The How to Train Your Dragon movie has to be one of the most watched animated movies of all time. It has the plot, the graphics– the romance. The excitement of the live-action coming to our homes in less than a year is undeniable. In fact, it’s not just a How to Train your Dragon remake, but also our favorite classics, Freaky Friday and Superman. And yet, it seems that just a decade ago, there weren’t as many sequels and remakes. It begs the question: what’s changed in the past decade?
Some may point to our generation–the some being boomers and millennials–saying that we have lower attention spans, and have no idea what true movie magic is. But those seem like the musings of a people who don’t really want to investigate the issue. Even though they may not seem to realize it, they are the ones most excited for these movies. However, whether someone is in their 40s or is just about to graduate high school, the disappointment we feel once our favorite movie has been rid of its title by its lesser counterpart is truly saddening.
Take for example the recently released Mission Impossible finale. It had a mix of action and fear; anxiety and heartache. Yet, there were times where I could hardly believe I was watching the same movie. When I saw Tom Cruise climb onto the planes and never get off, I thought, “Am I gonna spend the whole movie here, stuck at this one scene?” It was a three hour movie, a good 30 minutes simply being fluff. At the same time, the dread I felt when Ethan Hunt wandered into the room of floating torpedoes, ripped off his suit, almost got decked by the propellers of the submarine, and then lost his air supply, was unmatched. Maybe that feeling comes from my irrational fear of deep sea diving, but I cannot deny the fact that the director has successfully transported me into the universe.
That brings me to our newest additions to the long list of sequels that relieves and enriches our lives of joy.
Many of you may remember the iconic scene in How to Train Your Dragon where Hiccup–and the audience– see Bewilderbeast engulf the screen. There are those of us who are still amazed by the skill of the animators who produced this scene, but this new sequel begs the question: can the creators deliver a Bewilderbeast of the same magnitude with CGI?
Despite valid fears, we continue to feel excited when we hear a live-action or sequel is being released. And that brings us to why production companies (and their marketing departments) decide to announce the arrival of remakes of home favorites, even with years between movies. It seems time loses all meaning, when the once experienced happiness, the proverbial high, can be achieved again.
Movie producers are not the only ones who realized this fact. We have too. When we say “Oh, that’s so cliché” and “Been there and done that,” we acknowledge this idea that an original idea is near impossible to create–slightly less impossible than one of Ethan Hunt’s missions. And like any rational thinker, why would we bet on something “new and different” actually being new and different, when we know we can rely on the oldies?
It seems the expiry date that’s been placed on a standalone movie being standalone is caused by watching more movies, ironically. And it seems that reversing this process is also unlikely, unless we all agree to stop watching movies for the next 50 years, making the clichés of our time the hits and originals of another. But that’s a laughable idea. The best we can do is sit back, relax, buy some popcorn, and watch as these new sequels roll in.
