“You either die a hero or you live long enough to make yourself the villain.”
The line from 2008 The dark knight made Harvey Dent a part of the Meme Canon, but at the same time it may have accidentally predicted the future of Hollywood reboots. To like Creed or Netflix Cobra KaiMore and more restart / continuation stories are turning heroes into villains and villains into heroes.
Mighty Ducks: Game ChangersThe Disney Plus series, which is bringing Emilio Estevez’s Gordon Bombay back on the ice to coach a new group of Ragtag hockey players, could be the epitome of the trops. Heck, it might even be smart satire
On a new episode of Polygons Galaxy BrainsHosts Dave Schilling and Jonah Ray rummage through the latest chapter in the Mighty Ducks franchise and find that (1) it’s actually quite funny, and (2) expectations for a restarted Disney show are completely rising. Subsequently, Dave and Jonah also envision the scenario in which the premise of a role with reversed ducks would be an obvious candidate for the green light:
Dave: It seems to me that the original has a certain ambivalence Mighty ducksthat there’s a kind of “Eh, that was a long time ago and now it’s too corporate” because the Mighty Ducks are the bad guys! But why?
Jonah Undermine expectations! This is the elevator clearance. “It’s a restart of The mighty ducks… “” Eh, I’ve heard that before. “” … but they are the bad guys! “” What did you say? What the crap
Did you just say The Mighty Ducks, our special little boys, are them bad Boys? Fuck you … I’m in. ”
Dave and Jonah reached out to the screenwriter to investigate the recent trend in reboots and the intimidating task of rebooting a property John Augustwho previously wrote reincarnations of Charlie’s angel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factoryand Disney’s recent live action Aladdin. Here’s a taste of how August came across his own postmodern questions while developing a reboot:
We faced a similar thing Charlie’s angel. And that was a restart where we had this legendary ’70s TV show that was wonderful but also problematic in many ways. Those three beautiful women who work for this mysterious boss, and the sexuality of them, didn’t feel entirely appropriate for a movie. And so, in those first few conversations, Drew Barrymore brought me to a meeting and we sat on a couch just really talking about what it was felt
how and to come up with a tone in which the angels were something like “your stupid little sister who kinda wins the Olympics” that is really annoying but also great. These women could be incredibly effective when they are at work, but only huge fools when not at work. That was crucial and just right for you. Then we thought about it: what is the actual plot, the story that could bring us to this point?
For a greater, deeper immersion in Mighty Ducks: Game Changers and the tricky practice of restarting large franchises Check out the new installment of Galaxy Brains, out now Wherever you can get your podcasts.