“In Greek, "nostalgia" literally means "the pain from an old wound."
- Don Draper, Mad Men
By: Grant Skipworth
There is an Age of Nostalgia in the land of Hollywood concerning the television and movie landscapes. Long running franchises and modern day reboots of dead properties dominate our screens today. I am not saying that all franchise movies or reboots are awful films, but there is a desperate need for new and original ideas. But for now there have been seven Marvel movies, four DC movies, and countless TV reboots only in the past three years. That is what dominates our culture, for what we fail to realize is that the word nostalgia literally means an ache or pain for the past. If anything, this Age of Nostalgia is surely painful.
Television networks have dived in their archives of shows and bought the rights to other classic TV shows to try to revive them. NBC with The Office is a great example of this as they are trying to bring it back after only five years (and has been on Netflix ever since). Instead of bringing back The Office, why not try to create something with just as much as originality and heart as The Office? If television networks worked as hard as they do trying to gain rights to reboot or excavating their own properties, they could create the next great show. Amazon is a prime example of this problem with trying to jumpstart their Lord of the Rings series. I love Lord of the Rings and believe it is truly a masterpiece of literature and film, maybe the best of each. However, Amazon has the resources and the money to hire talented writers that can create a brand new original idea that is not Lord of the Rings. If Amazon wanted a new epic television series then they should create a new one instead of using a pre-existing one. It is hard to have any originality in what networks do because, odds are, someone has already explored that territory. So why try building a world as complex as Tolkien did with Middle-Earth? After all, it took Tolkien a lifetime to craft LOTR, and networks demand results as early as yesterday. There are so many creators out there who are willing to put their new original ideas, but instead networks try to put all their stock in properties that have already been fulfilled. For the love of television, Rosanne is coming back. Who in the world asked for Rosanne to come back? Thanks, ABC. There have been so many unnecessary reboots done poorly, like Fox’s 24: Legacy and Prison Break, NBC Heroes: Reborn and trying the revive The Office, and ABC bringing back a dead Dan Conner in Rosanne (via the tired
“it was all a dream” trope). Not only has there been the return of Gray’s Anatomy, but an upcoming Gray’s Anatomy spinoff. I am also eagerly awaiting a Will & Grace spinoff; an even crappier season five of Arrested Development. While Netflix has some original shows, their most popular was set in the sweet spot of nostalgia (Stranger Things’ 1980s), and others include a plethora of reboots like Fuller House and Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Gilmore Girls, not to mention more superhero fare (six Marvel properties). Television networks, please stop with the revivals, reboots, and the same procedural cop show over and over again. Now Television has some great original programs on now but the direction that they are headed could be a dangerous one. Television is just a fraction of this problem because the main part of the problem lies at the movie theater.
Out of the ten highest grossing movies of 2017, five were superhero movies, five were sequels, three were reboots, and five were made by Disney (no one knows how to manipulate our feelings of the past quite like Disney). Every film is a superhero, Disney, sequel, reboot, or remade movie. Of course, it may be our mistake for going to see these movies, but that is all that thrown our way in terms of marketing. We are not marketed A Ghost Story, which came out in July and got absolutely no buzz (similar to A24’s phenomenal and phenomenally Oscar ignored 2015 film Ex Machina). A Ghost Story is a truly original idea that no one has ever seen and a movie that asks so many questions about life. You may not have heard of it because of the sixth Spider-Man movie or the third Thor movie. Just to compare numbers, A Ghost Story made 1.9 million while Spider-Man: Homecoming made over 880 million at the box office. Why did an original film with a fresh idea barely draw a million at the box office but the sixth Spider-Man (and by no means the strongest)
Their marketing works. If you are still excited by the 30th Marvel or Star Wars film, then Disney is pulling you by the strings like Pinocchio. Oh, and Disney is doing a live action Pinocchio film soon as well.If studios marketed their smaller films like they do with their major franchises, which may largely be because established brands assure huge profits due to name recognition. That has to change because we do not need two different Star Wars movies in the span of six months, as well as two trilogies over the next few years. There is a reason that movies like The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, and Pulp Fiction did so well and are so well appreciated today (1994 was a good year). Their respective studios bet on the filmmakers and they bet on the films doing well. There is a such a formula in the way that studios carve their films and the way they market them. Take a good hard look at the movies you saw last year along with the movies you are excited about this year to see how reboots, remakes, sequels, and franchise movies there actually are. But be careful: you may discover how successful their marketing works. If you are still excited by the 30th Marvel or Star Wars film, then Disney is pulling you by the strings like Pinocchio. Oh, and Disney is doing a live action Pinocchio film soon as well.
There is a dangerous trend in Hollywood that if it keeps going this trend could lead us down a dangerous path. There is a growing problem and I am not saying that I do not enjoy these movies, but I would also enjoy if smaller films with new ideas got some more spotlight (kind of like the movie Spotlight). Do yourself a favor: go see a movie like Annihilation or A Quiet Place. Support new writers, actors, directors, and creators by branching out and watching a new TV show or movie. Because if the Age of Nostalgia never ends, then the past may very well stay alive, but at the expense of the present, and for a predictable, sequel filled future where no new ideas are conjured. In this case, the only reboot or adaptation we need is Brave New World, or as we call it, the present.
Image Captions:
Image 1: Screenshot from a Rosanne revival TV Spot
Image 2: Theatrical poster for A Ghost Story
Image 3: Disney poster depicting them as the marketing machine
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