Twisters Shows Hollywood How Soft Reboots Should Work
New films of existing franchises have mostly served as either sequels or remakes, but we’re now living in the golden age of “soft reboots” which keep us in the same world while delivering new characters and adventures. Mainstream audiences who think about soft reboots (assuming they think of them at all) usually imagine examples like The Force Awakens or Jurassic World. However, Twisters has just blown into theaters like an uncontrollable force of nature and now serves as the ultimate example of how to create a soft reboot.
The Ideal Soft Reboot
In order to make this argument, I’m going to be delving into several spoilers for Twisters. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s really worth going into with an open mind. But if you’ve already seen this movie or you enjoy driving into spoilers with the manic glee our protagonists enjoy driving into tornadoes, then keep reading to discover how Twisters just created the new ideal for soft reboots.
Out With The Old, In With The New
First of all, while Twisters is set in the same world as the original film, it is otherwise its own adventure, meaning that you won’t be seeing any cameos from Helen Hunt or other returning actors from the first film.
Soft reboots like The Force Awakens have had returning characters like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, but as history has proven, the return of such popular icons threatens to overshadow the introduction of new characters.
By deliberately centering on a new cast of characters (including Glen Powell’s charismatic storm-chasing YouTuber), Twisters allows audiences to fall in love with a new crew rather than needlessly splitting our attention.
Calls Back To What Works, Updates What Doesn’t
Second, while Twisters has some of the same trappings of the original film narrative (like rival teams of storm chasers and a climax involving a tornado-related science experiment), the new plot feels both very original and very modern.
Plot points like a shady real estate developer trying to screw over poor people and a YouTuber who literally risks death for clout seem all too relatable, and that does more than separate the sequel from the dated original.
These plots also serve to ground the film, something that makes the more fantastical elements (like using a tricked-out pickup truck to kill a tornado) easier to believe.
Doesn’t Need To Rely On Canon
Third and finally, Twisters writer Mark L. Smith is wise enough to embrace the “man vs. nature” theme of the original film and let the killer tornadoes serve as the most powerful link between films. Nature itself is the recurring antagonist, one that doesn’t require any clunky linking to anything else (like, say, Kylo Ren hanging onto Darth Vader’s helmet as a morbid keepsake). Without forcing very literal links between the two films, Smith’s writing lets us enjoy the more thematic similarities of this soft reboot (like our heroes choosing empathy over profit and science over fame).
This Soft Reboot Is Storming The Box Office
The end result is that Twisters is the ultimate soft reboot: a movie that can be thoroughly enjoyed by fans of the original or as its own standalone experience. Given the runaway success of the film, I can only hope that Hollywood follows this formula more closely in the future, especially because we are destined to continue getting so many sequels and remakes. This new film is enough to make us all feel that soft reboots don’t have to simply be lame retreads of what came before, and I hope future directors and producers embrace the frequent tagline of Twisters: if you feel it, chase it.
