This dogshit makes me think of @thejaymo's excellent podcasts on "Cultural Fracking" - the tendency in the past decade or two not to develop new ideas or stories but to mine the comforting, profitable lands of old successes - especially nostalgia for the 80s and 90s https://twitter.com/SpittingImage/status/1313510530951393282

I think a much greater threat to cultural life today than "cancel culture" or "political correctness" is the refusal to invest cash in new ideas and writers, and the anxiery around innovation. Why take a risk on new characters and stories, when you can offer soothing nostalgia?

You could go to the cinema every week for a year and probably never watch a new movie that doesn't have its genesis in the 20th Century, whether that's eternal extended universes like Marvel, sequels like Star Wars, or remakes like the Lion King

It's partly about risk vs return on investment, and it's partly about a consumer desire for comfort, and it's partly about extended universes where fans can respond online to how "their" characters are treated. I'm not saying there's not value in EU's but it can't be everything

I have no high hopes for satire but when you have an authoritarian government with a stonking majority, fighting a idiotic culture war, rammed full of clownish wankers, you could at least make it good. If this weren't a remake, it wouldn't register at all.