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Lets unpack that a little.
I loveBlade Runnerbecause every time I watchBlade RunnerI see a different movie.
AndBlade Runner 2049, for me, was infected with a need to explain everything, bluntly and repeatedly.
Its not abadmovie, in the same way that2010: The Year We Make Contactisnt a bad movie.
It just has no business calling itselfBlade Runner, in my opinion.
I said as much inmy (mixed) review ofBlade Runner 2049.
Ignore my swipe at Twitter; the real culprit is probably the TV-ization of everything.
Were often reminded that the firstBlade Runnerwas a flop, but we rarely ask why it was a flop.
Its an alienating film, in the best possible way.
Its becauseBlade Runneris a really strange movie, and it remains so.
If you released the first picture today, youd get hammered at the box office all over again.
Perhaps I wasnt expecting it to do that?
But its hard to disentangle ones personal attachments from what we expect or want sequels to do.
And at the end of the day, thats what I want from a sequel.
Angelica Jade Bastien:Jen,Ive got to ask, do sequelshave tosatisfy our nostalgia?
J.C.:Great question.
Im putting those emotions under a very broad umbrella called nostalgia.
It plays like bad fan fiction.
And the age of IP has essentially made everyone into well-compensated writers of fan fiction.
What I want is a feeling that whoevers making a sequel reallyunderstandsthe work theyre continuing.
J.C.:Alison, I agree.
I am among those who actually enjoyed the all-femaleGhostbustersfor what it was (and my sonlovedit).
It requires a nuanced, smart approach to fall on the right side of that line.
Im still interested in the forces behind the need for franchises to continue in perpetuity.
What do yall think?
:Its true that Hollywood (and mass media in general) has weaponized nostalgia in not-always-tasteful ways.
Its not so much that I neededBlade Runner 2049to do exactly whatBlade Runnerdid.
He might as well have been an entirely new character.
I dont know.The Road Warriordid that with the firstMad Maxand it kind of worked perfectly.
Maybe George Miller is Just Really Good at This.)
A fondness for earlier movies absolutely colors our opinions of the new ones.
What if I didnt put the firstScreamup on a pedestal?
Would these movies be more fun for me?
Similarly, everyConjuringmovie made after the originalConjuringjust serves to remind me why the first movie was so good.
Would I have liked the second movie more had I never seen the first?
You guys mentionedCreed, a very good entry in aRockyfranchise I mostly detest.
But what about my belovedTron: Legacy?
In other words, even our new things were just old things remixed.
His overall point was about how we cling to the past because our world is changing so rapidly.
Hollywood executives and filmmakers arent immune to this phenomenon.
They cling to the past just like we do, because they themselves feel powerless in this world.
The most nostalgic movie of 2021 wasntSpider-Man: No Way Home, if you ask me.
It was Paul Thomas AndersonsLicorice Pizza.
Its brand maintenance rather than creativity.
