Robert N EmersonContinuation of story versus profit mongering - the fine line that sequelswalk.
September 13th 2008 06:47
Sequels walk a fine line between the continuation of a story, where we the viewer see more of the highs and lows of characters' lives, and profit for the studios who put the movies out, thus funding more movies and, potentially, more sequels. In an era where we see sequels to movies that need them, as well as movies that do not, it is something that we are more accustom to than any previous generation.
When the story of the 4077th went from the big screen to the small screen, more than just language and topic changed, but the potential usage of material on the big screen. Thought of what to do with a property beyond the initial release grew, including planning for sequels, both before a product was made and after.
With the likes of the James Bond franchise, the Star Wars trilogies, the Star Trek Series, and those of Indiana Jones, we have grown accustom to being able to expect the stories that we have seen on the big screen to continue, but should we?
How often has a good movie that made a healthy, sometimes even surprising box office, produced a sequel that went directly to video? Is the possibility of making a good sequel, when there was no reason for the story to continue, of taking the chance for profit worth diluting the product?
Humor aside, can we actually imagine a serious Hamlet II? Not really, hence the humor of the forthcoming comedy and what makes it funny, just as a premise.
When a story has closure, true closure, why should it suddenly have a sequel where none was planned?
We knew Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope needed a sequel, because although the story was finished, it was obviously only a portion of the story. When Neo flew off at the end of the first Matrix, we knew, we clamored to see what came next. But, when Eric Draven found peace at the end of the Crow, we knew we did not need more of his story, as some of the hit or miss sequels to the Crow, as well as the TV show, showed us.
Now I can understand why a movie is released direct-to-video, since the studio has to try and recover some of their investment, if and when possible, but it is those that are planned for DTV, with substandard writing and plotting, that I question.
Why purposefully make a work that you know will not live up to the material, if not simply for profit on a marketable name?
Look at the Dungeons and Dragon movies, the first of which suffered dreadfully from a lackluster special effects budget that hurt the plot. The first movie had a modest cast who did an okay job in a genre, at the time, that was known for being more of a B-movie fare. But, their effects budget was killed, with scenes cut from the movie that would have explained much of the plot, and thus the movie was less than it should have been.
Then we get the sequel, a rescued from the DTV bin by SciFi, as one of the SciFi Saturday original movies. This time it had the special effects, but the cast was even more modest and it was a B movie, as was the one prior to it, with the potential to have been more. While neither movie was a Lord of the Rings, it was in a time when it could have been, with a fan base that was hungering for such a movie, which they later got from Peter Jackson.
But, instead they made a lackluster sequel to a lackluster movie with the hopes of profit from a small fan-base.
Maybe I am naive, maybe I want too much from the studios, but I think if they respected the audience more, thought of us as more intelligence, not less, perhaps they could make better movies that we want and worry less about sequels that leverage the bones of a previously good movie when there was no need for such a sequel.
When the story of the 4077th went from the big screen to the small screen, more than just language and topic changed, but the potential usage of material on the big screen. Thought of what to do with a property beyond the initial release grew, including planning for sequels, both before a product was made and after.
With the likes of the James Bond franchise, the Star Wars trilogies, the Star Trek Series, and those of Indiana Jones, we have grown accustom to being able to expect the stories that we have seen on the big screen to continue, but should we?
How often has a good movie that made a healthy, sometimes even surprising box office, produced a sequel that went directly to video? Is the possibility of making a good sequel, when there was no reason for the story to continue, of taking the chance for profit worth diluting the product?
Humor aside, can we actually imagine a serious Hamlet II? Not really, hence the humor of the forthcoming comedy and what makes it funny, just as a premise.
When a story has closure, true closure, why should it suddenly have a sequel where none was planned?
We knew Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope needed a sequel, because although the story was finished, it was obviously only a portion of the story. When Neo flew off at the end of the first Matrix, we knew, we clamored to see what came next. But, when Eric Draven found peace at the end of the Crow, we knew we did not need more of his story, as some of the hit or miss sequels to the Crow, as well as the TV show, showed us.
Now I can understand why a movie is released direct-to-video, since the studio has to try and recover some of their investment, if and when possible, but it is those that are planned for DTV, with substandard writing and plotting, that I question.
Why purposefully make a work that you know will not live up to the material, if not simply for profit on a marketable name?
Look at the Dungeons and Dragon movies, the first of which suffered dreadfully from a lackluster special effects budget that hurt the plot. The first movie had a modest cast who did an okay job in a genre, at the time, that was known for being more of a B-movie fare. But, their effects budget was killed, with scenes cut from the movie that would have explained much of the plot, and thus the movie was less than it should have been.
Then we get the sequel, a rescued from the DTV bin by SciFi, as one of the SciFi Saturday original movies. This time it had the special effects, but the cast was even more modest and it was a B movie, as was the one prior to it, with the potential to have been more. While neither movie was a Lord of the Rings, it was in a time when it could have been, with a fan base that was hungering for such a movie, which they later got from Peter Jackson.
But, instead they made a lackluster sequel to a lackluster movie with the hopes of profit from a small fan-base.
Maybe I am naive, maybe I want too much from the studios, but I think if they respected the audience more, thought of us as more intelligence, not less, perhaps they could make better movies that we want and worry less about sequels that leverage the bones of a previously good movie when there was no need for such a sequel.
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