Category: Blog

9 Shifts Every Marketing Agency Needs to Make written by Alex McQueen read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode: Overview John Jantsch spends this solo episode naming something he keeps hearing from marketers: a quiet exhaustion driven less by the work itself and more by the business model wrapped around it. He lays out 9 shifts he believes every marketing advisor, agency owner, and fractional CMO needs to make to […]

9 Shifts Every Marketing Agency Needs to Make written by Alex McQueen read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode:

Overview

John Jantsch spends this solo episode naming something he keeps hearing from marketers: a quiet exhaustion driven less by the work itself and more by the business model wrapped around it. He lays out 9 shifts he believes every marketing advisor, agency owner, and fractional CMO needs to make to move from doing more work for less money to leading strategy clients will pay a premium for.

Jantsch walks through each shift, anchored by a quote from a marketer he has worked with. He covers replacing “we do it all” positioning with a clear point of view, productizing a flagship offer, pricing outcomes instead of hours, and installing AI systematically instead of hacking it in. He also makes the case for leadership engagements over execution retainers and for joining a network instead of solving every problem alone.

This episode is for agency owners, consultants, and fractional CMOs who feel the ground shifting under a service model that used to work and want a concrete roadmap for where to go next.

About John Jantsch

John Jantsch is the founder of Duct Tape Marketing and creator of the Strategy First framework, used by hundreds of certified consultants and agencies. He has spent 30 years working inside agencies and with small business owners, and now leads the Duct Tape Marketing Certified Advisor program, the coaching and licensing model built around the 9 shifts he covers in this episode.

Key Takeaways

• Replace “we do it all” generalism with a specific, provable point of view. It is the 1 shift that makes every other shift possible.
• Turn one-off custom proposals into a single flagship offer you can teach, delegate, and repeat at scale.
• Move client conversations from vendor-style execution retainers to leadership engagements where you own the outcome.
• Build a lead-generation channel you own instead of depending on referrals or cold email for new business.
• Put systems and SOPs behind the work so the business does not stop the moment you step away.

Great Moments

• [00:01] – Jantsch opens by naming the “quiet exhaustion” he hears from good marketers and introduces the 9 shifts he will walk through.
• [02:23] – Jantsch contrasts the $10,000 ebooks agencies used to sell with today’s collapsing prices, framing why leadership (not deliverables) is the new value.
• [07:27] – Jantsch describes selling a $15,000 strategy engagement where the client stops asking about hours or deliverables and only cares about the result.
• [14:28] – Jantsch explains why installing AI as part of a systematic marketing operating system beats letting clients hack their way through tools alone.
• [16:46] – Jantsch makes the case for joining a network of 100-plus agencies instead of carrying every problem solo.

Memorable Quotes

• “People are not paying for more stuff anymore. They are paying for marketing leadership, strategy, and a systematic approach to bringing AI into their business.” — John Jantsch
• “All people want is a result. If they are trying to negotiate your price down, it is because they do not understand the value you bring.” — John Jantsch
• “The conversation stops being can you send me a proposal and becomes can you do that for our business. That is the difference between selling and advising.” — John Jantsch
• “It is chaos in most businesses right now, and the marketer who offers to manage that chaos as part of the plan is the 1 who gets invited into a leadership role.” — John Jantsch
• “Imagine tapping into an entire network of people who have already wrestled with the exact problems you are facing right now.” — John Jantsch

Resources

• 9 Shifts Assessment
• Schedule a Call with Sara Nay

The world is full of things that are easy to overlook when we are busy with everyday life. A strange natural formation, an enormous structure, an unusual animal, or a tiny detail hidden in a familiar place can suddenly make everything feel a little more fascinating. Sometimes a single photograph is enough to show just how much is happening around us that we rarely get to see. These images capture some of those moments, places, and details that make our planet worth looking at a little more closely. Here are 15 awesome photos showing the cool parts of our world that might otherwise go completely unnoticed

The post 15 Awesome Photos Showing the Cool Parts of Our World appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

Some days just seem determined to go wrong. A tiny mistake turns into a ridiculous problem, an innocent decision creates an unexpected disaster, or a perfectly normal moment suddenly becomes a story you will never forget. The funniest part is often how specific the bad luck can be. People online have shared some of their most unfortunate moments, and many of them sound like situations that could only happen once in a lifetime. These stories are not necessarily major disasters. They are those wonderfully unlucky moments that leave you wondering how everything managed to go wrong at exactly the same time. Here are 12 of them.

The post 12 People Sharing Their Unfortunate Misfortune appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

Some movie details are so small that you could easily miss them the first time, yet once someone points them out, they become impossible to ignore. A background object, a strange piece of dialogue, a visual clue, or a tiny continuity choice can suddenly change the way you watch an entire scene. The best examples do not require complicated theories or hours of research because the detail is right there waiting to be noticed. Once you catch it, your brain seems determined to look for it every time the movie appears again. These fifteen details have exactly that effect, turning familiar films into completely different viewing experiences after you know where to look.

The post Movie Details That Stick in Your Brain Once You See Them appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

Sometimes the best movie experiences happen when you are expecting absolutely nothing. Maybe the trailer looked terrible, the premise sounded ridiculous, or you only bought a ticket because someone else wanted to go. Then the movie starts, and somewhere along the way you realize you have seriously underestimated it. When Reddit users were asked which films they went into with zero expectations only to be blown away, the answers covered everything from superhero blockbusters to animated family movies and strange sci-fi experiments. Some viewers knew almost nothing beforehand, while others were actively preparing for disappointment. Here are 15 movies people watched with zero expectations that ended up completely blowing them away.

The post 15 People Share the ‘Zero Expectations’ Movie That Blew Them Away appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

Hard reboots, soft reboots, remakes, legacy sequels… Hollywood uses many tactics to keep valuable IP alive. Yet those tactics have also made the definition of “reboot” fairly muddy. Mad Max: Fury Road stretches the limits of what we consider a “soft” reboot, in that director George Miller engineered it to fit into the franchise without […]

The post The Best Movie Reboots That Were Actually Worth Watching appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

Movies can leave a lot of room for interpretation, but sometimes audiences settle on an explanation that the filmmakers never intended. A character gets remembered as the villain, a scene is treated as a plot hole, or a famous moment becomes shorthand for an idea the movie was actually criticizing. Repeated references can make the misunderstanding feel like an established fact, especially when people encounter the scene outside its original context. Even movies that have been watched countless times can contain moments that audiences continue to interpret in surprising ways. These fifteen scenes have inspired years of debate, jokes, and assumptions, yet the story behind them is often quite different from what popular memory suggests.

The post Famous Movie Scenes Audiences Continue to Misunderstand appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

Why do we like action movies so much? We know, after all, that the main character will survive, and likely achieve all of their goals; once the opening scene is over, you can pretty much tell where everything is going. So clearly, it’s not the plot we’re here for.

We’re here for the action, for the over-the-top scenes and elaborate choreographies that challenge what was possible before. And movies keep getting better and better in that regard. The ones we’ve gathered here aren’t remembered for their stories and character arcs (although some of them still deliver in that department), rather on blood pumping action that keeps us at the edge of our seats.

The post Movies With Action So Good, The Plot Doesn’t Matter appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

Paul Greengrass knew he always wanted to make a quasi-Robin Hood movie well before his deeply naturalistic historical epic, The Uprising, had the famous rogue’s name added to the poster. The film is still very much in the vein of the realpolitik thrillers Greengrass made his bones on early in his career with the Irish […]

The post Paul Greengrass Reveals The Uprising Began With the Title ‘The Hood’ appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.

This article is sponsored by Hachette Partworks. For over 50 years, Dungeons & Dragons has brought together fantasy fans of all ages with everything from tabletop gameplay to stories based on its epic realms. Now Hachette Partworks is sharing a whole treasure trove of Dungeons & Dragons literary stories with its novels collection, bringing together […]

The post Hachette Unveils the Ultimate Dungeons & Dragons Novel Collection appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Hey, listen!” Just reading those words is enough to make anyone who has played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sit up and pay attention. Link’s fairy guide Navi says those words approximately ten billion times while traversing across Hyrule’s past and present to prevent Ganondorf from using the Triforce to conquer the world. Annoying at first… and second… and third, Navi’s little interjections are as much a part of the game as the various puzzles and boss battles.

So fans would be forgiven for being slightly taken aback by the trailer for Nintendo‘s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The trailer is full of familiar sights and sounds, from Link’s various grunts as a kid and an adult to him targeting the enemies he strikes with a sword to the sound of the Ocarina itself. Moreover, the remake has a darker, more realistic feel, replacing the bright cartoon visuals of the originals—which is exactly what a remake should do.

Remakes are, of course, nothing new to video games. As soon as Pong left arcades and made its way into living rooms, people learned that games had to go through some sort of change in order to work on a different system. Often, the changes are a result of hardware abilities and limitations. Pac-Man at home, whether the depressing Atari version or the impressive Intellivision port, didn’t look and sound the same as it did in the arcades. As much as we loved to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game on NES, we knew it fell short of the four-player brawler we got at Chuck-E-Cheese.

However, Nintendo also showed us that remakes can take advantage of stronger hardware to give us a game that retains the same basic mechanics, but presents them with better graphics and sound. The Super Mario All-Stars compilation on the SNES played as both an update and a celebration of the games from the previous generation, allowing the screen to match the way the games made us feel.

But with the Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is showing us something different. It’s showing a game that has a lot of qualities of the version we first played on the Nintendo 64 decades ago, but is ultimately a new game. The first half of the trailer plays the greatest hits, giving us shots of Link doing the usual combat and puzzle actions that we’ve done during hundreds of replays. However, the shadows are a bit darker and the textures a bit more pronounced, creating a change that goes beyond transitioning from polygons to fully-rendered people and involves matters of tone.

The second half of the trailer only intensifies those feelings, as it adds voice acting and newly designed cut scenes, replacing the mostly static images and subtitles of the original game. Suddenly, Zelda and Darunia the Goron have voices, and they don’t sound like we expected when first played the game. Suddenly, Ocarina of Time isn’t the same game we played before.

But that’s not a bad thing, especially if we think of video games as art instead of just entertainment technology. If they’re just entertainment technology, then we can and should complain when the new technology doesn’t entertain like the previous technology did. But if they’re art, then we need to allow room for the work to change in order to be perceived differently. We need to let video game remakes be interpretations.

Other forms of art have long had to wrestle with questions of interpretation in adaptations and remakes. Consider one of the best examples of adaptation and remake, the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell and the three movies based on it, 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s John Carpenter‘s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing.

Campbell’s original story focuses on a group of researchers in the Antarctic who repel the attack of a telepathic and shapeshifting alien. The 1951 movie takes the premise and turns it into the sort of sci-fi adventure popular during the nuclear era, complete with a group of jocular soldiers and scientists battling a vegetable creature with a definitive shape. Carpenter’s version amps up the gore and the cynicism that reflects his view of the 1980s, building to a far more ambiguous ending than either of the two other versions. Likewise, the 2011 movie is a product of its time, a Hollywood IP cash in that repeats familiar beats and emphasizes audience recognition.

While audiences may prefer one version of The Thing over the others, no one thinks that the worse versions cancel out the best. Heck, few think that even the worst versions shouldn’t exist. Instead, we understand them each as interpretations of the same story, valid in some degree in their own way.

In fact, we don’t even need to leave the world of video games to understand the importance of interpretation. Recall the 2002 Resident Evil remake, which still confounds people expecting simply an updated version of the original game. Resident Evil 2002 cuts out whole scenes and moments, giving the characters new voices and dialogue, creating a game that doesn’t just play differently from its predecessor—it’s effectively a whole new experience. While gamers hardly embraced the remake upon first release, it’s now accepted as the definitive way to play Resident Evil, especially for newcomers. The original version now only appeals to purists who want to recreate the experience of the game in 1996.

Which is also fine. The 1996 version of Resident Evil didn’t disappear when the remake came out, and those who want the pure experience can still find copies to play, anymore than each version of The Thing erased previous versions. If anything, Resident Evil 2002 enhanced the 1996 game by highlighting two different approaches to the same material.

Ultimately, gamers need to view The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the same lens. They need to accept this new version not as a copy, but as a distinct game that interprets the original without repeating it. And if gamers prefer one version over another, that’s all the better, because those good points of the original stand out even more. They can still get yelled at by Navi in every version of the game, whether she’s telling us to look at bright polygons or shadowy modern textures.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases on the Nintendo Switch on November 5, 2026.

The post The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Reminds Remakes Are Interpretations, Not Copies appeared first on Den of Geek.