Is anything original???

[Julia1996]

Hi everyone. It seems like every newer movie is a remake of some old version. I mentioned to my dad that poltergeist was on FXX tonight and he said he wanted to see how it measured up to the original. Original? Apparently this movie is a remake of one from the 70s. One of my favorite series,BSG was actually a show in the 70s. I was talking about how I didn't care for wonder woman and my grandpa said he liked the original wonderwoman better. Again, a show from the 70s. I totally loved war of the worlds and I found out is a remake of a movie from like the 40s.  It happens with music apparently too. My grandma was over one day and more,more,more by Rachel Stevens came up on my playlist. My grandma said she hadn't heard that song in like 20 years. I told her she must be thinking about another song because it was only maybe five years old. She informed me that no, it was much older and that they played it in discos when she was young.

I don't understand why the entertainment industry can't think of anything original. It annoys me when I talk about a movie or TV show and someone says " the original was better".

[Chloe]

I'm original!! The more things change the more they stay the same???

The origin of the Walking Dead zombie virus is too 

[MaryT]

You've got me trying to think of something really good, new and original.  I haven't thought of anything yet, but my age is probably partly to blame.  I probably wouldn't recognise good, original modern music even if I heard it.  Even about 20 years ago, what I thought was the howling and incompetent guitar playing of the boy next door turned out to be a recording of Oasis.

It is true that if anything has been successful in the past, it is milked to death by remakes.  I can't believe that they've already made new Spider-Man and Mummy movies with  new stars. 

I didn't know that they had remade Poltergeist.  The good news for me is that I didn't particularly like the first one, so there is just a chance that I might like the new one better. 

[Dena]

Shakespeare's works have been rewritten many times and created modern works like West Side Story however one of the first I heard was music with none other than Bach. You decide which version you like more.

[Artesia]

Most of the time, the second version is worse than the original.

I, however, like the Harry Chapin and Ugly Kid Joe versions of Cat's in the Cradle.  It seemed that Ugly Kid Joe was more faithful to the original than most other remakes.

[Roll]

Short answer: No. At least 99% of entertainment is recycled in some form. Movies and television series in particular are often adaptations of older works (which makes sense, since it'd be very hard to have adapted newer works without time travel), be they books, other tv shows and movies, video games, or comic books. But this is not the terrible thing people make it out to be.

The important part isn't that something is original, it's that it is done well. Sometimes, not very often, remakes are even superior to the original and expand upon it in ways the original could only dream of. Westworld comes to mind as a good recent example, though this is not to say Crichton's original was anything but excellent. Perhaps Spiderman Homecoming is an even more interesting example, as it is a reboot of a movie that is a sequel of a reboot of a movie that is a sequel to a sequel of an adaptation of a comic book that has numerous other adaptations including whatever the hell this is: . SUPAIDAA MAN. Kiiimiiiiii wa naaaaaze, kiimiiiiiii wa naaaaze... *Ahem*... Anywho...

Sometimes even creators of the original work will remake their own work with better budgets, newer technology, or just attempt to do what they feel they failed to the first time around.

[MaryT]

According to Christopher Booker, there are only 7 story plots.  That means that we can't create a story without deliberately or accidentally copying important features of someone else's story.  Perhaps the problem is not lack of originality, but successful branding.  E.g. the new Poltergeist could be regarded as an original movie with an old brand.  Similarly for all of the remakes of Spider-Man, Batman and Robin Hood, etc.  Or, perhaps there is no problem.

The musicologist Sigmund Spaeth suggested that all popular music is a mixture of other popular music, so there can't be anything totally original there, either.  He came up with the following as an example, sung to the tune of Yes, We have No Bananas (your favourite song, Ellie Roll?):

"Hallelujah, Bananas! Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me
I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls—the kind that you seldom see
I was seeing Nellie home, to an old-fashioned garden: but,
Hallelujah, Bananas! Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!"

There might not be much that is original and good right now, but that was probably true at most stages in history.  Remember, the past is a heckuva lot longer than what we regard as the present, so it makes sense that most of the good stuff was created in the past.

[MaryT]

Shakespeare's works have been rewritten many times and created modern works like West Side Story however one of the first I heard was music with none other than Bach. You decide which version you like more.

The sound on my laptop isn't working at the moment, so I will play the videos on another device when I get the chance.  If the first video is based on Bach's original music, I can say that I like both.  Until I have listened to both again, I can't be sure, but from what I remember of Apollo 100s version, it included only the main organ tune.  In Bach's original, the lyrics were sung to a tune different to the main organ tune but in counterpoint to it.  So, purely from memory, I would have to say I prefer Bach's original, but I'll have to wait and see.

[Roll]

He came up with the following as an example, sung to the tune of Yes, We have No Bananas (your favourite song, Ellie Roll?):

It's between this and the song about fish heads.

[DawnOday]

Actually Wow was a radio show by Orson Wells. At the time everyone listened to Serials like the Green Hornet or Lone Ranger. What made this different is they treated it as breaking news. It has been filmed several times.

[Julia1996]

Actually Wow was a radio show by Orson Wells. At the time everyone listened to Serials like the Green Hornet or Lone Ranger. What made this different is they treated it as breaking news. It has been filmed several times.

Orson wells...isn't that the guy who scared like a lot of people with some fake story about the end of the world or something?

[DawnOday]

Orson wells...isn't that the guy who scared like a lot of people with some fake story about the end of the world or something?

Yes, he also did one of the best movies of all time Citizen Kane.  And the scary movie you referenced is War of the World.

[MaryT]

Actually Wow was a radio show by Orson Wells. At the time everyone listened to Serials like the Green Hornet or Lone Ranger. What made this different is they treated it as breaking news. It has been filmed several times.

Orson wells...isn't that the guy who scared like a lot of people with some fake story about the end of the world or something?

The radio version of War of the Worlds, to which Dawn referred, was said to have caused a panic, and I even heard that someone commited suicide in fear of the Martians.  Those stories have since been challenged, but it is still accepted that some people in Grover's Mill NJ, where the first Martians were said to have landed, fired at their own water tower, believing it to be a Martian war machine.

[Roll]

The War of the Worlds panic is a classic case of news media run amok, so much so that I didn't realize it actually was basically just an urban legend fueled by sensationalism until recently, and I am usually pretty good about falling prey to that sort of stuff (at least I like to think I am, but I may be totally wrong since that's the nature of that particular beast). Snopes has a good article on it. Basically it was the media talking about how powerful and influential the media was, which sort of speaks for itself.

However it is true that the Superman radio serial helped to bring down the KKK.

[MaryT]

However it is true that the Superman radio serial helped to bring down the KKK.

Re-using a recognisable brand character to tell a story can help to influence society, then.  How did that happen?

[Roll]

Re-using a recognisable brand character to tell a story can help to influence society, then.  How did that happen?

Essentially, a guy infiltrated the KKK and collected a bunch of intel. He wasn't sure what else to do with it, and wound up pitching the KKK as villains to the producers of the Superman radio show while offering his information as a way to make it realistic and draw in the audience. They loved the idea and ran with it, resulting in a series of episodes where Superman fought the KKK using inside information, making the KKK just look like a bunch of idiots (which they were). Recruitment dropped substantially, and active members left.

There was an episode of the show Drunk History on it that was just brilliant.

[Julia1996]

Essentially, a guy infiltrated the KKK and collected a bunch of intel. He wasn't sure what else to do with it, and wound up pitching the KKK as villains to the producers of the Superman radio show while offering his information as a way to make it realistic and draw in the audience. They loved the idea and ran with it, resulting in a series of episodes where Superman fought the KKK using inside information, making the KKK just look like a bunch of idiots (which they were). Recruitment dropped substantially, and active members left.

There was an episode of the show Drunk History on it that was just brilliant.

Um....ok, what do you mean when you say radio show. You don't see anything from radio so you can't have a radio show. Did you mean a TV show?

[MaryT]

Um....ok, what do you mean when you say radio show. You don't see anything from radio so you can't have a radio show. Did you mean a TV show?

I see what you mean but I also often call radio programmes radio shows, although perhaps it should be a misnomer.  I tend to use "show" and "programme" interchangably.  Roll and I are not the only ones.  In Britain, on BBC, there is, e.g. a programme called The Radio 1 Breakfast Show.

[Artesia]

Don't forget that language shifts through the years as well.  Comic strips were formerly known as the funnies.  Hacks were people who were bad at their job, not ways to make life easier. 

[Roll]

Um....ok, what do you mean when you say radio show. You don't see anything from radio so you can't have a radio show. Did you mean a TV show?

Actually, despite the verb's literal definition "show", show as a noun does not have to be expressly visible. It is often summed up as simply "public entertainment" or equivalent definitions in dictionaries. Dates back to the beginning of radio even. For instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-time_radio_programs
Do a search for "show" in that list, you will get 50+ examples. Language is weird.