Once, ages ago, I read that this was happening. I chose not to believe it, given my attachment to what’s left of my sanity in this mad world. But it would appear that it is, in some awful twisted sense of the word, real. They have turned Time Bandits into an Apple TV show. Here, why don’t you watch the trailer? (If prone to suicidal ideation, watching trailer not advised).

And there we have it. From the worst song choice since the last trailer I made the mistake of watching, to an endless stream of insipid dialogue stating out loud what is in fact occurring before our eyes, to every choice on view made with the apparent goal of destroying whatever joy one found in the film it is eviscerating.

I think I imagined it was over, the raping and pillaging of my childhood, that everything I loved had already been fully exhumed, zombified, decapitated, boiled down, eaten, regurgitated, and molded into the bland paste now passing as “entertainment product.” What choice did I have but to protect myself, psychologically, than to believe it was over? That there was nothing left? That nobody was going to remake Repo Man, or turn The Hidden into a TV show, or reboot the Qatsi trilogy, or make a teen musical comedy of Videodrome?

Deep down I knew it wasn’t over. It’s never over. Not until everything has been consumed. Consumed, shat out, and served up like it’s fresh. Only then may all of that be consumed, and shat out again, and eaten anew. We’re doing AI’s work for it, or, rather, we’ve invented AI to do the work, our work, for us.

But our tails are growing shorter. The circle is tightening. How long before the nostalgia machine is eating itself? What happens when it does? Tune in to Apple TV and find out!