#excluding lego (which is based on the movie and we all know my thoughts) there was only ONE riddler toy

[unrestrainedbalderdash]

I swear toy companies forget that Joker isn't the only Batman villain

[bluezey]

Dissecting the old, beginning from the new

So something happened today. I was watching random internet videos when I came across someone who was rating the five worst animated films of 2016. Among them was Trolls.  That I can see, though I haven’t seen the film the trailer does look super bright and sugary and playing on common clichés.  Then the interviewer said that he was worried Trolls is part of a trend that began with The Lego Movie, that a film about an existing property did so well that everyone is gonna try to make a film on a property because they think that’s what sells.

That kind of makes sense, until something happened while I was watching Nostalgia Critic reviews while playing Fallout 4.  NC is doing Sequel Month: The Sequel and I’ve noticed he has reviewed Alvin and the Chipmunks 2, Smurfs 2 and will be reviewing Garfield 2.  Do you see a comparison between these three movies?  They are all movies based on an existing property that were released BEFORE the success of The Lego Movie.

So it made me wonder, why is this person noticing this now if Hollywood has made films based on existing properties before?  And the only thing I could think of was, because The Lego Movie did it right.

Think back on the existing property films of the last few decades.  They all take a property, look into how it works, then for one reason or another they write a film based on film clichés and dated trends that were popular at the time.  What you get is a jumbled mess that either flops or makes some kind of profit one way or another.  But The Lego Movie was different.  It took an existing property, looked into how it works, then wrote a story around it with memorable characters, funny jokes, and made their own jokes and clichés in the process.  They made a success over effort.

Then I began thinking what film has made a success like The Lego Movie?  What film was based off an existing property AND did well, just like The Lego Movie?  I thought very hard, thinking back as far as I could, even back to toys from the 1970s and… I couldn’t think of anything.  Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough, or maybe I wasn’t that into a specific toy line that had a movie that did do successfully well like The Lego Movie.

But then I realized that there are films that are not based on toys or cartoons, but are based on existing properties.  In fact, almost every film they made is based on an existing property.  Hell, even their first movie was based on an existing property.  That company is Disney.

I mean, look into it. Their very first film was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based on a fairy tale.  In fact, most of their films are based on folk lore, stories fairy tales, with an occasional step into mythos, books and history puffed up by fiction. Sure, there is a rarity here and there like Lilo and Stitch or Home on the Range, but every other film was based on something that has existed.  I mean, really think about it, before we had toys and cartoons, you could consider fairy tales and stories existing properties.  It’s just that now in the day we think of toys, cartoons, comic books, video games and now apps and emojis as existing properties.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.  Snow White was just a telling of Snow White, they didn’t do anything new to it.  Same thing with the other earlier works like Dumbo, Cinderella and Pinocchio.  It’s almost as if they didn’t try when it came to story.  So how did they succeed when today’s movies that don’t try fail? Because, based on the time they came out, they did try.  No one made a full length animated film before, so Snow White and the films that came after it were fascinating and amazing to the audience.  They didn’t have to try a lot on story, because just seeing the story move on screen through ink and paint was more than enough effort.

However, even Disney can get caught on following trends.  And I know what you’re thinking, timeless Disney films can be dated? Well, let me tell you about the Disney films of the 40s and 50s.  First, there were two films about Donald Duck visiting South America and Mexico, how odd is that?  Well, this was a product of the time.  Due to some things I can’t delve into properly because I’m not a historian, Disney was set to make two films to teach American movie goers about South America and Mexico’s culture, basically sell the country and continent.  So, due to the time period of the forties, they did something fascinating but dated.  Then there’s two films called Make Mine Music and Melody Time.  These two films were a collection of shorts told through story and music, from Peter and the Wolf, Pecos Bill, Hatfields and McCoys, Johnny Appleseed, just to name a few.  But among them were also shorts told through jazz music, a popular musical style at the time, but is now considered dated today.  

Now I know what you’re thinking, wasn’t there a movie before Make Mine Music and Melody Time that was also about music and wasn’t dated by popular music during the 40s and 50s? And yes, Fantasia, it was the third film Disney made.  But despite being the third film they put a lot of effort and originality into it!  Fantasia was not only ground breaking by being a movie about music, but it traveled trough road shows introducing something ground breaking that would basically become surround sound.  Something that is above and beyond and definitely shows they did more than try, and even shows they can try something new and innovative! Fantasia flopped.  I’m not kidding.  What was considered a classic today did not make a profit in its first run.

So, long story short, even Disney themselves have had original ideas that flopped, and have followed popular dated trends that still pulled in a profit.  Basically, they’re doing what any other film today could do.

So, what’s the correlation? What’s the formula that can make a movie on an existing property work?

Well, I don’t think there is a formula, and I think it stems on the fact that practically every idea has been done before.

I mean, Disney has made movies mostly on stories and fairy tales that existed before even movies existed. And, looking at Dreamworks, Prince of Egypt was based on an existing story from the Bible, and Shrek was not only based on the idea of mixing up fairy tales, but it was also based on an existing children’s book.  I’ve seen videos comparing Toy Story to a Jim Henson’s Christmas special about toys coming to life, but isn’t that because toys coming to life have been done before? Hell, kids think about it!  And come to think about it, let’s look at those conspiracy stories about films ripping off other films.  We can exclude Antz and A Bug’s Life because we know the behind the scenes about that fiasco, so let’s look at some others.  Like, Finding Nemo and Shark Tale.  Despite different stories and different ideas, people think one is a copy of the othert because they’re about talking fish.  But, talking animals have been done since way before Aesop’s fables.  Some people think Monsters Inc ripped off a film called Little Monsters because they’re about monsters that live in closets.  But, even kids have thought of that idea.  Hell, I’ve even heard people say Despicable Me and Megamind are the same film because they involve super villains that become super heroes.  First, Gru didn’t openly become a super hero until Despicable Me 2, in the first one it ended with him as a father and his alignment unknown.  Second, I’m pretty sure comic books have had story arcs about heroes become villains and vice versa.

Basically, if you cut it down to its basic ideas, every idea has been done.  We all think about what toys and pets do when we’re out of the room, that’s why Toy Story and Secret Life of Pets sound so similar.  Talking animals have been done so many times, that’s why Flushed Away and Ratatouille sound similar to people just because they both have talking rats.  Cars and Doc Hollywood sound so similar because we’ve all heard of the same stories of people getting lost and finding themselves in a small town.

So, what’s my point in my rambling that we’ve done everything?  Well, think back to The Lego Movie.  They could have done clichés and trends and be every other diluted film based on an existing property.  But, they didn’t.  They took an existing property and did something different with it.  That’s what made it stand out, that’s what made it fascinating, and basically that’s what made it successful.

Another example is Inside Out.  Now when we heard of the idea of personified emotions in a person’s mind, we thought at first it was an original idea.  Then we looked back and realized it wasn’t.  We’ve had Osmosis Jones, which is personified cells running a body like it’s a city. We’ve had shoulder angels and shoulder demons, little cartoon imps dressed like angels and demons that persuade us to do right or wrong.  We’ve had Herman’s Head, a TV show about a group of personification of feelings running the mind of a person- holy crap I just repeated the idea of Inside Out by reading the premise of a dull 90s sitcom!  It’s been done that much!  So, what made Inside Out such a success?  What did Inside Out have that these ideas didn’t?  It did something new with the pre-existing idea.  While the previous ideas were just personifications of emotions, Inside Out used the personification of emotions to explain how the mind works, how memories work, and even something as complex as how life changes can affect and change your personality to kids, as well as explain to kids and adults in a society that is afraid of anything other than bliss and happiness that it’s okay to feel sad.  It’s similar to how The Lego Movie was a success.  It made likeable, relateable characters, funny jokes, a unique story that looks original but has probably been done before, to only pull a fast one on us by showing us this whole story is about a father-son relationship becoming strained, a story that we know for a fact has been done before!  But then it does something original by showing us that, even as adults, it’s okay to drop your guard and become a kid again, just by using another overused trope of saying how everyone is special.

I think the point I’m trying to sum up is we’re seeing trends we’re tired of seeing in movies because, even before movies were invented, everything has already been done. From storyline to the basic elements of a story, we’ve all heard it before.  What makes a success these days with movies is to do something different with them.  Use the same tropes to tell a different story, use unique advancements to tell the same tropes in a different way, or use the same ideas to explain something in a way that hasn’t been seen in that way before.  It’s why Zootopia is the same old movie about talking animals, but it explains something as controversial and complex as racism and society.  It’s why Frozen took the same princess story and explained the complexity of anxiety as well as making fun of old Disney tropes while making new Disney tropes. It’s why Sausage Party not only draws a crowd because we still haven’t done enough animated films about cartoons dropping four hundred sexual innuendos and f-bombs in under a running time yet, but it uses the cliché of non sentient things having sentience under our noses to explain the complexities of living with faith versus living for the day.  Dammit, I can’t let that go, that’s too damn clever!  So, to sum up, I don’t think there’s a trend of bad movies based on pre-existing properties.  I think we’ve just become so self aware of everything already been done that we should keep dissecting and reassembling some things old until we come up with ideas that make them new again.