The Idea Well is Evidently Dry

A Karate Kid reboot?  What the fuck is wrong with this world? I know I've said that there are a finite number of plots and all (a pretty widely held writer's conceit), but the Karate fucking Kid?

But the Karate Kid is just the symptom - the disease runs deeper.  First, this decade has pretty much been the age of the reboot. Some good (Star Trek, Batman) some absolutely horrible (just about everything else).  Second, the conventional logic reads that as movie budgets increase and returns decrease, studios feel less and less assured taking a risk, and are more than happy to try and bet on a sure thing.

 On the left, two dudes kissing.  On the right, gender ambiguity.  These movies are more subversive than I thought.

The nice thing about the second point is that it is self-correcting.  Once people stop busting a nut every time someone massages their "Ooooo I totally remember that!" gland, they'll stop going to see these movies, the movies will show diminishing returns, and hollywood producers will look for a new well to pump.  It's pretty much always been this way - in the early days of film you had exciting things like chimpanzees smoking and a pretty dame showing her ankle in a saloon - then you had film made of stage productions, then you got stop-motion marionettes and talkies, followed by musicals - SEN-sational!

They're coming to America to wear blackface and sing "Mammy"

The first point, that of this being the age of the reboot, is linked to the first but it is not quite the same thing.  Movie producers already have a big bucket of tried-and-true that they can reach into when they need to make a little cash.  That's where most action movies come from, anything with guns and cars - same with romantic comedies. 

But the reboot thing seems particularly egregious.  Sequels were the big thing in the 80's (4Rocky movies, 3 Rambo movies, 5 Star Trek movies) but now we don't seem to want to expand on anything so much as we want to have a do-over, like the original release was just the beta play-test, and now, NOW they're ready to incorporate all that viewer feedback and make the movie they were supposed to make. 

There are no words strong enough to express my rage

Sometimes they get it right - the Star Trek reboot was awesome, taking an obvious love and respect for the source material and contemporizing the special effects and cinematography.  Arguably the reboot was a little action-heavy considering the original, but then again we did see a lot of shirtless Shatner beating up stunt men in rubber masks, so that criticism is probably only valid in degree and not in kind.  The point is, everyone involved in the best reboots very obviously looked at the material, said "yes, this was good, this is still relevant, but it said what it needed to say - now we can take the underlying form and say new things with it."  

But mostly, some marketing director or focus group looks at an old movie and says "hey, that made a lot of money back then, maybe we could just put some CG in there and make a lot of money now too," or alternately "Hey, those 30-something bro-dudes are sure making money now, and you know what they used to watch?  Motherfucking A-Team.  Let' smake an A-Team movie where the guys are in a tank that's falling through the sky and someone can all like get on the 50 caliber machine gun and shoot down a fucking jet and fucking WOOOOO!"  in which chase they are not reinvigorating an old form with new content, or looking at a classic from a new angle, but giving it the dreaded "update...for the nineties!" 

First picture, childhood heroes.  Second picture, douchebags. 

So much of this crap is just the last sputtering squirt from the dessicated teats of old cash cows, and it's my fervent desire that these old heifers will be put down before I have to endure some sort of gritty, dark, Danger Mouse remake.  There are a million and one struggling directors and writers with good, fresh ideas that aren't getting a chance because this ultra-commercial pablum machine keeps grinding along.  

I have no problem with people making money, except when it wastes my time.Thankfully, I'm under no obligation to watch any of this crap, and so will not waste said time, and in so doing will deprive the producers of said money. Hopefully most of America will do the same, and we can be done with this ridiculousness.