There are things that Hollywood is missing. Stories as old and strong as the human will. Stories dying to become movies.

There is a story, an age-old story of royalty, the clergy, and warriors. It is a struggle that many schemes and plans are compared to. Kings, queens, bishops, knights … yes, we’re talking chess, baby!

Think about it. How many times have you heard people compare the story/issue/challenge to a game of chess?

1. •“In chess, the pawns go first!” – Magneto, X-Men 3
   

2. •“He’s playing a game of chess, and we’re the pawns!” – Diablo Jones (Matt Walker), Blonde Ambition [deleted scene]
   

3. •“This sh–t’s chess, it ain’t checkers!” – Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), Training Day
   

4. •“What do you think? This is some kind of Nintendo football game? This ain’t Tecmo Bowl, Mother Scratcher!” – Monk Scarnes (Wesley Wheat), Toto’s Revenge
   

OK, in that last quote, he didn’t actually say “scratcher.” Nor was it about chess. And I don’t think it was real, anyway.

Seriously though, can’t you just picture it? Chess: The Movie. Instead of parallels to the game, we could see the queen moving swiftly across the country in all directions, killing bishops and knights, and even destroying castles! The knight with a horse that turns 90 degrees every few steps for no reason. The slothful king that can’t see anyone until he is right next to him.

Oh, you can argue that there have been movies about chess, but those were not interpretations of the game. That’d be like arguing that Chasing Amy was an X-Men movie because the characters worked with comic books.

Reboot vs. Remake

Hollywood has been in love with the remake since before it was known as Hollywood. Do you know how many versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Phantom of the Opera were produced while the name “Hollywoodland” still stood erect on the famous hills above Santa Monica Boulevard? Me neither, but it was at least two of each.

This is fine, though. You take a classic literary work, and you interpret it to the screen. Fine.

Someone else says, “Hey! I read that same book! This is how I pictured everything happening!” And that someone else puts together his own version of that same story.

Now fast-forward to recent years, when people come up with their own ideas for movies (for example, Friday the 13th) that are imagined as movies in the first place. And then someone else comes up and says, “Hey! I saw that movie! This is how I pictured everything happening!”

??? How can you picture something different happening when the only idea of the story comes from the pictures someone else made? It’s more like a “what if…” or rather an “If I…” scenario. “If I’d made that movie, I would have done it this way.”

Whatever your opinion about it, it’s happening. And these aren’t remakes per se. They’re reimaginings.

What’s the difference? Well, a remake updates a story for modern times. It takes a movie, keeps the same story, maybe updates the setting for modern times, and generally tries to tell the same story the original filmmakers were trying to tell. With a reimagining, you’re basically trying to tell the story again, but in a way you can franchise it.

Remakes try to make their money in the single film. Reimaginings are for people that don’t want to make new stories all the time; they just need to add their own spice on top of what’s already there.

If there is a culinary comparison, it is the saucier. Sure, that marinade is great, but what would it be without the tilapia it is served upon?

What have really been taking us, the fervent moviegoers, by storm these days are reboots. These are established franchises that have worn out their welcome, so studios shift them off to other directors and writers and have those folks erase everything that’s happened in previous installations and start again from scratch. Examples include Star Trek, Batman, Hulk, and Superman, though the recent Superman movie didn’t really do anything for the franchise, or the film industry, or the careers of anyone involved with it.

All these things come from other media: television, comic books, etc. These visions are already established before they come to the big screen. So it’s OK for Warner Brothers or Paramount to make a new series of movies, since there is room for more than one perspective on the original material. At least that’s what we are led to believe.

Usually, I don’t care where the story comes from. If you know the characters, you know how they act, in general. And you’ll recognize a good story. Pour on a few explosions, and that’s all she wrote. Proverbially.

I just hope they don’t go overboard on these reboots. It had only been seven years since the last Star Trek movie, and they started the whole thing over. That’s a far cry from the old days.

It could get even closer in the future. Theoretically, every time a film bombs, we could get a reboot the next year. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Producers and studio executives would sit around having conversations like:
“Oh, Land of the Lost totally sucked. You know what the problem was? Alyssa Milano wasn’t in it.”

“You know who would be great to get? That UFC chick, Gina Carano?”

“Oh, she’s hot, but I’m not going to employ a girl that could kick my ass!”

“C’mon, Steve. Almost any girl could kick your ass.”

“Good point. Give her a contract!”