Thanks to yet another acquisition by Disney, we are being “treated”
to another trilogy of Star Wars films. Now, I have seen the original trilogy numerous
times, though wouldn’t go as far as to call myself a “fan”. However, even I can
tell you that after the bastardisation of the trilogy by the prequels, I cannot
see the need to make more. For me, the Star Wars trilogy is a key example of
the commercialisation of Hollywood. We were told the prequels were always
planned, then given characters that we there to sell merchandise, and a story
that had so much potential but so little substance. It was all style, and so
little else.
As a writer, it angers me how the majority of films nowadays
are sequels, prequels, reboots, adaptations or “re-imaginings” and yet hardly
any of the commercially successful films of the past year have been original
works. In this year alone we’ve had two Snow White adaptations as well as a
reboot of a franchise not yet ten years old (Spider-Man). Even Christopher
Nolan’s brilliant Dark Knight Trilogy, whilst stunning and brilliant, is just a
director’s vision of a story we’ve seen done. Yes, we constantly adapt
Shakespeare, but those stories are classics, and timeless. Is Batman really the
new Hamlet?
Searching through the internet the other day I stumbled upon
a trailer for a film entitled “A Good Day to Die Hard” starring Bruce Willis.
It wasn’t until much later I realised this was the fourth sequel in the Die
Hard franchise, because the trailer shows us just another action film. It’s not
even necessary to keep the name of Die Hard because it’s simply an action film.
The name has been attached to ensure box office gross. It is copy and paste
film-making. Over the years we’ve seen the decline of original film-making as
companies back the continuation of franchise. In 1982, out of the top ten grossing
films of the year, seven were original films; 1992, six films were original,
2002, three films were originals. And finally in 2012, two original works. TWO!
And the success of one of those films has seen the sequel announced.
Another example of how unoriginal Hollywood can be is the
Avengers franchise. Iron Man’s success saw sequels, which saw other Marvel
comics hitting the big screen and soon we were given The Avengers, another
brilliant film from this year. And suddenly The Avengers 2 is in the works, and
now filmmakers are lining up to create the same franchise based around the DC
Comic superheroes. It’s just an endless cycle of people taking pre-existing
stories and re-packaging them for modern mainstream audiences.
Now, that isn’t to say these adaptations are a bad thing.
The previously mentioned Dark Knight Trilogy is one of the finest examples of
modern filmmaking, and one of the films I most look forward to next year is Baz
Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby”. With these re-imaginings, we continue to see
differing vision of classic stories, and mostly offer a fresh take. However, as
original works continue to decline in number and success, what troubles me is
that we may stall new works. Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is yet another
example of how original story can be a mixture of substance and style for all
audiences, without having to sacrifice story or intellect. It’s commercial and
critical success show us that audiences are not solely interested in
re-visiting characters, but also something fresh.
With more and more sequels being announced and franchises
ever-growing, there seems to be no end in sight. The question I leave you with
is this: Is this Hollywood now? Or do you see a Renaissance of original film
making?
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