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Random Rant
3 years ago
Something's been on my mind lately and I figure it's time for a new journal anyway, so...
One thing that's been bothering me about all these resurrected movies/TV shows isn't simply the pandering to 80s/90s nostalgia. It's the fact that when they bring back all our old heroes, ALL of their their implied happily-ever-afters are undone to show the characters as washed-up, disillusioned has-beens. Star Wars, Ghostbusters Afterlife, and Star Trek Picard are all guilty of this. (To be fair, I enjoyed GBA, but not so much the depiction of the original team as has-beens.)
One, maybe two examples of this could be handwaved as coincidence, but when they're all doing it? I think it speaks to the disillusionment of our times. And I get it, the real world is dark and depressing right now, the writers might just be capturing the spirit of the failed promises of our times. But on the other hand, franchises with space wizards and laser swords, ghost exterminators, and space utopias are ESCAPISM, that's the whole point. So why would I want the depressing circumstances of reality leaking into that?
One thing that's been bothering me about all these resurrected movies/TV shows isn't simply the pandering to 80s/90s nostalgia. It's the fact that when they bring back all our old heroes, ALL of their their implied happily-ever-afters are undone to show the characters as washed-up, disillusioned has-beens. Star Wars, Ghostbusters Afterlife, and Star Trek Picard are all guilty of this. (To be fair, I enjoyed GBA, but not so much the depiction of the original team as has-beens.)
One, maybe two examples of this could be handwaved as coincidence, but when they're all doing it? I think it speaks to the disillusionment of our times. And I get it, the real world is dark and depressing right now, the writers might just be capturing the spirit of the failed promises of our times. But on the other hand, franchises with space wizards and laser swords, ghost exterminators, and space utopias are ESCAPISM, that's the whole point. So why would I want the depressing circumstances of reality leaking into that?
I do think it can be nice to show the audience "Even heroes can fall to rock bottom", but then again there are plenty of ways to do that wrong. I'm assuming Star Wars is referring to Luke Skywalker which I don't necessarily mind him becoming bitter in his later life though his actions towards Kylo seemed quite out of character.
It's more than just the deconstruction of these characters that bothers me. It's the fact that they were done poorly. What bothers me more than the direction is that most of your examples suffer from plain old bad writing and it hurts to see cherished characters from my past treated this way by the studios.