Raising the undead

The big talk in the blogverse today — well, besides this, or this — is of a planned Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. This is obviously a very bad idea, especially since it will reportedly be without the involvement of creator Joss Whedon. Whedon, however, doesn’t own the rights to the character — Fran Rubel Kuzui, the director of the original Buffy film, does — so such a project could conceivably go forward:

The new “Buffy” film, however, would have no connection to the TV series, nor would it use popular supporting characters like Angel, Willow, Xander or Spike. Vertigo and [Fran Rubel] Kuzui are looking to restart the story line without trampling on the beloved existing universe created by Whedon, putting the parties in a similar situation faced by Paramount, J.J. Abrams and his crew when relaunching “Star Trek.”One of the underlying ideas of “Buffy” allows Vertigo and Kuzui to do just that: that each generation has its own vampire slayer to protect it. The goal would be to make a darker, event-sized movie that would, of course, have franchise potential.

I suppose nobody told Kuzui that her Buffy movie wasn’t very good? (Seriously, I don’t think many people are waiting around for the return of Kristy Swanson or Luke Perry’s Pike.)

The worst thing about the success of the new Star Trek reboot is that it’s encouraging this sort of behavior, suggesting remakes where none needs to be made. Just because you can kickstart a series doesn’t mean you should. What’s especially annoying about this one, however, is that, unlike the Trek franchise, the Buffy brand is still going strong. It doesn’t need a kickstart.

Occasionally a reboot can work — I’ve gone into some detail on why I think the new Star Trek doesn’t — but there needs to be a reason for it, beyond corporate synergy or the desire to make lots of money. Battlestar Galactica, for instance, worked — when it worked, which wasn’t always, and with increasingly less frequency as the series went on — because it took a relatively bad series, or at least one that was not well loved or well remembered, and made it its own, with its own story to tell.

You could argue that it ultimately failed in the telling, but I don’t think you could argue that the attempt was without merit.

Kuzui’s attempt, however, seems like exceptionally poor judgment. I’m hoping there’s no truth to this story, or the idea will die a merciful death in committee.

Unless, of course, Whedon does get involved. Then I might be willing to consider it.