Which franchises do (and don't) need big-screen reboots?

Is reboot-mania getting out of hand? There’s a forthcoming straight-to-cable Scooby-Doo live action movie, featuring young unknowns and none of the actors in the two Sarah Michelle Gellar/Freddie Prinze big-screen releases, about how the Mystery Machine gang got together in the first place. Granted, this should answer some longstanding burning questions (How old are these kids supposed to be? What do they do for money? Why aren’t people who spend all their time debunking the paranormal more freaked out by the fact that their dog can talk?), but it makes me wonder: how much backstory do we really need on our favorite characters?

For instance, I’m both anticipating and dreading the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie because, while it’ll be fun to see a young Scotty and Spock, I’m not sure it’ll really add any depth to the characters as we already know them and may even detract, as reductive pop-psychologizing in the movies often tends to do. (I don’t really want to learn that Kirk became a womanizer because of, say, abandonment issues after his father skipped out on his mom.) I know Hollywood would rather milk familiar franchises till they’re dry than come up with new ones, but geez, haven’t we reached the bottom of the barrel yet?.

PopWatchers, are there any franchises you don’t want to see rebooted under any circumstances? Are there franchises you think actually would benefit from a reboot? (And to read EW.com’s new gallery of franchises that need to call it quits, click here!)

addCredit(“Scooby: Everett Collection”)