I'm kind of the exact opposite—I think it's horrifying that we're furthering a media-illiterate culture in which old movies are erased and just repackaged for newer generations. For a number of reasons:

1.) It's pretty much ruined original storytelling on a big scale. What are kids these days growing up on in terms of hit movies? Outside of original Pixar movies and . . . Frozen?, it's all repackagings of stuff their parents grew up on. Disney remakes, superhero adaptations, Star Wars sequels, new Harry Potter movies. Instead of having the chance to develop their own cultural loves which they then pass on to kids, they're getting fed this regurgitated mass of our nostalgia catering to us.

Not that I'm against showing kids movies you loved growing up at all! But there's a fundamental difference between doing that in an environment where they have their own movies to fall in love with and making it the only game in town. Especially when the new versions being shoved in their faces are, like that Lion King clip, devoid of care, artistic intent, and resonance.

2.) The fact that you showed Back to the Future to your son and he loved it is proof positive that new generations showing distaste for "old" media isn't something that's inevitable. It just takes an environment that's willing to expose them to those old things with respect and enthusiasm, the way Eddie's dad did with him when he was growing up. Making inferior versions of the old media to cater to modern trends and then selling it all over again isn't cultivating a respect for old stories; it's implicitly saying they're "inferior" and need to be updated to suit the latest fashion, whether or not that's actually better. It's not actually helping people to love old stories, it's exacerbating their being steamrolled over. It's as if someone were to try to remake Citizen Kane in color with 3D and shaky-cam and then say "All we're doing is helping this story find its footing with a modern audience!" All that does is condescend both to the modern audience and old movies.

Oh hey, remember Teague's Disney Cinematic Universe bit from earlier in this thread? From Polygon's review:

I promise to stop posting about Disney specifically for a while because it's starting to be a broken record, but it's just . . . this is the future of moviemaking. Empty automatons that don't even pretend to be anything more than a corporation whoring out its previous works of art for a buck, that are by any objective measure ugly as sin, that cynically rub it in your face that all they are is exercises in branding . . . and still make a billion dollars. We're approaching the nostalgia event horizon.

I have loved this The Thing poster for ages. Just discovered that prints are available and was financially irresponsible.

(Yes I know it misspells Campbell's name but everything else is too fucking cool.)

Just saw this one for the first time and am currently enjoying a "new" DiF as a result. Had my mind minorly blown when Dorkman referenced "that non-Avatar 2 movie Cameron is working on now, Battle Angel Alita" . . . in 2010. Man takes his sweet time, don't he?

Spending the afternoon trying to find as many wildly different variations on "In Walked Bud" as possible. For science.

Nah, a Bogoth is what Lupin keeps in a cabinet to scare students.

Not necessarily, unfortunately. If enough congresspeople aren't present then a vote can't be held.

Not cool so much as hilarious: Tom Hanks is a god. https://twitter.com/MarceloJPico/status … 5775775744

Ooh, this is hard.

Is there a God and why?

I am pretty damn sure that my own contributions here do not hold up, but the thread as a whole was just a perfect example of the forum at its best: a lengthy and somewhat heated debate that never devolved into a flame war and ended with dirty limericks.

The Hyacinth Disaster
Most of this got eaten by the DiFpocalypse, but it was so fucking cool watching Writhyn take this all the way through to completion. The finished product is the result of behind-the-scenes labor that is now lost to history, but said product is still awesome so all's well that ends well.

Obscure personal questions
Couple this one with The Table, which basically serves the same function. I never get tired of the weird/amusing/profound little stories this community has buried inside us.

Announcement: Goodnight, Goodnight!
How the fuck was this four years ago Jesus fucking Christ.

Um . . . Shia?
Consistently forget the events this thread is a reaction to ever happened until I periodically go through old forum posts and rediscover the madness.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot the next prompt. Top five episodes of television. Just individual episodes—the context of the series doesn't have to matter.

Bump!

Starting fresh—top five favorite foods to make.

Am currently copyediting a book on "philosophy" by a former Republican governor, and the gobsmacking hypocrisy of these people re: religion never ceases to amaze. Almost every single time this guy touches on Christianity, he's just completely wrong about what he's saying.

Like, Genesis 1:1. The first verse in the whole damn Bible. Impossible to fuck it up.

Except THIS asshat writes that it says

Also claims that the Bible teaches Jesus was the first person to experience an afterlife, which it IN NO WAY says.

But of course this guy ran as the godly/moral candidate, tried to pass incredibly restrictive abortion laws, and was in favor of a same-sex marriage ban in his state, despite evidently not knowing incredibly basic tenets of his "faith," which I, the atheist, am now correcting him on in his copyedit.

Is it really that hard to just . . . google the first verse of the Bible? If you're going to fake it at least put some effort in.