How many times can a character reboot himself?

[B.R.Stateham]

I'm off to see the new Star Trek movie this afternoon. Actually looking forward to it. I want to see for myself how this 'new' Kirk matches up with the 'old' Kirk of legendary fame. So far I've heard mixed reviews. And reading them a few questions came to mind.

How many times can a famous character/movie series. etc., reboot itself? Substitute Star Trek for James Bond or Jason Bourne. New actors--no writers take over and breath a different viewpoint into old friends we grew up with and came to know and enjoy.

What does this say about writers with original ideas sitting around in Hollywood? Or is that a laughable misconception? There are no new ideas. Should we let the old characters die off when the original creators/actors step away?

Frankly I'm really impressed with the new James Bond. I enjoy Lustbader's take on the written form of Jason Bourne. But on the other hand there does seem to be a dearth for anything new.

Or am I being snarky again?

[John McFetridge]

I'll check out your blog.

I'm working in TV right now and I'm getting a whole new perspective from my place not even close to inside. There seems to be a lot less top-down control than I used to think. A lot of good people running around trying to get stuff done.

And you know, it's not Hollywood created these problems on purpose - they're trying to make money, trying to maximize profits like every other business. Hollywood is no better or worse than, say, the car business, it's just lucky it doesn't have any substantial foreign competition. Though I guess some would say that the show I'm working on in Toronto which will be broadcast on CBS is sort of foreign competition.

Publishing, too, has many of the same problems - a few big bestsellers and a lot of books not returning their advances - but a lot of people are trying to make it work better.

The only thing I'm certain of is that it's very hard to get people to spend money ;)

[Karyn J. Powers]

I enjoyed the movie and I have seen most of the casts from the original through the yucky movies and back to the TV series. This was good enough to stand alone and had enough inside lines to connect the generations.

[Deirdre]

I think they would have been better off doing another star trek with Cpt. Calhoun. For those who read the books, and know about the stories after deep space nine.

Calhoun is as awesome as Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sisco and many other star trek characters.

We saw the movie on mother's day. the action was nice. I didn't care for the time-line change, even though in the end it was semi-fixed.

There was some good humor. I always thought McCoy's nickname was "bones" because he was a doctor. In this movie he stated to Kirk: "His wife left him with only his bones." Which I thought was a good one.

Deirdre