Film Reboots

257 Pages·2020·4.483 MB·English

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

Film Reboots
.d
e
vre
se
r sth
g
ir llA
.sse
rP
ytisre
vin
U
h
g
ru
b
n
id
E
.0
2
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd ii 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
Screen Serialities
Series editors: Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis
Series advisory board: Kim Akass, Glen Creeber, Shane Denson, Jennifer
Forrest, Jonathan Gray, Julie Grossman, Daniel Herbert, Carolyn
Jess-Cooke, Frank Kelleter, Amanda Ann Klein, Kathleen Loock, Jason
Mittell, Sean O’Sullivan, Barton Palmer, Alisa Perren, Dana Polan, Iain
Robert Smith, Shannon Wells-Lassagne, Linda Williams
Screen Serialities provides a forum for introducing, analysing and theorising a broad spectrum
of serial screen formats – including franchises, series, serials, sequels and remakes.
Over and above individual texts that happen to be serialised, the book series takes a guiding
focus on seriality as an aesthetic and industrial principle that has shaped the narrative logic,
socio-cultural function and economic identity of screen texts across more than a century of
cinema, television and ‘new’ media.
Titles in this ser ies include:
Film Reboots
Edited by Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis
Reanimated: The Contemporary American Horror Remake
.d By Laura Mee
e
vre
se Gender and Seriality: Practices and Politics of Contemporary US Television
r sth By Maria Sulimma
g
ir llA
.sse
rP
ytisre
vin
U
h
g
ru
b
n
id
E
.0
2
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd iiii 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
Film Reboots
Edited by Daniel Herbert and
Constantine Verevis
.d
e
vre
se
r sth
g
ir llA
.sse
rP
ytisre
vin
U
h
g
ru
b
n
id
E
.0
2
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd iiiiii 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books
and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge
scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance.
For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com
© editorial matter and organisation Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis, 2020
© the chapters their several authors, 2020
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
Typeset in 11/13 Ehrhardt MT by
.d IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and
e
vre printed and bound in Great Britain
se
r sth A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
g
ir llA .sse IISSBBNN 997788 11 44774444 55113368 93 ((hwaerbdrbeaacdky) PDF)
rP
ytisre ISBN 978 1 4744 5139 0 (epub)
vin The right of Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis to be identified as the editors of this work has been
U
h asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related
g
rub Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
n
id
E
.0
2
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd iivv 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction: Film Reboots 1
Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis
Part I Industry and Commerce
1 Rethinking the ‘Supersystem’: Film Reboots and the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Daniel Herbert 19
.d
e
vre 2 Live Long and Prosper: Rebooting Star Trek and Reimagining
ser sthg EFarinnd Homanna 33
ir llA
.sse 3 The Many Reboots of the Batman 47
rP ytisre Eileen R. Meehan
vin Part II Structure and Narrative
U
h
g
ru 4 The Edge of Reality: Replicating Blade Runner 65
b
n
idE Constantine Verevis
.0
2
02 5 Gender, Genre and the Reboot: From Ocean’s 11/Eleven to
©
th Ocean’s 8/Eight 81
g
iryp Jennifer Forrest
o
C
6 Understanding Twin Peaks: The Return as a ‘Film Reboot’ via
Anti-Franchise Discourses Within Media Franchising 97
Matt Hills
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd vv 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
vi CONTENTS
7 All This Has Happened Before: Mythic Repetition in the
Film-to-Television Reboot 111
Nicholas Benson and Jonathan Gray
Part III Politics and Identity
8 Resistance and Empire: Star Wars and the Social Justice Reboot 127
Derek Johnson
9 Rebooting the Politics of the Sports Melodrama: Creed vs Rocky 143
Chuck Tryon
10 Ghost Girls: Ghostbusters, Popular Feminism and the
Gender-Swap Reboot 157
Claire Perkins
Part IV Fans and Audiences
11 Reboot, Requel, Legacyquel: Jurassic World and the
Nostalgia Franchise 173
Kathleen Loock
12 World-building, Retconning and Legacy Rebooting:
Alien and Contemporary Media Franchise Strategies 189
James Fleury
13 Anticipating the Reboot: Teasing Top Gun 2 205
Paul Grainge
14 A Dark Knight on Elm Street: Discursive Regimes of
.d (Sub)Cultural Value, Paratextual Bonding, and the Perils of
e
vre Remaking and Rebooting Canonical Horror Cinema 219
se
r sth William Proctor
g
ir llA
.sse Index 233
rP
ytisre
vin
U
h
g
ru
b
n
id
E
.0
2
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd vvii 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
Figures and Tables
FIGURES
2.1 An objectifying shot of Uhura as she removes her top,
Star Trek (2009) 41
2.2 A shot of Kirk in bed with a woman, her face and body obscured
by shadow, appears between two suggestive shots of Uhura in the
film’s trailer, Star Trek (2009) 41
.d
evre 2.3 A shot of Uhura and Kirk’s first meeting is taken out of context
ser sthg icnh aorradcetre rtso, sSutgagr eTstr eak s (e2x0u0a9l )r elationship between the two 41
ir llA
.sse 4.1 Deckard emerges from the shadows, Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 68
rP
ytisre 4.2 Rachael replicated, Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 76
vinU 4.3 Deckard finds his daughter, Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 77
h
g
rub 5.1 Danny Ocean appears before a New Jersey parole review board,
n
idE Ocean’s Eleven (2001) 83
.0
2
0
2 © 5.2 Keeping it in the family, Debbie Ocean appears before another
thg New Jersey parole review board, Ocean’s Eight (2018) 84
iryp
o
C 11.1 Gray’s View-Master expresses Jurassic World ’s (2015)
self-understanding as a nostalgia-driven reboot 180
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd vviiii 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
viii FIGURES AND TABLES
11.2 Serial progression: Gray and Zach’s ‘Gyrosphere’ ride echoes
and surpasses the View-Master’s immersive experience
Jurassic World (2015) 183
11.3 Backward-gazing temporalities of the nostalgia franchise:
Jurassic World (2015) privileges ideas of white, middle-class
heteronormativity 185
13.1 Artefacts of Top Gun nostalgia, photo by author 207
TABLES
3.1 Budget and revenues for WCI’s Superman films 56
3.2 Budget and revenues for WCI’s Batman films 57
3.3 Budget and revenues for TWI’s Batman films 58
.d
e
vre
se
r sth
g
ir llA
.sse
rP
ytisre
vin
U
h
g
ru
b
n
id
E
.0
2
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd vviiiiii 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM
Notes on Contributors
Nicholas Benson is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Com-
munication Studies at Augustana College, Illinois. His work has appeared in
Critical Studies in Television and Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
James Fleury is a lecturer in Film and Media Studies at Washington University
in St Louis. He received his PhD in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA in
2019. He is the co-editor of the anthology The Franchise Era: Managing Media in
the Digital Economy (2019). His publications have appeared in Mediascape (2012,
2015), the South Atlantic Review (2015), and the edited collections James Bond
and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional Superspy (2014) and
.d
e Content Wars: Tech Empires vs. Media Empires (forthcoming). He is currently
vre
se preparing a monograph based on his doctoral dissertation, which analyses the
r sth history of video game development and licensing at Warner Bros.
g
ir llA
.sse Jennifer Forrest is Professor of French at Texas State University. She is
rP ytisre tPhrea cctoic-ee d(i2t0o0r 2w),i tthh Le eeodnitaorrd oKfo Tosh eo fL Degeeandd R Rinegteurrsn:s T ahned R Demieas kHe ainr dTerh eAornyo tahnedr
vin
U Day: Essays on Film Series (2008) and Decadent Aesthetics and the Acrobat in
h
g
ru Fin-de-Siècle France (2019). Her media-related publications in journals and
b
n
id book chapters centre on remakes and seriality in cinema and television.
E
.0
2
0
2 © Paul Grainge is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University
thg of Nottingham. His books include Promotional Screen Industries (co-authored
irypo with Catherine Johnson, 2015), Ephemeral Media: Transitory Screen Culture
C
from Television to YouTube (ed. 2011), Brand Hollywood: Selling Entertain-
ment in a Global Media Age (2008), Film Histories: An Introduction and Reader
(ed. 2007), Memory and Popular Film (ed. 2003) and Monochrome Memories:
Nostalgia and Style in Retro America (2002).
66335599__HHeerrbbeerrtt aanndd VVeerreevviiss..iinndddd iixx 2211//0077//2200 44::3344 PPMM