Sequels and Reboots

Recently, the word sequel has become more and more relevant, with almost every movie being released today being a sequel of a movie or a reboot of an old movie. But does making a sequel to a good movie help or hurt the series as a whole.

In today’s era of movie making, it seems like almost every movies that comes out is either a follow up to a successful movie or a reboot to a classic film. But it seems like the sequel always fairs much worse than its predecessor, with it almost always getting a lower score from fans and critics alike. The only reason company’s release a sequel or pre sequel is because the first movie was well received and the producers wanted to cash in on hopeful movie goers. This plan works well too often, with the sequels often bringing in a lot of profit, which just starts the cycle over again. Unfortunately, the producers are not the ones to blame; they are just trying to make a profit, it is the consumers that pay to go see these sequels that are the ones at fault.

Now I’m not saying that every sequel made was a failure, with the Lord of the Rings sequels actually getting better than the last. I’m just saying that companies that cash in on a successful movie just for a quick buck is bad. This also occurs to some extent with reboots of movies. Reboots are becoming more and more popular, with many newer versions of classics such as Robo Cop and Total Recall. These aren’t given the same treatment as the “cash in while still popular” sequels are, these can sometimes be very good. But instead of sticking to what made the original movie so good, they tend to deviate from the path and try to change source material long standing fans have cherished and loved. Although sometimes this strategy pays off, most of the time this flops with fans and critics alike.

My outcry is not aimed at movie producers or directors, but at you, the movie goer. You are the reason that these company’s keep producing these movies. If you never went and saw these terrible movies, they wouldn’t make any money off of them, and they would stop being produced. So the next time you see a movie coming out that looks even little questionable, read a review and save yourself the 10$.