Killing My Childhood, 1 Franchise at a Time.
That's what they're doing. And they aren't stopping, in fact the pace is picking up.
Where have all the ideas gone? It doesn't have to be an original idea, just as long as some movie hero or icon from my youth isn't defiled, rolled in dirt and shoved in my face.
I suspect, though, that the reasons for making these sorry excuses for movies are not just to piss me off. The bad news is that they make money, lots of money, and people will always come from far and wide to sit through the tripe. Hell, even Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Shit Script (or crystal skull, something like that) made a shed load of dough.
I have to moan about these things before getting to the actual review. This disease is bigger than just one film. Bad scripting and hopeless direction frequently plague what should be a triumphant return to the big screen for old favourites. When one of these ideas is being penned, would it not be a sensible thing to sit down first of all, think about the history of the film, think about those that have grown up with it, those who made it a success in the first place by going to the cinema and buying the VHS and perhaps the soundtrack and other merchandising. Is it too much to ask for the writers to think, "Why don't we write a good movie to continue the franchise?".
There is also the case of studio involvement, when the money men get their teeth sunk in. Personally, I think the best example of this is in Terminator (I seem to have abandoned the review for now, but will endeavor to churn it out soon) where a small, curly haired, mute black kid keeps popping up, only to get shouted at every now and again and hands a few items to other characters. I reckon that this kid was originally in the script as a dog. Stick with me now, it makes sense- a dog doesn't speak and can fetch things just as well as any kid, and would fit a whole lot better into a post-apocalyptic environment. So here we have a case of some suit demanding a black kid instead so he can tick his minority boxes. Possibly to keep at bay the crazy Americans who would have seen this as a glaring affront to their civil liberties and tried to sue. Or something equally silly.
Sometimes the flip-side is true too, however, and a stale franchise is reworked to positive effect, bringing a fresh, more up-to-date approach. Films such as the recent Batman movies, Star Trek and even The Hills Have Eyes, but these exceptions are more re-envisioning of the originals, and its plain to see time and effort have gone into the story and a director who knows what the hell he's doing, and knows the previous movies is taken on board.
With so many more remakes and reigniting of franchises in the pipeline, I fear that my childhood and adolescent movie experiences will be further dented as time marches on. Sometime in the future, even the remakes of those great films will be remade. This is the way of the Hollywood machine I suppose, and anyway, the greatest hurt has already happened, the greatest betrayal that could have befallen a boy who grew up though the 1980's. The magic of Star Wars has been killed off well and truly and still they flog the corpse.
We can now put a name to this infliction.
We can call it George Lucas Disease.
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