Tim: Matt has an entertaining question to lead us off with today for our discussion of reboots.

Matt: Are these Conversations a reboot of the podcast?

Tim: Here we are, living in our own little rebooted nightmare where we can no longer just say things, but where we must type all of our thoughts instead. I want to say that this is my favorite reboot, but I’m also afraid that’s probably not true.

Matt: Our reboot is probably the most faithful to the original.

We have a related topic/question behind the (unusually) straightforward topic of reboots, and that’s properties/franchises not being left to end. This relates to our last few Conversations, actually, so we seem to have become Poe like in our need to focus on (metaphorical) death.

Tim: (checks the last several ones we’ve done) I think the last time we didn’t fixate on death, metaphorical or otherwise, we were talking about basketball until 5:00 a.m.

Matt: Which is so us it’s absurd. The correct answer, of course, is money. But Tim, why can’t anything end and/or be left alone? Or, this is probably a better question, how often are reboots any good?

Tim: While we’re still here talking about death, I think there really may be something to the question of our own cultural fear of death. A property that isn’t related back to somehow within thirty to fifty years either needs to stand up as some kind of classic on its own merits, or it’s probably been forgotten by all but the most obsessive of armchair historians. I think of the question of “Why can’t we just end this?” as an especially television question, although in the past decade that question has come to the movies as they’ve become increasingly serialized. And for me the question isn’t quite if reboots are good, but how often are they better than the original? That last is really often a suicide mission, because there needs to be some level of quality to the original text for us to want to revisit it at all, and then it’s hard enough to make a good movie without the ghost of the original hanging over us.

Matt: All kinds of weird things are reboots (how many of you know De Palma’s Scarface is a remake?), but why does this feel like a crisis all of a sudden? A crisis to critics anyway who regularly worry about the state of original I.P.

Tim: I tend to start with a kind of idiosyncratic type of reboot, which is the sub-subgenre “movies adapted from musicals adapted from the screenplays of Fellini movies,” which itself could be expanded to include Ingmar Bergman/Smiles of a Summer Night/A Little Night Music/ditto, but we won’t get that funky. But there are at least two of these that are fairly significant: Sweet Charity, Bob Fosse’s first movie from back in 1969, is originally pulled from Nights of Cabiria, and Nine, which you may remember from theaters in 2009, is based on 8 ½. I think about those when you say “crisis to critics,” because in the case of Nine in particular, every critic in the world felt the need to cape for 8 ½, as if that movie’s quality didn’t speak for itself anyway. I tried to watch Sweet Charity without thinking too much about Nights of Cabiria, and tried to write about it without giving much thought to Nights of Cabiria, and while that’s tough it can be done. Mostly I think the issue is we know and love the original IP, and then when someone adapts it—especially to a musical, which is somehow not distant enough from the original—we get really crotchety about judging them against the original, which I don’t think is fair. (That was long way for me to say I don’t think it’s fair to judge the reboot against the original in a way that would demean the quality of the flick generally.)

Matt: I suspect the impulse with something like Nine is that not many people know or remember 8 ½ and it’s a chance to give some shine to a classic film. But there’s a way to do that without using it as a cudgel against the new version. But then we have instances that are reboots of properties but not remakes, and maybe this is more the worry right now. Superheroes and fantasy properties abound. They have rich worlds worth exploring but they start to feel exhausting on the screen.

Seems to me there are two types here: 1) immense worlds that keep expanding whether we want it or not (Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones) and 2) worlds that expand while also remaking their origins (Bond, Spiderman, Batman, etc). Stop me if I’m hopscotching ahead of something you’re interested in…

Tim: This seems like as good a place to sink one’s teeth in as any. I definitely want to add whatever the heck Star Wars is doing to category (1). I feel like also maybe we should trade rants about the Star Wars universe and the Game of Thrones universe, because that’s how this appears to have arrayed itself.

Matt: Love a good rant trade.

Tim: As opposed to a trade that gets one ranting. Sorry. Too soon. I knew it when I typed it.

Matt: I quit. Have fun.

Tim: This ties in, somehow, because Chucky keeps getting rebooted for reasons no one understands and Jon Gruden keeps getting money to coach for reasons no one understands.

Matt: I hope Embiid explodes.

Tim: So while Matt works through his feelings, I’ll open up the Star Wars ranting. This case has been made by other people and by me, but the general idea is that those reboots are really obnoxious because of how painfully safe they are in conception. I don’t even want to step into the new trilogy, which speaks for itself by now, but I think the anthology movies are really the big offenders here. For as much as people like Rogue One, and for as much praise as that movie won, it’s still a movie that relies on a Death Star closing in for its climax. And then there’s Solo, which appears to be a potentially unprecedented failure to understand what audiences actually want. One of the most common refrains on the Internet is “Who asked for this?” but in all seriousness I don’t think anyone asked for a movie that would make crystal clear what the decisions of young Solo were. There are several novels from the old EU that do so (which are fairly entertaining, I’d say), but those at least have the grace not to dictate what Han Solo is supposed to look like and sound like. What Star Wars has been doing a bad job with in its movies is this assumption that people are dying for the same thing over and over again, which is partially the fault of people saying they want the same thing over and over again, but wouldn’t it be nice to get totally new planets and people and situations? As if the universe were not the story of fifteen people?

Matt: The spoiled man-babies of the fandom would tell you no.

Tim: But I think even the spoiled man-babies didn’t see Solo, though. I understand that’s a weird thing to say, because it did make money, but as someone who but for the grace of God might have been such a spoiled man-baby, I haven’t even seen Solo. Nor have I made any attempt to like, catch up with it.

Matt: I meant they would say no to new situations as their The Last Jedi taught us.

Tim: Ah, yes. And gosh, were those new situations really not all that new.

Matt: Most weren’t. But that was the most excited I was about Star Wars in awhile.

There’s a neat little segue to Game of Thrones here but I don’t want to cut off any ranting.

Tim: As a punctuating statement, the most interested I could be in a new Star Wars property would be if it doesn’t include any character or planet I’ve already read/seen; referring back to seems more than fine, but we just don’t need ‘em anymore.

Matt: I’ve just remembered Benioff and Weiss are going to make some Star Wars movies so maybe it’ll start to reboot Game of Thrones instead. In happier news, those two won’t be involved in the impending Game of Thrones prequel. Which, HBO and Martin are right that we fans want more and new material. Where they are wrong is that we want the new freaking books and not a show of events we can infer. If I remember correctly, HBO reviewed four different proposals and have optioned one written by Jane Goldman and Martin which will take place 10,000 years before the main show. So none of the same characters, the same spaces, technically, but it will hardly look the same. All of which seems good! And then the synopsis hits, and I’m paraphrasing here: After the Golden Age of heroes, a dark, mysterious force is on the rise and threatening the realms of man…sound familiar? It’s going to be basically the same story, just a grand origin of it all. Part of what I like about A Song of Ice and Fire is Martin’s understanding that his universe is more or less cyclical and his ruthless consistency in that regard. We don’t need to see the broad stroke of that point on TV again though.

Tim: I think the one thing about the new Game of Thrones, if that’s even the name they stick with, is that it’s too far back in the past (maybe literally too far back in the past) for what happens there to make it seem like the narrative is going to tread on the toes of what’s happened on the TV show as we know it. Isn’t the Lord of the Rings prequel in more jeopardy there?

Matt: Absolutely. I think the Game of Thrones prequel (still untitled) could be good – I know my ranting belies that – but I’m very worried it will be the same plot with new characters. I look forward to new characters, but I don’t want “human hubris ruins the realm and they have to fight White Walkers” again. Especially when there are at least 10,000 years of history to work with here, we can’t find a new plot?  Lord of the Rings, I think, is doing an Aragorn prequel more or less?

Tim: That’s a bad idea.

Matt: It feels like the Solo thing. Who wants this? Especially after they wrecked The Hobbit.

Tim: It’s just so safe. That’s what annoys me most about all of this stuff. I kind of agree with the people who say that you should make this kind of preexisting IP material for people who are fans of the original stuff, because in a time when you can no longer make everyone watch everything, you may as well go for a raging fanbase that can make other people interested just by osmosis. I seem to recall that this was more or less the case for Game of Thrones, when it leapt from “This is a good HBO show that lots of people watch and like” to “The Red Wedding happened and now everyone is trying to catch up with the conversation.”

Matt: The first season of Game of Thrones achieved an impressive amount of cultural osmosis. Lord of the Rings, wherever the new series goes, just feels like a blatant attempt to ride the “Game of Thrones is ending” train. Certainly the latter had influences, but it felt novel for awhile. Lord of the Rings isn’t going to feel like that, especially since they aren’t moving far away from the films.

I’ve been researching a little just now and the showrunners for the (probably) Aragorn thing worked on King Kong, Godzilla, and the new Star Trek. Reboots. Reboots everywhere.

Tim: Which people are those?

Matt: JD Payne and Patrick McKay. Peter Jackson not involved at all, as far as I can tell.

Tim: I don’t even know who those people are. I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with making a career out of like, adaptations, because that happens, but yikes.

Matt: I just don’t see how the series can be new.

Tim: It will probably go up for several Emmy Awards and people will talk about it and Vulture and Vox and whatever your favorite site is will do recap stuff, and more people will probably just have it on in the background, and it will cost a fortune.

Matt: 250 million. Already the most expensive show.

Tim: Woof. Wanna talk about other kind of reboot/franchise ish that may be less depressing but only by inches?

Matt: Sure (unless you have Bond thoughts that go here). Which category do you have in mind?

Tim: I think the Spider-Man thing is particularly instructive, given that everyone’s initial reaction was “Already?” and now everyone is surprisingly okay with Tom Holland just being the third Spider-Man most of us know.

Matt: Six Spider-Man movies since 2002, plus 2 or 3 more appearances. A few superheroes have been appearing a lot, but none of them have had 3 different solo series in less than 20 years.

Tim: For as much as people make fun of the later stages of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, I really did think those would be basically definitive.

Matt: It’s really the third one. Which has some good qualities but is bonkers. The first two are solid to good and helped (with X-Men) kick off this whole superhero mess. Spider-Man and Batman, in particular, are the ones where it becomes “good God, we get it.” How many times do we need to hear the origin story? This, to me, is why people really worry about reboots.

Tim: I wonder how many people who would go to the theater genuinely do not know the bones of the Batman or Spider-Man origin story. But go on.

Matt: I don’t know that I have much beyond that. The only audience could be kids who weren’t cognizant last origin story but, like, just show them the one from 2002. Nothing has changed.

Tim: Or they could just google it.

Matt: Actually, what they should be doing with Spider-Man is the non-Peter Parker versions. If they want to reboot for that I’ll listen.

Related, there are two Joker movies in production. DC needs to remember Batman is interesting because of the breadth of his rogues gallery and not seeing his childhood trauma and the Joker over and over.

Tim: I think at this point the focus groups or whatever they use to inform their decisions have become so Joker oriented that it’ll be hard to push him away.

The other thing that Batman gets into and that I’m perpetually afraid Spider-Man will get thrown at is this need for “adult” or “dark” superheroes in “adult” or “dark” movies, which are categories which frankly do not exist except in the rarest of conditions for superhero movies.

Matt: This is the common distinction between Marvel Studios (and it making boatloads of money) and DC Studios (and it making much less money than it could). Wonder Woman balanced lightness and grit, and Aquaman (long may it live) seems poised to do the same. Not surprisingly, those will be among the best DC movies. To be fair, the DC superheroes can have dark worlds, that seems bred into the comics to some degree, but you need more deft hands than Zack Snyder.

Tim: I think “dark” basically means, for the purposes of this sort of conversation, “movies that make me the audience member feel tough while I identify with the protagonist.” Which is not what dark actually means, but so it goes. And the fact that the Joker can be “dark,” or at least part of the “darkness” Batman fights against, is why we’re going to see him forever.

Matt: Right. Which is actually why I think The Dark Knight can work well (and still be bananas). We shouldn’t want to be Batman in that one. Bruce becomes the surveillance state. Most everyone in that movie is a bad person.

Tim: In fifty years (if we’re still here caveat), I think that scene where Lucius Fox quits, or at least threatens to, after setting up the surveillance system is going to be the scene from The Dark Knight that gets the most critical time in the sun. Maybe the most written about with the exception of that scene in The Avengers where they do the big circle for all of our heroes once they’ve assembled.

Matt: I think it’s already trending that way. Polygon did a Dark Knight week in July (I think) and that scene came up a fair bit. In fifty years I’m still going to be yelling about how screwed up the end of Civil War is, but that’s a rant for another time. Fox should quit and leave. He doesn’t because no superhero movie will abide that (and because he’s also a bad person). Maybe this is the problem with rebooting things about “heroes,” they can’t actually be different or updated.

Tim: They aren’t real characters. Real people must change, and these heroes can never actually change or fail to complete a task, because then they would no longer be heroes. Even the skin-deep stuff about like, Thor changing in a movie or two still doesn’t take away from the important thing, which is that he’s a superstrong being who intercedes against evil forces.

Matt: Waititi finally nailed what Thor should be like on screen and I’m still reveling in that. But your point is right. Might also inform the problems horror movie reboots can run into.

Tim: A transition!

Matt: We have a some!

Tim: I refuse to edit that.

Matt: Horror movies aren’t really dealing in heroes, but the famous villains also can hardly change.

Tim: Nor is there much inclination for us to want them to, I wouldn’t think. We don’t have to follow them on screen or watch their every move or listen to their ideas. They just pop up and kill or scare us or whatever it is their jawn is.

Matt: Horror movies might benefit the most from us tempering our need to compare new versions to old ones. Which does stop if someone makes a good enough version. John Carpenter was great at this. The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13 are reboots (with subsequent reboots) but Carpenter more or less owns those properties. Carpenter also made Halloween which, with Nightmare on Elm St. and Friday the 13th, is a gold standard of rebooted horror franchises.

Tim: Something I know I really appreciate about older horror movies is that they aren’t actually scary? Which sounds weird, but they are situationally frightening instead of jumpy frightening or bloody frightening, and that’s something I know I’d rather watch. Makes me feel more included. And for those people who enjoy the other kind of scare, they have a newer reboot that probably does more of that.

Matt: Texas Chainsaw Massacre would like a word with you. That movie is terrifying.

Tim: Well, I’ll pull back on that a little. Psycho got me a couple of times, and my feelings about The Exorcist are well documented. I have no doubt the original Texas Chainsaw would freak me out. But I’m thinking of Rosemary’s Baby, which always gets put on lists of really scary movies but which isn’t frightening in the “I can’t go to sleep tonight” sense.

Matt: Some of the old ones seem tame or campy now. A lot are situationally scary like you say. They’re going more for a spooky or uncomfortable vibe than sheer terror the whole time. Blumhouse is the big name in horror right now and they have a fair bit in the way of “I won’t sleep tonight.”

Tim: Can I share an update from the World of Teenagers?

Matt: Please.

Tim: The movie club I co-sponsor just screened Jaws this past week, and the scenes in the beginning didn’t freak them out. They did all yell when the guy’s head pops out from the boat while Richard Dreyfuss is down there inspecting. And I was amazed they didn’t think the shark looked too fake. Exhibit #9185 of “I can’t predict what teenagers will react to.”

Matt: I have a Halloween specific lesson plan I’ve done the last few years. It’s ostensibly practice in crafting arguments but really an excuse for me to try to scare freshmen with horror movie clips. Texas Chainsaw freaks them out. Most everything else they can appreciate academically but don’t feel totally scared (sometimes Scream or Halloween will get a couple, and they recognize how messed up The Shining is). What I should have done is shown clips from reboots to see what changes and if it’s better at scaring them.

Tim: I feel like you gotta show them the whole thing.

Matt: The whole what?

Tim: The whole movie. Clips tend not to freak people out on their own.

Matt: Ah. Yeah, but I don’t have that much time. My real goal is to get them to imagine themselves in the scenes, which is a hit and miss proposition.

Tim: Teenagers and empathy…yee.

Matt: Someday! Anyway, do horror movies get the most reboots or does it just feel that way?

Tim: I think they may, but they also get so many sequels that it may accidentally make it feel like they get rebooted more. But off the top of my head I’m going through the horror movies of the past and I’m hard-pressed to think of any short of Rosemary’s Baby that hasn’t been rebooted or slightly reimagined in some way. It’s worth noting that most of these are cheap to reboot and thus it’s not that risky to redo them.

Matt: And a lot of people like a good scare now and again.

Tim: And the characters can scare you in good ways in new settings, which really says something for them.

Matt: You know what else scares moviegoers?

Tim: Endings which don’t come with a bow on top?

Matt: Those and all-female reboots.

Tim: I am amazed at how much ire the Ghostbusters reboot stirred up. I really couldn’t have predicted it before, and I don’t even know that I’d predict it again if it happened. Who knew that many people cared?

Matt: The original Ghostbusters wasn’t much more than a cult favorite before the reboot. Or that’s how it felt anyway.

Tim: But if women play a role played by a man when you were eight, then your childhood is ruined.

I actually liked the Ghostbusters reboot. Most of it is my abiding Kate McKinnon fandom, but it is far from being a bad movie.

Matt: McKinnon is so so good. I liked it too. And I have enough brain space to like it along with the original.

Tim: It interests me that this is a category of reboot, even though as far as I know it only has the two entries (Ocean’s 11, another reboot).

Matt: The reaction was so swift I feel like it has to be. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see more of this type down the line.

Tim: I didn’t see the new Ocean’s 8. Did you?

Matt: Not yet. Which isn’t the best start for us here. But it was getting some of the same misogynistic reaction that Ghostbusters did. From what I’ve read it’s a perfectly fine movie and introduces some fun characters.

Tim: The reaction to those movies even from critics reminds me of the reaction to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s interviews. People tend to judge women on a harsher curve than they judge men on, and the fact that these are “all-women reboots” means they have to overcome the inherent sexism against women or that we judge women on, as well as that toughness we tend to judge reboots with anyway.

Matt: The Star Wars reactions seem to step into this too at times. Rey isn’t Luke and that angers people. As for Ghostbusters, it’s not the original but I don’t want it to be. I like what the movie is and it doesn’t inherently taint the previous version.

Tim: Which is just a magnificent showcase for Kate McKinnon.

Matt: Is it ever.

Tim: I feel like there’s more to say about this kind of reboot subgenre, but maybe there needs to be more of them for it to work?

Matt: Almost certainly. It’s hard to say much from 2 examples. I hope there are more of this type and we can start to see them as a more defined category.

Tim: A quick little Google search reminds me that the all-girl Lord of the Flies is still in production somewhere. And Splash with Channing Tatum, I think, which is not quite the same thing

Matt: So what do you look for in a reboot? Anything in particular?

Tim: …what a fabulous question.

Matt: Maybe this instead. What are reboots that you like?

Tim: I’m going to start by saying that I am looking forward to the Suspiria remake coming out later this year. The two things that I loved the most about the original Dario Argento movie was that it used absolutely ridiculous colors even when people were getting murdered in heinous ways, and second, the soundtrack by Goblin is absolutely ridiculous in its own way. Lots of yelling “WITCH” super loud. And I hope that the Luca Guadagnino version doesn’t include anything like those two things. I hope its photography is different, and I hope its soundtrack is not anything like the Goblin soundtrack. If you’re going to do a reboot, it feels like the best thing you can do for yourself is carve out a new space to tell the story in, because if the story can only work one way then it won’t be much of an experience anyway.

Matt: The trailer doesn’t suggest weird coloring, at least. Hopefully that means it has its own vibe. I want much the same, I think. Reboots shouldn’t be mindless copies, they should find their own way to tell the story. I brought up True Grit during our planning, which is a reboot I really like. You being the Western aficionado here, is it good?

Tim: Heck yes. It’s the kind of Western that I can’t imagine being made in 1969 (even the wry ones aren’t quite that self-knowing), and certainly not the kind of movie I can see John Wayne being in, but it’s definitely a really good piece.

Matt: Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges alone could make it for me. I don’t feel like I’d see their takes on these characters 50 years ago.

Tim: John Wayne and Kim Darby are definitely more stoic than Bridges and Steinfeld. I mean, Bridges is definitely trying a new tack on the character compared to what Wayne was doing.

Matt: It definitely feels like a Coen Brothers joint, too. Which I think speaks to our want of reboots to update good stories/material with new spins.

Tim: But I wonder, too, how much of a new spin can some material take? We’re about to be on our fourth A Star Is Born in a couple months here, and I honestly wonder what we can seriously add to the story that hasn’t been done already. The second one (the Judy Garland one) is interesting because it added singing, and now we look at that like that’s the point of the story. Now that we are on this fourth version, what do we want? Someone to sing better than Judy Garland, or to be as iconic as Barbra Streisand, or to have the old-time glamour of Janet Gaynor? How many reboots is too many before we just have to live with the version we’ve got?

Matt: Apparently this new version adds an insane rollout. From all the press I’m going to be disappointed if this thing isn’t completely bonkers. Cooper and Gaga both have a certain magnetism (individually, we don’t know about together yet), but whether they’re appealing or not at a certain point you’re just making the same thing with new technology.

Tim: That’s something that horror movies can benefit from—although I’m not sure they all do, necessarily—but with character-based stories I can’t imagine that will add much to our understanding or affection for the story. At least they’ve waited…does math…forty-two years for this iteration, which is the most time anyone’s waited to remake it since they did the first one.

Matt: I suspect a lot of people won’t know it’s a remake until they’re told. By which I mean, of course, a lot of younger people. Hasn’t this iteration been in talks for several years with a bunch of names attached?

Tim: I think I heard about this movie for the first time when we were in college. Back then I think it was supposed to be Clint Eastwood and Beyonce.

Matt: There’s a duo. What is it about A Star is Born that it gets this many versions? Nothing is really off limits for a reboot it seems, but I’m curious how this one became so hot.

Tim: Especially since Garland did it, it’s become a really great venue for a woman actor to explode through your screen. Her performance in the ‘54 version is, honestly, one of the best performances and most enthralling I’ve ever seen. And I can see how it’s tempting to sell a vision of Streisand or Gaga or Beyonce, for that matter, filling the screen. It also has the power of a reclamation story or at least a moving one for a man that doesn’t require violence. For James Mason it’s a perfect part (and for Fredric March before him, that’s a good role). For Kris Kristofferson, who I actually like a lot as an actor, it’s a good fit for his basically cool screen presence. I have a hard time believing in Bradley Cooper as an actor most of the time, and I am thoroughly interested/horrified by the idea of him directing this. I am pessimistic…right now I can imagine La La Land hype followed by people like me saying, “What even was this?” and then fighting about it forever.

Matt: Fighting about perception, like reboots, is forever.

Tim: I can’t even imagine having to fight about that kind of thing again. I was so mad on the Internet all the time. And I am preparing to get mad about First Man, but this is off-topic.

You know a reboot I really appreciate? I’m not going to say I like it, but it’s one I think does what it should?

Matt: Flubber?

Tim: That’s funny. I bring up The Last House on the Left all the time, but it does it right.

Matt: My next guess was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which I’m just glad still exists.

Tim: I had a student who memed that movie pretty hard last year and now I’m thinking about it.

Matt: The whole world is so crazy and campy and I love it. Team Jason forever.

Tim: I never watched it as a kid. That or Last House on the Left, which I did see last month and I finally know things about. Anything which asks itself how it can bring a thirteenth century poem turned into a Bergman movie into a world which is eminently recognizable for its bourgeois American viewers in the ‘70s. That’s what makes it scary in a way that The Virgin Spring is pitiable for us instead. Wes Craven ditches the religious angle in favor of the violence, where Bergman does just the opposite. It’s smart work.

Matt: There’s an even newer version, no? (Also I may have talked myself into Power Rangers as a good reboot).

Tim: There is, and I haven’t seen it…you know how I am about those…somewhere between condescending and afraid. It’s almost like I’m an adult in the ‘70s. I’d listen to the Power Rangers take.

Matt: So it’s hard to say a lot of Power Rangers stuff is “good,” but they can certainly be affecting and admirable. At root, it’s a series about teenagers growing up and learning what they’re capable of, what they’re good and bad at, and about building communities. The Ranger identities will always be the same or similar, but they’ve done well at finding new characters to assume the Ranger personas. The film from last year isn’t great, but it has an autistic and an LGBT character without feeling like it’s pandering. I just think Power Rangers is always indebted to the people it’s representing and cares about recontextualizing the tried and true “superheroes morph into animal robots and fight weird villains” model. I watched the TV series a bunch as a kid and was more in it for the action but the show cared about character development (Green/White Ranger Tommy being the prime example) and didn’t shy from the kids beneath the masks. I appreciate it for that.

Tim: This is shaping up to be a legendary B&B B&B take. I dig it very much.

Matt: I never thought I would take about Power Rangers for B&B B&B. I’m delighted.

Tim: Anything else we want to say? Or have we accidentally topped out?

Matt: More reboots exist but I’m not sure I have anymore points to make. How are you feeling?

Tim: I think I have basically sated myself. And I think we have also finished off an arc in our Conversations that’s been going for a while.

Matt: An impressive bit of world-building on our part.

Tim: Well, maybe not that long. But it feels like a while.

Matt: And I think next time is a return to an insane list?

Tim: (It will be done by then?)

Matt: Yeah, two posts left but they’re already written.

Tim: I am excite. Insane lists are our specialty, which you should read “spes-ee-al-it-ee.”