I'm not particularly fond of reboots myself, but then again, there are so many movies they thought were a great idea back in the 70s, 80s or 90s and they looked terrible and probably hurt the franchise more. As it is I feel that movies of some kind of "intellectual property", be it a comic, a game or a book, should be worthy of it.
I guess, I'm happy that Tim Burton, back in the late 80s picked up Batman, otherwise we'd still have our Adam West Batman... which surely isn't why I like to read the dark knights illustrated stories. And I guess the same can be said about that crappy Captain America movie from the 90s, Spiderman back in the.. I believe 70s, and so on. I guess back in the day, it looked fine for fans of the theme/character, but I'm to believe that we're slowly getting to a level where some, not all, movies actually do the characters justice (and I'm looking at all those comicbook movies mostly). At least, from a technological point of view. We have the tools to make great CGI; I remember seeing the Power rangers movie in the theatre and those zords and the CGI back in the day... oh man... great as a teen, but compared to now...
It however, puzzles me that in less than 20 years, we see reboots of movies that feel more like "yeah, let's just reintroduce this character" rather than it actually feels like an improvement. Granted, that The 3rd Spiderman movie with Sandman and Venom wasn't the best overall, I felt that Sam Raimi's series at least had perfect casting; those characters actually looked like the ones from the cartoon for most part. That installment with Garfield now... ugh. Just that, makes me cringe... it's sad when the most interesting part in such a movie is Stan Lee's cameo.
I saw a movie poster for the new Fantastic four the other day... the person who was best portrayed on that poster was The thing. And the idea that Dr. Doom is some kind of hacker now... really?
What irks me with reboots is they stray so far from the source material it's not even funny anymore. Heck, it's not even a bad joke either. Kudos for creativity if you can make it sound and look good; but I don't know if anyone remembers all the rage when that Turtles movie was announced last year or so. One of the first tidbits was that they would be aliens, not mutants. Despite the movie is based on a comic, cartoon and toyline called "Teenage
mutant ninja turtles".
I guess I'm also partial that some movies worked great in a certain era. The zeitgeist of that era summed it up perfectly. Some just translate terrible to this day and age (even if it's just, say.. 20 years later). I found some appeal in the Ninja turtles movies back in the 90s as a kid, because it oozed (pun intended) all kinds of late 80s/early 90s stuff. I think it's among the reasons why it worked and was quite popular.
A final thing I'll add about reboots that doesn't sit well with me is when specific directors get their mits on it to film it. Some directors, as good as they are in their craft, just don't have the right "style" to suit it IMO. I mean... Bayformers...
But in defense, there have been a few decent reboots/remakes I suppose. I already mentioned Captain America. Spiderman (the Sam Raimi trilogy), Batman (both the Tim Burton ones and the Nolan ones; I shall not speak of Batman forever or Batman and robin). And actually... one of my favorite movies, which has been "remade" in it's own weird way, The thing. John Carpenters The thing was already a remake by a 1950s movie called The thing from another world. So back in 2012, word had it, it's a remake from the Carpenter one. However, it's not e remake, it's a prequel. Still I guess it made the movie slightly relevant again in general (The thing, as a body horror flick, not neccesarily just Carpenters iteration). And I quite liked Robocop that came out last year or so. That movie is a good example of 80s style all over it which might've done well with a bit of a modern day rehash.
And now a remake of "Mad Max" is about to be released. It never ends!
Ahem... that is no remake... it's the fourth movie in the series.