I can't really imagine this new rendition having the same edge as the original did - but I'd be very happy to be proven wrong on this.
My prediction is, that they are going to look at the original Max Headroom material, and make a slightly more tame clone of that.
I can't imagine them making a highly critical satire that shames modern day television hosts (and youtube content creators), the same way the original did with TV hosts of the day.
The original was a bitingly harsh piss-take on everything wrong with TV.
A true-to-the-roots recreation of that would have to be a bitingly harsh piss-take on everything wrong with today's social media + TV + internet culture.
Reboots almost always suck. The only exception I can think of is rebooted Battlestar Galactica which was great. All the new star trek suck - Orville is unironically truer to the original star trek vision then Discover or Picard. So what will they do to Max Headroom? Odds are that it will be ruined, but I also would love to be proven wrong on this.
Also, a really key part of the original was the actor Matt Frewer. It'll be a tough job to find someone like him.
While you are certainly right that many reboots fall into "uninspired money-grab" territory, it wasn't necessarily my intention to imply that the Max Headroom reboot will suck.
It might suck - but it might also turn out to be quite good. I don't know.
But regardless of it's quality - I just can't see it having the same sort of bite.
Achieving the same level of bite would require the jokes and themes to be updated to apply to the current day media landscape.
I agree with this and would add that updating the themes/jokes to the modern media landscape will not likely have the same bite as they did in the original. This is because modern media today is chock full of self-aware critiques, whereas back then this type of thing was less common and felt edgier because of it.
My expectations are low, but I will check it out if they make it - hope reigns.
I predict a dark and gritty remake where instead of cracking wise at the network executives Max mopes around questioning the existential nature of his being.
Space Feather (a YouTuber who makes excellent video essays) has an awesome video essay on the older Max Headroom series: On Max Headroom: The Most Misunderstood Joke on TV [0]
Elijah Wood and Christopher Cantwell are behind the reboot, so it should be quite fun to watch!
As a beside, I still think Halt and Catch Fire is the most underappreciated TV series ever!
Interesting video. Thanks for sharing. I have only the vaguest memory of Max Headroom and seeing that brought back some memories. I think trying to paint him as a stereotypical ideal Aryan is a bit of a stretch, but the rest seemed pretty on the mark.
The connections he makes later in the show from Headroom to modern Twitch streamers and saying "I want to see Max Headroom playing a video game" brought to mind modern vtubers. Certainly the tech is there now for someone to do a "real time" Max Headroom that actually is computer animated, though implementing the glitches would probably take some custom development of some sort.
That said, I think the proper approach for the show would be to do it in a retro-futuristic way and have it look much like the original media's perception of "the future" was. So as little CGI as possible, and all the TVs are still 4:3 tubes with big knobs. I highly doubt they'll take that approach, though; too much effort.
> implementing the glitches would probably take some custom development of some sort
OBS and the StreamFX plugin would get you a hell of a lot of distance before needing too much custom code I imagine. Very nice bit of kit. Cool glitchy effects if you layer stuff up
When I heard Matt Frewer was involved I initially said, "At his age?!" Then I remembered, it's not 1987, and Max can actually be computer animated this time around. Though in fairness he was spry enough in Altered Carbon that it probably wouldn't be too bad either way.
> Space Feather (a YouTuber who makes excellent video essays) has an awesome video essay on the older Max Headroom series: On Max Headroom: The Most Misunderstood Joke on TV [0]
I don't know if it's part of a joke, but he doesn't seem to distinguish properly between TV, broadcast TV, and cable TV. Specifically he talks a looong time about broadcast TV while calling it "Cable TV."
Oof, the allthatsinteresting.com writeup (2021) is awfully similar to my telling of the incident (2007)[1]. Emphasis on awful. There are too many lazy "authors" out there willing to flirt with plagiarism in the name of generating content. And then Google rewards them for having newer content. Sigh.
It's interesting how nearly all these links are about the TV signal hijacking, and not the original show/character itself. I guess it goes to show what captures the imagination.
There was an alien quality to the original (I rewatched it about 5 years ago). Looking at the Wikipedia article, one of the production companies is in the UK.
My prediction is this..if the reboot is because some media group is sitting on a stack of money they need to spend, they’ll make a hash of it. They’ll spend money like they’re investing, and not creatively.
My prediction is, that they are going to look at the original Max Headroom material, and make a slightly more tame clone of that.
I can't imagine them making a highly critical satire that shames modern day television hosts (and youtube content creators), the same way the original did with TV hosts of the day.
The original was a bitingly harsh piss-take on everything wrong with TV. A true-to-the-roots recreation of that would have to be a bitingly harsh piss-take on everything wrong with today's social media + TV + internet culture.