Shani O. Hilton, guest-blogging for Ta-Nehisi Coates, uses the recent James Bond films to argue against the cinematic reboot:
Last year, I argued against a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. Having some distance from the immediate argument, I now think what generally sets me against reboots is this: I don't like change. But more than that, a false sense of ownership over art is the driving factor. How dare my Bond get rebooted for these jokers who don't know that in You Only Live Twice, Bond had surgery to create an epicanthic fold in order to make him look Japanese? (Yes, this is where Sean Connery lost me.) How dare my Bond get rebooted for fools who haven't forced themselves to watch the utterly absurd Moonraker (aka James Bond in Space!)? How dare my Bond get rebooted for people who just want another generic action flick that removes most of what makes 007 what it is?
As a nerd, I can sympathize with a false sense of ownership over art, or at least popular culture, but I think Hilton would do well to make the distinction between "reboots" and "remakes." A remake is an attempt to update an existing property -- which may or may not have its origins in an earlier property -- for a new audience. Remakes are something like the upcoming Red Dawn film, an original film property, updated for current sensibilities (in this instance, the Chinese have invaded America). The premise is ridiculous, but that's the point; the idea is to give us the original, in revised form.
By contrast, a reboot is an attempt to go back to make the adaptation more faithful to the original source material. James Bond is based off of a character created by British novelist Ian Fleming, and the earliest films -- Dr. No, for example -- were nearly direct adaptations of the Fleming's (mostly middling) novels. In these early movies -- as in the novels -- Bond was a violent cypher, in unquestioning service to Her Majesty's secret service. As the Bond franchise continued -- from Sean Connery's portrayal, to Roger Moore's, to Timothy Dalton's -- the films moved further away from the original source material. At a certain point, the Roger Moore Bond is a near-farcical version of the one penned by Flemming.
If the 2006 Casino Royale were a remake or attempted homage to the Moore Bond, then Hilton might have reason for complaint. But with its thuggish, misogynist Bond -- and (somewhat) grounded scenario -- Casino Royale isn't a "remake" as much as it is a reboot, and an attempt to return the character to his origins. If anything, Roger Moore is the aberration, not Daniel Craig.
-- Jamelle Bouie
