By CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI and RYAN E. SMITH

BLADE STAFF WRITERS

 

When in doubt, reboot.

 

Turn it off.

 

Turn it on again.

 

It's not just wage slaves stuck at their desks with temperamental computers who are given this sagelike advice. In the last half dozen years, rebooting has been the Hollywood answer to relaunching moribund franchises.

 

Thinking of reviving Star Wars? Put Darth Vader on the couch, force him to tell us why he became the way he is. Batman too campy? Hit restart. Put him in a recognizable world where he has to order his Batsuit from Korea and get his seven hours of sleep.

 

Leatherface, the Texas Chainsaw killer? Want to know how he made a mask of human flesh? Last month we found out anyway in the prequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

 

It's quite the trend.

 

Today, Casino Royale hits reset on James Bond, a character so known for being put through the same old-same old it's practically a character trait by now; audiences will inevitably break down between those who welcome a do-over and those who, 21 movies in at this point, need their Bond to be routine.

 

Next week, Jack Black and Kyle Gass tell the origins of Tenacious D in Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny. And next year, we'll even see an origin story of Hannibal Lecter.

 

With that in mind, here are a few more movie franchises we'd like to reboot, start over - sandblast, then start from frame one:

 

• Rocky. Yes, we know there's another sequel coming. This is a prequel. A touching father-son story about how Rocky was trained by his father - who was friends with a mohawked man named Mr. T and drinking buddies with some Russian until the friendship soured. Also, young Rocky keeps a hamster named Adrian.

 

• SAW. How did the SAW killer perfect his clever Rube Goldberg contraptions? The tender story of the world's greatest Mousetrap player and how his loss to a better Mousetrap player sent him over the edge. He trains tirelessly on a bloody copy of Operation.

 

• Star Trek. We learn that in the beginning the Federation was a Radio Shack district office in Manitoba. Kirk was the self-important manager. Spock was the level-headed secretary. Scotty was a stock boy. When a case of AA-batteries lands on Kirk's head, he imagines he's in space, just as pompous as ever, but the women are blue. And they will sleep with him now. He decides to hang out for a while.

 

• The Matrix. Survivors of the takeover learn how to operate in a Matrix world. They try to free Laurence Fishburne to lead the resistance while racing to find one of those cool cell phones that allows them to jump in and out of the Matrix. We learn how they come to wear so much leather, forget to bathe, and get unbearably pretentious.