#sequelitis

[ultraericthered]

Could we maybe stop forcing continuations to stories of villains who were sent off well enough the first go-round? Especially if they just give them nonsensical Return of the Asthma Monster endings?

[mbharestuff]

Blair Witch Project is such a weird landmark in horror history. It's so influential (and lucrative) that everyone wants to make a sequel, but it's a film where the entire point is that you can't successfully document the truly nightmarish.

Make THAT into an IP.

[jbk405]

I’ll never forgive the sequels of the Rambo franchise for the way they have destroyed the first film.

First Blood is a tense examination of trauma, PTSD, police brutality, isolation, and the dehumanizing effects of warfare.  The characters explicitly discuss the lingering results of training and combat on the lives of the people who fought the war, but had no say in it.

Though it has action in it, it is not an “action movie”.  There’s only one death in the entire film, which is itself an accident and the point at which John Rambo actually tries to give himself up.  The emotional core of the climax is John Rambo’s complete breakdown as he reflects on what he experienced during the Vietnam War and the way it continues to haunt him even in peacetime.

But the sequels went so hard into bloody, violent action that everybody thinks that’s what the series was all along.  So over-the-top that the name “Rambo” has become a synonym for hyper-masculine violence.  Big men with big muscles and big machine guns blowing things up.

All of the Reactions I’ve seen from people who are new to First Blood are filled with “Oh yeah, he’s going to mess up these guys so good!  I can’t wait!” and “He’s got the gun now, he’s gonna go on a rampage!” because that’s what pop culture has told them to expect.  It’s not until more than halfway through the movie, sometimes not even until the very final scene, that they realize we’re not going to see a Terminator run through the town.

The need to turn it into a franchise, to churn out sequel after sequel, has completely undone everything the original film tried to do.

[ruindunburnit]

Being really real for a second, I would find it in my heart to forgive Hollywood's terrible case of Sequelitis if -- and only if -- the success of the Wicked musical films leads to a stage musical and film sequel loosely based on the book 'Son of a Witch', following the musical's canon, with the same composer and lyricist. That's the only caveat.

[tronmike82]

If Disney fucks up zootopia 2; I’m gonna burn down their studio.

[abuddyforeveryseason]

This is the Buddy for October 13th. It's looking kinda sketchy. It's funny, I've been drawing for a long time, now, and this sketch still looks a lot like the type of drawings I'd make when I was like 12. I remember I had an idea for a comic, something pretty simple, about a girl named Penny who discovered a sort of wainscot society of people living in abandoned subway tunnels. It was one of those things where the story was simple because it was a "classic" and all the style would come from the way the stories were told. I drew the first page and it wasn't too different from this, but I must've destroyed it in a fit of shame a few years later.

Today's Buddy could be conseidered a sequel to the Buddy for May 17th. I know a lot of people dislike sequels in movies and books and stuff, because they think the sequels are proof writers are out of ideas. And it's funny since the writers must also be annoyed that they're stuck writing sequels because that's what people want, when they have a bunch of new ideas they want to try.

Like how Arthur Conan Doyle was sick of writing Sherlock Holmes stories.

I think there's a kernel of truth to both sides of the argument. On one hand, being able to write a good sequel, even (or especially) if there wasn't one planned, is a skill some writers have, and it takes a lot of creativity and intelligence. And it's also a challenge to a writer's limitations. I know some writers are so hacky, they're unable to concieve of a story that isn't supported by a handful of cliches - characters should be young, competitive and have romantic interest punctuated by arguments with other characters. Then, when the story ends, they get married. You ask that guy to write a sequel, he'll be completely lost - how is he supposed to write about a married couple? Once the story's over, the characters don't exist anymore. Can you imagine if Superman was happily married to Lois Lane? Who would he try to hide his secret identity from?

That's why sometimes, a fresh take on a sequel is so interesting. Because it's sailing through uncharted territory. And that's why so many great stories are "sequels", if not to the letter, at least in the way they build from a previous culture of storytelling concepts.

One example I have in mind is the more recent seasons of Stranger Things - that's a show that, for better of for worse, is built upon stangnated tropes of eighties bike-riding childhood adventures and evil corporations' secret experiments. Then came the sequels and the show went off in different directions, it managed to build up drama from new stories, logical consequences of early cliches. And it even let the characters evolved into different iconic elements. By virtue of its success, Stranger Things managed to go from an homage to old movies to an unique universe. And, despite the show's annoying flaws, that's always interesting to see.

On the other hand, that show is in the minority. Most sequels fall between the two flaws of just repeating the original's beats to decreasing results, or moving away from it directionlessly and hope fans are still interested because the characters are recognizable even if the story no longer makes sense. Some writers are good at original stuff and suck at sequels. That doesn't necessarily mean they're bad writers.

[fiveironfanatic]

Oh, another Mission: Impossible movie, huh? I haven't really kept up with them, but--

Wait a minute.

Wait a goddamn moment.

Enhance.

ENHANCE.

"PART ONE"!?

Honestly?? How dare you??

I get it when adaptations get away with this shit. (I don't like it, but I get it.) But you wrote the damn movie! You can just make it shorter! You don't need it to be a prereq for a future movie!! Stop it!!

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@bixiebeet @janeb984

[wackom]

The Beast that Bothers

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[silkentine]

In honor of my original meme hitting over 99k notes on tumblr dot com, I’ve made a sequel nearly 4 years later!

(original below)

[ajaxgb]

Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.

Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.

Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.

In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.

In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)

In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.

The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.

In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.

[devilofthepit]

2024:

1. GET EVEN WEIRDER!!!!!!

2. GAY AND TRANSGENDER SEX

3. DO WHATEVER YUOU WANT FOREVER

4. STOP OVERTHINKING IT

5. YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO ANYTHING TO BE LOVED

6. FIND MEANING IN EVERYTHING

[eunnieboo]

lovey-dovey feelings