Along the same lines, I think I saw a pointless Johnny Depp remake of The Lone Ranger a while back.
As with the Beave, the original was better. Not good really, if you try to dig into the core values, but a source of very simple brainless satisfactions, if you don’t.
Near the start of the very first TV episode, I did find, and appreciate, this:
***
I was thinking about old oversimplified media values versus new pointless media ‘values’. Last time I was in the truck I heard on NPR that HBO or somebody was doing a show called Velma, a live-action remake of the Scooby-Doo cartoon. But this one is told from the point of view of the Velma character (of course it is), who is now Asian and bisexual (of course she is). All real edgy hip stuff.
The gibbering critic on NPR hated it, and said that “both sides” of the cultural divide hated it too, though for differing reasons.
What I hate is the fiction that there are two sides to the culture. It’s the same lameness that claims there are two sides in Congress. Noam Chomsky used to talk all the time about how these false narrow dichotomies are the foundational basis for the Manufacturing Of Consent.
I thought some about Star Trek too. Once upon a time it was comforting to imagine that kind of sci-fi future, because that future could still seem plausible, even when it seemed unlikely.
Most hardcore Star Trek fans are also hardcore Democrats, and this is not accidental. The series imagines a future where there is no income inequality and no racism, et cetera, et cetera. Underlying it all is the Lie of Progress.
I’m not sure where Trek stands on abortion. Presumably there would be a Super Pill, so that no one would have unintended pregnancies, and there would also be universal health care as a human right, so that the pill would be free. Plus, women would never need to worry about being able to feed a child, or worry about having to pay for its shoes, or dental work, or college; worry about it ending up suicidal or homeless or both.
The problem of access to an energy grid is solved by warp engines or some shit, and the problem of movement is taken care of with transporters, so vacationing in Space Italy would be a real thing for more than just the relatively wealthy. Hop on the pad and have lunch in Turin, why not?
I still let myself be comforted by those post-capitalist myths sometimes, but mostly I see that as a weakness in myself, a self-delusion I’d be better off without.
The years count down.
We now continue with our regularly scheduled program already in ‘progress’.