I appreciate that - you could argue it's different enough from its predecessor to even qualify as a reboot. Nonetheless, in addition to a basic continuity of characters and even sets, a lot of the approaches the makers took were practically reactions to the preceding film, so I do think it's a good example.

"Aliens is about as perfect as a sequel can be, in part because it’s so distinct from the original Alien." I'd take it a bit further and say the best sequels do tend to be almost antithesis of the prior film:

I would have definitely had some scenes of intrigue in a cosmopolitan Latin American city like BA. Probably would have kept the finale being about an ancient destructive force at a lost temple in the jungle, just without the dumb, "Plus it's also a flying saucer that contains relics from all over the world, and the…

They could've also still had part of it take place in South America, what with all the Nazi war criminals who escaped there.

I really do think they missed a good opportunity by skipping over the 40's. They could have had Indy roaming through a bombed-out post war Europe, seeking out relics plundered by the Nazis while dealing with all the competing occupying factions and black market profiteers. Give it a sort of a noirish "Third Man" vibe.…

Yeah as I posted above, calling it a "blend" almost pays it too much of a compliment. More like a MS Word "find and replace" job.

"Nixon is survied by three daughters, a son, 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren." … and her EVIL TWIN. But in all seriousness, as corny as the old soaps sometimes were, they were Shakespeare compared to what's on daytimes now.

The thing about seeing the ending of the original "Fly" as a youngster is that it enraged me more than anything else. I mean, here's this thing with a human head and voice begging and screaming for help, and these two nimrods mostly just stand there with their mouths agape until one decides to smash the spider AND the…

I've never actually read the book, so I wouldn't know. Though, I can't believe it could possibly be as big a divergence from the source material as 1995's "The Scarlet Letter," with its hot tub scenes and such.

So for my contrarian statement of the day: I've always enjoyed "The Thing From Another World" much more than "The Thing." The latter is definitely solid Carpenter and all, but the '51 version just sort of has a novelty of being so of its era. There's just so much of that post-World War II, "Hey, we're Americans. We…

My understanding was that the ending of the 50's was tacked-on at the behest of the studio. The original intention was to end with the far bleaker (and iconic) scene of Kevin McCarthy screaming his head off in the middle of the road, while everybody mostly ignores him or treats him like a raving lunatic. (And BTW, no…

It's always been my sense that the term "remake" is more typically used in connection with original movies that get remade. When you make another version of a literary classic, it's typically called an "adaptation."

I think a lot of Democrats were afraid Holt would pull a Lauer - that he would do some combination of putting Clinton through the Spanish Inquisition while lobbing softballs at Trump, or just let Trump lie all over the place. In the end, he did call out Trump on birtherism and his support for the Iraq war, but in the…

That really is all he had to do. I mean, he didn't even need to be Reagan level coherent (general, rehearsed platitudes with a few witty comeback lines). He just had to be Bush II level (not terribly articulate, but at least affable). Couldn't pull it off.

The A/B plot structure is probably the weakest aspect of the traditional multi-camera sitcom. Half the time the "B" plot was just a single gag. Particularly infuriating was when that week's teasers would be edited to make you think the B plot was actually going to be the focus of the show

Maybe they were kicking around doing a story arc about Jill finally getting fed up with Tim screwing up their appliances and kicking him out. Also, Tool Time gets cancelled due to declining ratings. Tim's in a funk, crashing on the couch of his until now never mentioned gay, theatrical makeup and costume designing…

And '93 was right in its prime.

My grandparents were no dummies, but let's just say they didn't have particularly cultivated tastes, either. They LOVED Home Improvement during its run. As in, if they started discussing the show they would practically talk about the characters as if they were real people. They always regarded Seinfeld with a mix of…

The photo of the NuTrek guys reminds me of one of my (admittedly many) gripes about those movies: The way the Enterprise bridge is designed and photographed. In the TV series and many of the films (especially The Motion Picture and Khan), the bridge is both nerve center and soul of the ship. It's where all the action…

And he doesn't even change her script. His monologue is almost hers verbatim.