According the The Guardian, "With Ryder herself now 41, the role is likely to be recast." First off, how rude! Have they not seen her lately? She is an ageless goddess. But really, who are they going to find to have a meltdown over the definition of irony as convincingly as Wino? Selena Gomez? I can believe it's not butter and I'm not happy about it. Same goes for recasting Ethan Hawke and Janeane Garofalo. Those actors inhabited their characters so thoroughly that I still think of Janeane keeping a diary next to her bed that harbors the names of all her sexual conquests and Ethan stealing Snickers.
2. Insanity is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over and Expecting Different Results.
Considering Ben Stiller directed and starred in the original, shouldn't he know how this is going to play out? His well-meaning-but-mercilessly-square character takes Lelaina's artistic documentary and turns it into an embarrassing, shallow reality show. And then he is humiliated and broken up with and judged for eternity. Apparently, once wasn't enough. In case he didn't receive the message clearly enough when Troy let him have it, here it is again: you have indeed stepped over some line in the sands of coolness with us and no there is no secret handshake, just an IQ prerequisite.
3. What Else Is There To Say?
Reality Bites already summed up the clumsy post-college existential crisis. One would hope that Ben Stiller and co. have fresh ideas and new insights into this growing pain stage, but let's be real: if they did, wouldn't they just come up with a brand new idea? Picture the risk: Lelaina and her friends just graduated from NYU and are now slumming it in Brooklyn or Queens and Vickie is folding clothes at American Apparel instead of the Gap and Michael says hashtag in real life and Lelaina wallows at home watching Netflix instead of talking on the phone to a psychic with a Southern accent. This is assuming the adaptors plan on updating the narrative to present day. If they intend to keep it in the '90s, that's its own problem and will basically be what Vickie feared her funeral would be like: everyone wearing halter tops or chokers or some shit.
4. Broadening Its Appeal Means Killing It Dead.
When it was released in 1994, Reality Bites wasn't exactly a smash hit. It was only afterwards that the movie found its audience and reached cult status. Word is that this TV adaptation is meant for NBC (where good shows are murdered every year). The very idea of moving something from the silver screen to the smaller one involves turning the product into something more mainstream or relatable by softening its eccentricities, i.e. the very things that make the product worth revisiting. Lest we forget the TV adaptation of Clueless! (Take a moment of silence for the harm that show inflicted and for our dearly departed Brittany Murphy who continues to roll with the homies in the sky).
5. The Theme Song Will Never Be As Good As Lisa Loeb's "Stay."
Either the adaptors get Zooey Deschannel to cover the song or they embark on a quest to find Lisa in whatever hiding place she's in (maybe she shares one with the equally-hard-to-find Lisa Frank?) and make her rerecord her hit for the show's opening credits. Either option would be like replacing the child you've raised for 19 years with someone who kind of looks like him. Not going to fly with us or with Angelina Jolie.
There are approximately 9,438 more reasons why this should never ever happen. Leave them in the comments!
