darkSpyro

Real talk. Ever since Batman Begins, nearly everything is a reboot. I can understand that some previously established on-going stories become confusing or descend into so many levels of stupid, that moving forward would be pointless because people will point out what the characters did before makes them unlikeable or at least no longer taken seriously. Despite the new Star Wars movie looking great, we have to remember it's the same timeline in which Jar Jar Binks exists and most of the Jedi were stupid and selfish. Then there's how Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is canon to the original continuity. The closest to rectifying past dumb plots was how Superman Returns was made as the true sequel to Superman II and not Superman III or IV.

But it does it always have to be this way? Are companies really afraid that people today won't follow on-going story-plots that they "have" to be rebooted? I mean no offence I just can't see how Capcom thought Devil May Cry was convoluted after 4 games that mostly have flashy cutscenes between 2001 and 2008 while Resident Evil has the same ongoing timeline since 1996 with 20-30 games. It's not fair to slag off Capcom alone when the new Thief game not only disregards previous games but also what made them good in the first place. I imagine most people the idea of Final Fantasy being rebooted is to abandon the unique art styles and just call it "Final Fantasy" and future sequels with "Final Fantasy 2", "Final Fantasy Revelations" or "Rise of Final Fantasy."

Kids, don't be afraid of an on-going storyline that's older than you. Give these non-reboots a chance.

I can't speak for the video games, but in movies, I never thought reboots were because kids couldn't keep up with the story, I always assumed it was to have a more modern interpretation to have a larger audience, different actors, or the old formula wasn't successful etc.

DC right now is doing this creativity over continuity gimmick and it gets pretty annoying how there are two Red Robins running around or how one Batman is Jum Gordon while there's another who is a god. While this gimmick sounded cool in theory it didn't really sell titles and made DC sales go down significantly. It didn't regally affect me but I can see how it could be confusing to others. The DC universe is suppose to be a whole new universe that can be entered through a book yet it seems that the DCYou reboot made it as confusing as the Zelda timeline. Marvel on the other hand is in a weird period where the Secret Wars event is closing while The All New All Different reboot is starting which is not as confusing as DC but it just seems weird how you have a whole new world on the brink of destruction and books that take place 8 months after as if nothing happened.

I think kids love continuity, if shows like Justice League (and the rest of the DCAU), Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Avatar: the Last Airbender (and its sequel), or pretty much any Transformers show are anything to go by (all highly successful and very heavy in terms of continuity). But the networks and advertisers hate it because it forces them to be more selective about when they air a show and in what order the episodes are aired. Remember, the TV industry is structured around commercials and getting people to watch episodes of shows while they are randomly flipping through channels. Shows without continuity, like Simpsons, Spongebob, or Teen Titans Go, work best for this structure because there is no prior info needed when you randomly catch a random episode, hence why you see them air so much


However, I think the growing popularity of streaming is going to make continuity more popular, since viewers can choose what episode they want to watch and can watch as many episodes in a row as they want.

I find it annoying how a lot of stuff keeps getting rebooted too. For example, the DMC series and Spyro didn't need rebooting. Spyro had a few games considered terrible to the majority after the first three (although I did like AHT), but Spyro was still popular and could have been revived a different way. TLOS did worse for Spyro than good and changed the game so much that if the name 'Spyro' wasn't in the title people wouldn't have thought of it as a Spyro game. Same thoughts apply to DMC.

However sometimes it's acceptable, like Spiderman. I enjoyed the first Amazing Spiderman movie but the second movie was terrible, so I'm glad that it's getting rebooted and is going to be done properly with Marvel.

Also, there are games franchises that I do feel need rebooting. Like for instance the Mega Man franchise. I never liked how the there were game series in the franchise set in different time periods; I just like having one time period and all the characters appearing in that timeline (Zelda is an exception since it has been done very well). Also the X series became a trainwreck and definitely needs rebooting.

^ Spyro may be a dragon, but he's a very small one, with purple scales and a cartoonish appearance. He's a dragon, but a dragon that's 'family friendly'. And I'm pretty sure there's a joke behind this too, because in the classic series characters like Hunter find it unbelievable that Spyro is a dragon. Spyro wasn't meant for the dark and series genre; TLOS didn't even do well and I honestly think that if TLOS wasn't a Spyro game it would have done better.

I do agree that TLOS could have been a great series and I did like ANB, but the combat system was terrible, TEN and especially DOTD were terrible games and Spyro himself was a horrible and boring character, and his character got worse with each sequel.

Also, I thought that TLOS was made because ETD and AHT failed, and people just thought they weren't generally good games, especially ETD. Sometimes I feel that Spyro would have taken a different direction if ETD was given time to be completed.