I'm sure I'm not the only person who has noticed, but lately it seems as though we've been inundated with revised, re-hashed, re-done, re-gurgitated ideas for movies that are taking old TV shows and movies and giving them a CGI re-face before tossing them into the theaters. Let me be the first to say that I see this as nothing more than the creative teams in Hollywood reaching back to 1980's well-loved themes and characters, polishing them up, and releasing them to an uneducated youth of today who have no concept of how great the originals were. In short, they are taking classics and re-vamping them in ways that were unheard of back in the day. To this, I have only one thing to say:

THIS IS FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!!!!

Look, I'm all about preserving the integrity of the past, but let's face it.... anyone who grew up in the 80's like I did knows that there's very little integrity to preserve in the shows and movies that came out during that decade. For those of you that doubt me on this... ALF came out that decade. Nuff said.

It may seem weird to hear this from someone who loves the creative process, but I'm absolutely enjoying the influx of 70's and 80's ideas being re-made into modern movies. Just in case anyone out there is not clear on how many of these new movies are NOT new ideas:

Charlies Angels, The A-Team, Inspector Gadget, Underdog, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Clash of the Titans, Flashdance, Longest Yard, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Brady Bunch, Scooby Doo, Garfield, War of the Worlds, Alice in Wonderland, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Lord of the Rings, Night of the Living Dead, Italian Job, Dragnet, Karate Kid, Marmaduke... I could go on, but you get the idea.

Now, this is just tv shows and movies we're talking about here. I haven't even touched on the comic books and video games that have been adapted for movies, which is whole other reason for sci-fi super geeks like me to get excited. Some people may see this as a sobering reminder that all the good ideas for movies are taken, and I'd be inclinded to agree with them. If I'm being honest as a creative thinker, it's a little sad to think that we can't come up with any new material. It's troubling that writers now have to reach back to ideas that have already proven themselves as a safe alternative to pushing the creative margin. Granted, re-doing tried and true favorites of past generations has it's own pitfalls. It's easy draw the ire of those who think that appropriate respect wasn't given to characters and stories that they defined their childhood on. But by definition, there's no real creative genius behind bringing old stories into the new century.

Despite this, I say: who F'N cares? Yes, there's not as much creativity in the process but this isn't about being creative from the ground up. This is about taking some of the best memories we have of old imagery and characters and making them known to a new generations. True, sometimes these fall flat (Underdog didn't quite hit the mark), but in many cases it causes us to instantly revert back to when we still knew what summer vacation was (TRANSFORMERS!!!!!!!).

Here's the bottom line in my opinion. A lot of the flack that these movies are getting are mainly because people start thinking too much and stop remembering how these shows made us feel. Let's face it: the animation was crap, the stories were predicable, the writing was elementary, and the production was quick and dirty. Even so, think about how those shows made us FEEL. Despite all the lousy animation, we still waited to see Lion-O draw the Sword of Omens the next afternoon. Even though the stories were predicable, we still tuned in to see if Hannibal's plan came together. Although the writing sucked, we still wanted to know more since knowing was half the battle. It was never about the quality of the show (God knows, it had nothing to do with that), it was about the entertainment it provided and how they allowed us to lose ourselves temporarily in a world that was cooler and more exciting than our own. Now that we have them appearing in modern movies, we get the one thing that was missing: the quality of the production. Some would argue that putting the word "quality" with the concept of the 80's TV show is like mixing oil and water. That may have some truth behind it, but ultimately we must ask ourselves if this criticism means anything in the overall scope of why we watch movies in the first place. Put simply, are we entertained? For myself, HELL YES!

So I close with the notion that those of us from the 80's are resting comfortably in the knowledge that we have many a childhood rememberance already on the big screen and many, many more to come. No doubt, the critics and critiques will continue to hammer them relentlessly, but as they have endured in our hearts over the last few decades, they will endure on the silver screen as well. Besides, TRON is coming soon... so you critics can kiss the backside of my light-cycle if you don't like it!