Why Reboots/Remakes/Requels (Almost) Never Work

The reason every modern reboot/remake/requel/whatever you want to call them doesn't

work is that production companies want the money and success of the original without wasting

the same time or expenses to make it. So, they essentially disrespect all the essential parts of the originals.

Take Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch. The reason this flopped wasn’t necessarily making Pleakley and Jumba humans, or denying fans Pleakley’s femininity. It was actually the ending, which essentially cheapens the core of the movie. Nani goes off to college, LEAVING HAWAII to study MARINE BIOLOGY in California instead, and Lilo lives with David, Bubbles, etc. This completely disregards their backstory of their parents being dead and the sisters creating a new dysfunctional family. Nani’s departure weakens the“nobody gets left behind” idea if she’s literally leaving her life behind.

Taking it to a popular show, How I Met Your Mother had a sequel starring Hilary Duff titled How I Met Your Father. This had one of the other major issues of sequels in the entertainment business; it had no business being a sequel. It was essentially banking entirely on the nostalgia and procedural aspects of the original, plus occasional surprise cameos.

Wizards Beyond Waverly Place has also been debated as a flop. While not necessarily a failure, it doesn’t hold the same significance the original had. No one wanted a story about the least interesting character of the show, who had the worst arc and continued it in the sequel. This sequel was obviously a cash grab, and somewhat poorly planned. The original story led Alex, a strong-minded and chaotically impulsive wizard living in NYC with her family as they train to become full wizards. The sequel lacked a lot of what the original thrived on; a close knit family that viewers believed were related rather than acting as a family. The sets looked like sets, not homes or real places people hung out. Again, it relied heavily on cheap writing and nostalgia.

The series carried on Selena’s recurring appearance, when it should’ve been Billie’s story from

the start.

Take the Now You See Me movies; while nobody expected some award-winning writing within fun action and magicians, each sequel brings the movies to another level of mediocre.

Lula’s character felt forced, and her lines were awkward, due to the writing or her choice in delivery—I’m not entirely sure. The sequel attempts to tie too many different characters and plotlines; Dylan Shrike(Mark Ruffalo) and his father, Thaddeus(Morgan Freeman), and Dylan’s rivalry; Arthur Tresslor(Michael Caine) and his bastard Walter Mabry(Daniel Radcliffe); and that’s not including the heist the Four Horsemen plan. In the third installment, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the new characters' overconfidence made them hard to like, and none of them were established enough for viewers to connect with them in any meaningful way. 

Considering how many years between the three releases, the third movie gives the sense that it was rushed/poorly planned/or actually meant to introduce fans to a new set of leads to hopefully continue the franchise without giving fans anything to care about.

My biggest disappointment, recently anyway, was The Devil Wears Prada 2. As a major fan of the first film, I’ve watched it over a thousand times in the last year alone. The first film creates this larger-than-life antagonist who maintains to be this distant, harsh CEO, but the second doesn’t follow through. Miranda doesn’t maintain consistency within her relationships, and while we live in a world that expects accountability, that doesn’t mean everyone aims for it.

Miranda’s entire persona is that she is a narcissistic prima donna, and if she wasn’t going to embrace it wholeheartedly, the relationships should’ve changed. If Miranda is no longer the cold and cunning businesswomen we remember, then she should’ve been the complete other side of the spectrum with Andrea/Andy’s character having a role reversal in the power dynamics. The sequel was entirely a cash grab, and it shows. Miranda would’ve never given Andy the validation she wanted, she probably would’ve blacklisted Emily if there was actual intent too. If there is no “Devil” in Miranda, the movie lacks the stakes that were shown in the first. To top it off, Andy still being a sort of broke journalist (albeit winning awards sure) and being terrified of Miranda completely ruins her growth at the end of the original.

Across the years of entertainment, movies and TV shows have disappointed fans for out-of-character decisions, putting money into pushing out content no one asked for instead of what viewers hoped for, and underdeveloping the story and their characters. Not every animated hit needs a live-action, and not every childhood show needs a sequel years later, but if you’re going to do it—at least try to care?

Written by, Grace Almonte