I went to see “The Amazing Spider-Man” last night. I had assumed that I would see a continuation of the other Spider-man films. Nope, “The Amazing Spider-Man” reverted back to the beginning, with hapless Peter Parker encountering a spider. It appears that a super hero’s daily life of fighting crime, thwarting a nemesis, or saving the planet, just isn’t as interesting as the discovery/creation/realization of the superpower. If we have to sit through “the beginning” again, can’t we at least indulge ourselves with a new storyline? Isn’t it possible that there’s a secret lurking, and Spider-man didn’t actually become Spider-man the way everyone thought? “The Amazing Spider-Man” was actually a decent movie, but it made Hollywood writers look lazy.
As I was waiting for the feature Spider-man film to begin, I watched the trailer to a film that looked oddly familiar. The movie was finally revealed as “Total Recall,” a remake of the 1990 film. Yup, Hollywood is definitely lazy.
I’m all for building a brand if it makes money. That’s just good business. But, Hollywood seems to have cornered the market on the repeats. TV has lots of knock-offs too, but seems to have discovered the originality of reality show stars. They’re real people, not new actors and actresses playing old characters. So where does this all leave literature? Would anyone dare to re-write an American Classic like “Huckleberry Finn” to extend the Mark Twain brand? Maybe a famous children’s book like “Good Night Moon,” should be re-released with the same illustrations and different text, or different illustrations and the same text?
At least memoirs have one thing going for them, they’re original. Nobody’s life is a repeat.
kelleytjansson 
Agreed. So many movies feel like repeats of other movies, and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find a movie that I would like to watch. Thank goodness for Pixar, always coming up with new things for us!