The Walt Disney Company owns Marvel and Star Wars, two massive multimedia brands that rake in millions of dollars every year. And, yet, Disney hasn’t forgotten its roots, choosing to follow a recent trend and bring back a classic 1987 television series, DuckTales, completely rebuilt from the ground up. It’s only the most recent in a long string of corporations coming back to older franchises and series in the recent years.

    Other recent remakes for cartoon shows include the lukewarmly received Powerpuff Girls and Teen Titans Go; both of which, unlike DuckTales, have received criticism for the lack of planning, story design, and animation quality. Other, better received, reboots include three Netflix’s series: Mystery Science Theater 3000, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and a new animated Voltron series. Students weigh in on their opinions on how many different companies have decided to cash in on older series.

    While most of the new reboots have proven financially successful,  it’s also been argued that the most relevant reason for these shows to come back is purely from fan demand, who believe the original runs either ended too early, or would be able to be improved with the world’s advancements in television and animation technologies.

     S“I think this revival of previously ended or canceled series are going to become very stale and saturated in the near future, but for now, I am living in a paradise of nostalgia. I love the fact that those shows that were not given a chance are now being brought back,” said senior Rutger Scott, thinking of Twin Peaks. “It doesn’t seem like the show runners revive these as potential money makers, it seems revived by the sheer will and enthusiasm to see them alive again. I’m excited but sadly this excitement will die and I will be wanting something original.” 

    Due to the prevalence of media online, it’s become quite easy to watch older shows from years before, meaning that even shows from the early 1970s have widespread fan bases due to streaming, allowing for a chance for the companies that own their rights to remake the show for a new generation, improving and updating the original formula while keeping the premade characters and setting.

    Thanks to the internet allowing even old shows to have wide fanbases and streaming able to spread just about any media instantly, it’s become incredibly profitable to invest in older, already established franchises, characters and story being able to copied while the animation is redrawn or the characters recast. It’s easy to believe in this world, with Disney as a powerhouse with Marvel and dozens of original films to offer up, the streaming service, despite the lack of popularity, will make quite the profit from people eager for animated films and classic Disney movies on the go.