCI Lewis (Steven Makinstosh) love interest DC Lewis (Hayley Atwell) killed, breaks out of jail and single handedly brings down Allen’s operations, gets his revenge on DCI Lewis and comes out on top in spite of everything else being against him… please! That just doesn't happen I'm afraid! I’m indifferent to Ben Drew/Plan B’s Carter – although he’s not really that good being honest, but it’s a forgettable mess which shouldn’t but does taint everything that was excellent about the original and near enough it’s been almost 8 years since I’ve seen it. Shame really take this idea/concept and work that into an original idea with perhaps a better plot, characters, acting, production – and research it may have been the basis for a good modern British crime film we’ve seen all to few of recently. There are also many other examples like Hollywood reboots of The Terminator franchise and Robocop which may have better/slicker action and cast compared to the originals but totally miss the point and lack everything that was special about them to things like the Prisoner Cell Block H reboot Wentworth which again is much, much better in the terms of acting and production but could be any other modern drama being made now and the original had the charm of crap scripts, wobbly sets, poor acting and being honest ugly acting/characters which whether you liked it or not kept you interested and in some respects you liked for it being so bad.
The idea of this post is to debate whether a revival or reboot, etc. works and I can think of few instances when this does happen and sometimes you’re left feeling they should have left it with the original… instead of milking things further but in turn destroying the legacy and everything that was special about them in the first place.
Any thoughts?
even touted specials like Gangs of London don't really feel right, a bit thrown together... I mean truth be told you could make that 'Gangs of Warrington' if we're being totally accurate here! It all feels pushed/marketed IMHO.
