When is it okay for Hollywood to revisit franchises from our childhood? Post Date: 3/1/18
The Premise:
I talked to my older brother for about an hour the other night about movies, and somehow we ended up discussing the topic of Hollywood being so intellectually bankrupt that they are constantly remaking movies from yesteryear. You don’t have to look hard to find that a few movies every year are remakes or sequels to a franchise from the 1980s. I know a lot of it has to do with the brains in Hollywood chasing the nostalgia money. My brother went on a tangent about all the negatives about this practice, claiming it will never and could never be as good as the originals, it could ruin a feeling you have towards the original. I can’t say I disagree with him. This can happen, and I think it DOES happen, but I can’t help but think about the silver lining.
The Good:
There HAVE to be some good things that have come from this practice right? I would argue that some good things have come from it, Take Blade Runner 2049; it is a direct sequel to Blade Runner 35 years later. The movie was universally praised as a sequel worthy of its predecessor, that’s a win, but the win goes further, it’s giving fans of the original movie a follow up to a universe they love but at the same time it’s giving a whole new generation a window into a universe that they didn’t know about. How many people went and watched the original Blade Runner afterwards? I’d wager a fair amount and I think that’s worth something.
The Bad:
Ok, so we covered a good example of bringing back beloved franchises for a new generation, but what about the bad? I absolutely adored 1990’s Total Recall as a kid; it was a more cerebral sci-fi action flick with the biggest action star of the day at its helm. So when the trailer for 2012’s Total Recall was shown I vividly remember being ecstatic at the thought of modernizing a movie from my childhood. I, like many other fans of the original movie came out so disappointed. How could they ruin something so completely? This isn’t a review in any case so I won’t go into how they screwed up but needless to say it was not well received and at least in my opinion it was a major miss.
Take Away:
Whether we like it or not these movies are going to be made. I don’t think taking a hard stance against any and all movies being made as remakes or sequels to movies we loved as kids is the play here. I think we should be judging these things on a case-by-case basis. I can think of movies that tapped older franchises I loved like the above mentioned Blade Runner 2049 or Mad Max: Fury Road. Would I give these movies up to avoid the Total Recall (2012) and RoboCop (2014) flops? I don’t think I would. I believe even these bad movies can lead to people revisiting the originals that we all loved in the first place and that, to me anyways is still a win.
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