Comment by technofiend | Hacker News Reader

Comment by technofiend | Hacker News Reader

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My idea of an Office Space remake ten years ago was the gang is hired back, kept on for a year and then forced to cross-train their overseas replacements to get a severance package. Not terribly original but definitely what was happening then.

Now I imagine Gary Cole reprising his Bill Lumbergh role but he's shaved twenty years off his resume. He has a man bun he has to dye, rides a scooter to work (which he despises) and woefully misuses modern platform terms and "may mays" in typical /r/fellowkids style.

The main characters are rehired as part of a lawsuit settlement against Silcon Valley's rampant ageism. fRAGILe has taken over (we must acknowledge our weakness to transcend it) and each day is started with a scrimmage that includes mandatory hugs, incense and mediation. No one is allowed to discuss development progress because it brings too much negative energy.

Completely ignored by their coworkers the old gang invent something that makes the company a takeover target. Rather than acknowledge their worth and shatter SV group think about anyone over 25 having a good idea much less give up equity, management gives them all awful reviews and fires them, returning their shares to the firing manager. (It's assumed if you got rid of dead weight you did the company some good and should be rewarded.)

I got a laugh out of frAgile.

https://fragilemanifesto.net/

Outsourced dives into that topic a bit:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425326/

There was a short-lived TV series with the same name and concept (perhaps based on the movie?) that was actually pretty funny at times.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1593756/

I could see it working as a Silicon Valley crossover

Funny you should mention that. Mike Judge -- the director of Office Space -- also co-created Silicon Valley. (He was also responsible for Idiocracy, Beavis and Butt-Head, and King Of The Hill.)

Idiocracy's "but it has what plants crave" conversation about feeding plants water instead of electrolyte-laden Brawndo is how I imagine most conversations go with anti-vaxxers.

"But vaccines make you sick."

Interesting! I was aware of Beavis & Butthead + King Of The Hill but had no idea he had a hand in Silicon Valley as well.

Yeah, all of those shows do a really great job of capturing the zeitgeist in their own flavor. Office space is iconic but KOTH and Silicon Valley do it consistently across multiple seasons.

Tales from the Tour Bus is a new show he's doing as well. It's hilarious and insightful.

I think Gary Cole's character should get swole and shave his head Bezos style in order to stay relevant. The old gang's invention could happen at a company hack-a-thon, but still be ignored by the SVs :)

So depending on who you have co-write (if anyone) it could go a lot of different ways. Like if you have Seth McFarlane join his mandatory 27 poop jokes would surface as Bill chugging green tea and kombucha drinks resulting in unfortunate digestive issues. I figure this makes him so elusive he ends up as a somewhat mysterious figure because he can never complete a thought. People fill in the blanks for themselves thus solving their own problem but credit Bill with the solution and he gets an undeserved reputation as a genius.

I figure the gang has to do something useful to set them up for a Kafkaesque evaluation where we learn that they failed to meet zero expectations by exceeding them. Everyone's fired and SV's sterotypes about older workers are reinforced as they couldn't even do nothing properly.

I like that, his unfinished thoughts could be quotes from kombucha bottle caps.

So basically Dilbert - the animated series :)

I'll take your word for it! I didn't watch the animated series. It was too painful.

Filbert had a short run as an animated series (cartoon show). I think that was the reference.

I meant the animated series!

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