Friends, countrymen, Romans, lend me 10p for a cup of tea.
For with that tea, let me tell you of a world which over the next year, we will actually be experiencing a great deal of deja vu.
Across the various forms of media, we will be watching, listening and playing sequels to works which proved a hit in one form or another. We’ve reached the point of saturation where now we will just have reboots or sequels as being the predominant entertainment with more original takes on themes, ideas and characters taking a back seat.
Now this is not going to go into a rant about that very thing, far from it, in many ways, it is very difficult to generate new original ideas, especially where now everything is now basically a derivative from another idea or premise. Where there is scope to progress and improve ideas which came before, we should wholeheartedly embrace those that follow.
I for one welcome our Marvel / Disney overlords who basically have got the formula right with giving variety to their huge amount of content, and who have published their film list for the next 5 years. They have reached the point where they are now producing great quality repeatedly where the heroes taking center stage have more than enough of their own problems to deal with and it’s something most people have been enjoying.
However, there has been more than enough entries in the annals of history to show where sequels would have been better off being left to gather dust on the shelves of various cupboards instead of being unleashed on the world. After the first Matrix movie, who gave a damn about the two that followed after the hype died? Who sighed a deep sigh when yet another Assassin’s Creed game was “leaked” to be in development when the recent Unity is still being fixed? Continue reading →