Editorial: Reboots, Remakes, A.I., and Dolly the Sheep

Earlier this week, the talk around the Screaming Eye Press office was about the reboot, or maybe remake, or possible soft-reboot/sequel to Time Bandits. I assume we have all seen Time Bandits? If you haven’t, you need to watch it. It’s a great movie from director Terry Gilliam. Also, if you haven’t, I would like a detailed story as to how you ended up with this magazine in front of you?

Moving on.

They are remaking Time Bandits. Your first question was probably either, “Fuck! Why?” like two of the fellas down at the office, or “Who is this ‘we’ that is remaking Time Bandits?” I belong in the second camp.

I want to know who is doing it for one reason and one reason alone: civic responsibility. Reboots and remakes are much like human cloning, nuclear weapons, and artificial intelligence. They are all inevitable. The choice is out of our hands.

Now you can make the argument that we can all get together and decide that “there will be no reboots, no remakes, no human cloning, and no artificial intelligence.” While it is highly unlikely we are all going to get together, it could happen. But what about rogue states and bad actors? What about Iran getting a nuclear weapon? What about China using A.I. in economic warfare? What about North Korea making 1 million carbon copy clones of their fearless leader? What about this fucking remake of Time Bandits?

For all of these things, the technology is there. For all of these things, there is some madman that has made a choice. All we can do is exercise civic responsibility. We can’t stop these things. We can only involve ourselves in the hope that the rewards can be reaped and the repercussions can be contained. There are some good names attached. Only time will tell…