Film Reboots

by Daniel Herbert (Editor), Constantine Verevis (Editor)

Overview

Bringing together the latest developments in the study of serial formatting practices - remakes, sequels, series - Film Reboots is the first edited collection to specifically focus on the new millennial phenomenon of rebooting. Through a set of vibrant case studies, this collection investigates rebooting as a practice that seeks to remake an entire film series or franchise, with ambitions that are at once respectful and revisionary. Examining such notable examples as Batman, Ghostbusters, and Star Trek, among others, this collection contends with some of the most important features of contemporary film and media culture today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474451369
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2020
Series:	Screen Serialities
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Daniel Herbert is an associate professor in the Department of Screen Arts & Cultures at the University of Michigan.

Constantine Verevis is Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne. His publications include: Film Remakes (Edinburgh UP, 2006), Transnational Film Remakes (Edinburgh UP, 2017), Film Reboots (Edinburgh UP, 2020), and Flaming Creatures (2020). With Claire Perkins, he is founding co-editor of Screen Serialities (Edinburgh UP).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Film Reboots 5

Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis

PART I: INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

1. Rethinking the ‘Supersystem’: Film Reboots and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 31

Daniel Herbert

2. Live Long and Prosper: Rebooting Star Trek and Reimagining Fandom 53

Erin Hanna

3. The Many Reboots of the Batman 76

Eileen R. Meehan

PART II: STRUCTURE AND NARRATIVE

4. The Edge of Reality: Replicating Blade Runner 103

Constantine Verevis

5. Gender, Genre and the Reboot: From Ocean’s 11/Eleven to Ocean’s 8/Eight 124

Jennifer Forrest

6. Understanding Twin Peaks: The Return as a ‘Film Reboot’ via Anti-Franchise Discourses Within Media Franchising 145

Matt Hills

7. All This Has Happened Before: Mythic Repetition in the Film-to-Television Reboot 167

Nicholas Benson & Jonathan Gray

PART III: POLITICS AND IDENTITY

8. Resistance and Empire: Star Wars and the Social Justice Reboot 189

Derek Johnson

9. Rebooting the Politics of the Sports Melodrama: Creed vs. Rocky 214

Chuck Tryon

10. Ghost Girls: Ghostbusters, Popular Feminism and the Gender-Swap Reboot

236

Claire Perkins

PART IV: FANS AND AUDIENCES

11. Reboot, Requel, Legacyquel: Jurassic World and the Nostalgia Franchise 259

Kathleen Loock

12. Worldbuilding, Retconning, and Legacy Rebooting: Alien and Contemporary Media Franchise Strategies 283

James Fleury

13. Anticipating the Reboot: Teasing Top Gun 2 309

Paul Grainge

14. A Dark Knight on Elm Street: Discursive Regimes of (Sub) Cultural Value, Paratextual Bonding, and the Perils of Remaking and Rebooting Canonical Horror Cinema 331

William Proctor

Contributors 352

Notes

What People are Saying About This

Amanda Ann Klein

Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis’ Film Reboots is dedicated to a fundamental question of the form, namely why do reboots exist and what do they do? An impressive array of scholars engage with the contemporary reboot as an industrial practice, narrative strategy, political text, and fan object, using both expected (Batman, Star Wars) and unexpected (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Twin Peaks) franchises as case studies. This collection is an important addition to and intervention in the growing body of scholarship on screen serialities.

Editorial Reviews

Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis’ Film Reboots is dedicated to a fundamental question of the form, namely why do reboots exist and what do they do? An impressive array of scholars engage with the contemporary reboot as an industrial practice, narrative strategy, political text, and fan object, using both expected (Batman, Star Wars) and unexpected (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Twin Peaks) franchises as case studies. This collection is an important addition to and intervention in the growing body of scholarship on screen serialities.

Amanda Ann Klein

Twenty-first century media culture is perpetually haunted by the films of the late twentieth century. The fascinating and essential essays in this collection provide insightful analyses of how the sequels, remakes, and reboots of these cinematic "ghosts" have dominated mainstream media for much of the last two decades.

Derek Kompare

A thrilling compendium of ‘lenses’ through which to view and understand the mechanisms driving the unceasing remit of recycled narratives in contemporary cinema, Film Reboots offers a definitive take on new modes of storytelling. An essential volume for anyone remotely interested in film.

Carolyn Jess-Cooke