Well, once again within a space of less than fifteen years Spider-Man will be rebooted for a third time.
In less time than that Batman is beeing rebboted from the Nolan/Bale collaborations via Batman v Superman due out next year.
With franchises being retooled, reloaded, reset , and blended at an almost heart attack pace it leaves many older fans confused with the whole mess.
The common but ill-used battle cry is "you've ruined my childhood" or something to that effect, whice of course younger fans who live in a stew of change, sensory overload, and swim in a sea of social media take turns laughing and pointing at the old folks they deem worthy for the scrap heap.
And now on to the test case, Mission:Impossible. For those not in the know this spy-fi franchise was not started when Tom Cruise and his teeth bit into the spy genre, it actually began in 1966 on the small screen led by the future Law & Order elder statesman, Steven Hill as Daniel Briggs.
Beginning with the second season the role of leader was taken over by Peter Graves as stoic, yet , sensitive, Jim Phelps. The second main charatcer was the ultimate spy and and second in command, Barney Collier, played by Greg Morris.
In a role unprecednted for anAfrican-American at the time Morris's Collier was a tech genius, chemistry wizard, accomplished SCUBA diver, and formidable hand to hand combatant. WIth this just the start of a pedigree, the Cruise reboot was more than a dissapointment for the foillowing reasons:
1) The dishonoring of Jim Phelps in the first movie, just to clear the way for Cruise's Ethan Hunt
2) Instead of a capable, tough, tech and spy, we get a wated VingRhames as a computer hacker more worried about his Gucci loafers than TBC
3) Instead of inteeligent heists as the first film tried to pull off, we get shoot outs, every other film Hunt gets betrayed, and almost every film, the IMF team is out in the wind for no other reason but the drama.
You may not think a lot about this but, consider the last time a fovorite franchise or character of yours was rebooted or retooled for box office gross and sales.
Batman's now a tech suit, Superman has no powers, and rides a motorcycle, and who knows where Marvel will be going with their comicbook reboots. It's hard not to connect with a child hood when it's changed for you all of the time. Maybe you can watch Saturday morning cartoons, oh wait,
they're gone, too.