I’ve seen this before

It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This seems to be no truer than right now in the film and television industries.

We as viewers are being swarmed by remakes or reinterpretations of properties thought long dead.

Name any intellectual property you’ve enjoyed over the last 20 years, and chances are someone in Hollywood is scheming to make it again. Except this time it will star Shia LaBeouf and a soundtrack by Linkin Park.

From a business perspective, it creates an initial audience before the first minute is shot.

Did you like “Transformers” as a kid? Then you’re going to see the Michael Bay summer blockbuster.

“Knight Rider?” Well, there’s a new NBC series this fall (with Hasselhoff in tow).
The executives have realized that our love for nostalgia gives them a cash cow in ideas they merely need to recycle and update.

We partly owe this to the remakes that were successes. Films like 1986’s “Little Shop of Horrors,” 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead” or 2006’s “The Departed”  immediately spring to mind.

Sci-Fi reinvented the laughably bad 1980’s “Battlestar Galactica” show into one of the best dramas around. But are a few improved versions worth the multitude of mistakes we have to sit through? For every “The Ring,” there are thirty “Dark Waters.”

In truth, this practice has been going on almost as long as film itself. Stories are adapted through the generations to make them relevant. Classics like “The Wizard of Oz”  are no longer considered owned by an individual but as cultural treasures that need to be shared (and laws on these properties reflect it).

Is this what media is trying to do for us? Is the new “Death Race” an attempt to share that story of triumph and revenge with a new class of consumers? Does that make Jason Statham our new Aesop?

Maybe I’m being optimistic, but there must be some media not completely driven by the need to increase profits. “The Lord of the Rings” showed care and respect for the original source material.

I know this because I liked that one. And that really seems to be the key. If a remake is good and stays true enough to the source material, the fans will rejoice (or if not, flood the internet hate forums with their rage).
I move the argument that we should acknowledge the remake as a necessary evil but not be content to sit idly by.

We need to celebrate those who create original content for us to digest.
We need more people like the scientist who invented the Toaster Strudel, realizing people were tired of the same old toaster breakfast treats. But at the same time, sometimes I feel like a pop tart for breakfast because I know what to expect.
As much as I loathe “Napoleon Dynamite” for the year of quotations I endured, it created a new story and was something that hadn’t been done before.