#3 "Sequels and Remakes" -- Don

It’s funny how some memories decide to stick to the back of your brain like gum on the soles of your shoes and other memories fade quicker than chalk on a sidewalk.  Although I’ve only been out to the movies three or four times this year, I’d be hard pressed to remember which ones they were (okay, I definitely remember seeing Avatar; that was this year, right? And a 3-D cartoon, How to Train Your Dragon, but the other one or two, I’d really have to work at trying to remember what they were).

Now this may sound weird, but when I started to reflect on the topic of “Sequels and Remakes,” my imagination shot me with a recollection so vivid that it might as well have been yesterday:  I’m a sophomore in high school and I’m sitting in a movie theater in December of 1976.  I’m hanging out with a couple of my buddies, and we’re waiting to see, The Pink Panther Strikes Again starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.  Now for people Olivia’s age, you should know, that in 1976, Peter Sellers pretty much represented the absolute zenith of film comedy.  Although Monty Python had released The Holy Grail the year before, none of us, at that time, had ever heard of it because it only became hugely popular in subsequent years as a cult film that we watched repeatedly at midnight showings throughout my college years, and furthermore, the utter revolution to film comedy that was to be Airplane! wouldn’t be released until the summer of 1980, nearly four years later.

Okay, so I’m sitting in the movie theater, the lights go down, and just as The Preview of Coming Attractions are getting ready to roll, I hear for the first time, some blaring trumpets playing what is now immediately recognizable as the introductory notes of the theme to Star Wars.  “Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah, Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah!”  A somber voiceover remarks as a blur of action-packed clips begin to whirl past our eyeballs, “In a galaxy, far far away.”  Wow! My brain is in immediate overload.  Spaceships, laser swords, aliens, robots, and some evil dude dressed entirely in black who looked as though he had traded his entire face for the front of a Buick!  It was almost too cool for words.   As the trailer ended, the screen faded to the message “Coming Summer 1977” and for a moment, the theater grew deadly silent as though the entire crowd had sucked in their breath and forgot how to exhale.  At that moment, before the next trailer began to roll, I heard someone sitting behind me say, “Next summer?  What the heck?  I bet they haven’t even made it yet.”

Well, they made it all right, and as they like to say in Hollywood (or so I’ve been told) “And the rest is history.”  Stars Wars, as far I’m concerned, represents both everything that can go right in a film’s sequel and also everything that can go wrong.   When its first sequel The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980, I don’t know if the American public would have been more excited if real freakin’ aliens had decided to land on the White House lawn.  The first sequel did everything a great sequel is supposed to do:  it started to answer the questions we had about the conflict and the characters from the first film, it introduced us to Yoda (who -- being a Jedi muppet who could lift spaceships with his mind -- took cool to a whole new level) and it kept us on the edge of our seat with special effects and sets that contributed to (rather than swallowed up) the narrative.  I guess you probably would have had to been there to understand just how mind-blowing it was to hear Darth Vader tell Luke that he was his father and to see him chop his son’s arm off with a light saber.

By the end of the third film, Return of the Jedi, however, I’d basically had enough.   If forced to say why (and what kind of subliminal pun is that), I guess I’d have to say it was the Ewoks that ruined it for me (for those of you who don’t remember, the Ewoks were, you know, basically aboriginal Teddy Bears).  The problem with the Ewoks is they weren’t just cute, they were too cute, and nothing can ruin good Science Fiction like the odor of too cute.  Years later when the next installments finally came out, I ended up, of course, handing over my ticket money for these three other sequels (excuse me, prequels), but I ended up going to these movies almost as though I had an obligation to go.  At first, I had high hopes for The Phantom Menace, but because of Jar-Jar, this movie ended up smelling even cuter than ROTJ (and look,  here’s Darth Vader as a little kid, isn’t he adorable?)  I mean really, let’s take the most notorious villain in movie history and turn him into a Little Rascal.  Blaggh.

Okay, before I run out of room here, here are my rules of thumb when it comes to sequels and remakes:

1) Sequels and remakes shouldn’t make us feel like we’re being exploited for merely liking the original so much.  I completely understand that the point of making movies is to make money for the people who are producing the films, but I don’t want to be reminded of that while I’m watching the movie or the deal’s off.    I know I’m watching a bad sequel when in the midst of the movie, I’m trying to spot the toys, video game, or other merchandise that’s going to be shoved down our throats whenever we visit Walmart for the next few weeks.  A bad sequel or remake crosses the line of the audience’s willful suspension of disbelief and makes us feel stupid for going along with it.

2) I have little tolerance for sequels that basically have nothing but a tenuous connection to the original, or feature few (if any) characters from the first movie.  Carrie died dramatically at the end of that first movie ever inspired by a Stephen King novel, so what the heck was up with Carrie II (oh, a previously unheard of half-sister who basically goes through the same story years later.  Well, that’s just lame.)  When the Sting II came out in 1983, Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis took over the roles of Paul Newman and Robert Redford.   Really, they bore such striking resemblances, I'm sure no else even noticed.  Now you could argue that Gleason and Davis were playing similar, but different characters who just happened to share the same last names, but considering the point of the story of the sequel was the villain from the first film was trying to get his revenge in the second, that doesn’t make any sense either.

3) Any movie with “Final” in its title should have to offer a refund to viewers of the first film before being allowed to make a sequel.  Before being allowed to buy a ticket to a sequel in which the death of the main character was an essential part of the original film, potential moviegoers should have to pass an intelligence test.  Why the heck, by the way, did The Never-ending Story need a sequel?  That just boggles my mind.

4) Even though I’m a staunch believer in Freedom of Speech, if I had the power, I’d still pass a law restricting sequels with numbers in their titles from being allowed to be remade.  There are two Halloween II’s, and another Halloween III is supposed to come out next year. Now even through there are already more than a dozen Halloween films, how in the heck is this supposed to be Halloween III when the original Halloween III came out in 1982 (and even it had nothing to do with continuing the story of the first two Halloween movies).

5) Finally, a good remake or sequel must (if nothing else) create its own aesthetic that demonstrates a fresh outlook on the old material.  Take the recent Batman movies for example, what made Batman Begins and The Dark Knight so terrific was the artistic vision of their director, Christopher Nolan.  What made Batman such a great film in 1989 was the artistic vision of Director Tim Burton.  If a film is nothing more than a mere imitation of the original, then what’s the point?  I’d just as soon watch the original.

My favorite sequel?  It’s probably a tie between The Road Warrior (a sequel to Mad Max) and The Godfather Part II (which, by the way, was in 1974 the first sequel to use a number in its title).  Go figure.

Olivia says:


You know, I really don't think my generation has a Star Wars moment.  


Wait - maybe.  I think the closest we've got is Lord of the Rings.  


I remember sitting in the theater somewhere in the Cleveland suburbs.  I was riveted to every finite detail of the first film - they're in mid-mele, Frodo and the ring in jeopardy -  when the projector stops.  It slows and flickers into black.  And the theater is in absolute uproar for almost a whole minute.  Drinks were thrown!  It was absolute pandemonium!   


Yeah, that doesn't even touch the wonder of Star Wars.


After much reflection I've decided that my favorite sequel is probably Ghostbusters 2.   And I'm not settled on a favorite remake, but I do really appreciate Oceans 11.