Devisionism

Right now this is a blog post about media, but in 20 years I may edit it to make puppies the focus.

Remember that movie, Goldeneye?
In-Game BrosnanPierce Brosnan as James Bond doing the shooty-jumpy-explodey-spy-thing. They turned it into a video game at the time of its release, a classic for the GameCube that I wasted many hours on in my youth.

Like many media properties in these apparently creatively-devoid days, someone thought it was time for a remake. This time around, however, Brosnan isn’t the man facing off against rogue Russians, they’ve opted to update the game by inserting current-Bond, Daniel Craig, into the role.Daniel Craig as James Bond in GoldeneyeThis, to me, falls directly in line with the buggering up of Star Wars, and the removal of weapons from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.

At some level these are pop-cultural artifacts that are being monkeyed with – what happens when DVD becomes entirely digital and then that becomes some crazy cloud based share-system, and the “early versions” are progressively culled?

“So what?” I can hear that guy at the back of the room saying, “I don’t care if Han shot first.”

Fine – but what happens when a precedent of historical editing is put in place and Akira Kurosawa’s great-great-great-granddaughter decides Seven Samurai would be better if it featured an animated cyber-rabbit as well as digitally inserted Olsen-Twin septuplets as the leads?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3-LxmrFm40]