The Fault in our Sequels

By Madeline Perez

We are living in a dystopian nightmare. This is not up for debate. What is up for debate, however, is what exactly makes this tormented hellscape we call ‘slice of life’ so dystopian. Some of the politically minded may think it’s the libs, with their social medias and their genders; others, the rightists, with their Columbus Day and gas stoves. I’m proud to say that it is neither and that I am better than all of you simple-minded plebs: The true reason society is crumbling lies in our very own theaters, as remakes and sequels level our cultural evolution in the most anti-Darwinian backpedaling we’ve seen since Weezer.

A famous authoress once said, “If there’s one thing I hate more than sexual assault, it’s unnecessary movie reboots.” In her questionable phrasing, she sought not to minimize the damage of assault, but to stress just how unethical these reboots are, of which there truly is no parallel. That authoress was me, and me is she, and I promised to unpack that loaded sentence not intended to be taken at face value at a later date. Well, the day of reckoning is upon us, just as your mother lay upon my astral cock. Stupid remakes and sequels have become the bane of my existence, dialectically opposing me in a way that also gives me the will to go on, the will to fight and die for a cause I know will never win nor make a dent in this great societal cage-refrigerator I have been locked inside of.

This blight of depravity is killing my favorite things with the same valor in which millennials killed shopping malls, the housing market, and marriage. (Will their taste for blood ever truly subside?? I’ve escaped a savage Millennial once or twice, fleeing only when their attention shifted to the Harry Potter paraphernalia I tossed in the opposite direction.) Quality movies are now few and far between, and box offices are littered with sequels, prequels, horror movies juxtaposed by starring some childhood character, live remakes of Disney movies, or possibly a biography about some dead singer (or alive, in Elton John’s case, but let’s give that a couple years). Of course, the theaters also need some softcore movie porn thrown in for the unsatisfied middle-aged wives on Zoloft (with vivid fantasy lives) who either resent the more explicit internet porn for “ruining their husbands” or don’t know of its existence. And oh, can’t forget the Marvel military propaganda that has been turning the general population into sleeper cells until they hear the phrase “I like DC comics better” or “Gamergate.”

Why is this happening? Well, aside from the fact that there’s a cruel and unforgiving God who rips away all I hold near and dear, I believe the people who make movies figured they’re bound to get more bang for their buck promoting family-friendly nostalgia-banking bullshit rather than take a chance on an original project that will require more effort, money, and–this one’s important–an actual good idea. So, lo lo lo and behold, limp and passionless Trolls 2 and Minions 47: Return of the Banana will get advertised from here across the vast plane of outer space and back. Seven-year-olds have terrible taste in movies after all, so what do they care? (Besides me. I was a very pretentious seven-year-old, after all.)

There are other factors: Yes, the movie-goer industry is dying and everything is streaming now and 123movies and video killed the radio star. I’m sure everyone remembers when COVID happened and unprecedented times were unprecedented. Lots of small-town theaters were killed off, it’s been getting harder for smaller companies to profit off of movies, and, in a world where only the strong survive, this leaves a huge gap for larger companies to swoop in like a hawk and corner the market which is the field mouse in this emotionally-stressful simile. The monopoly man is real (and no, he does not have a monocle, you’re confusing him with the more refined Mr.Peanut), he has a gun, and his name is Disney. As I sit atop my abandoned tower, I can only dream that one day my prince will come, and these incessant sequels, remakes, and frankly terrible movies will be wiped from the planet, as well as my memory. That is, unless the sequel is… good?

TO BE CONTINUED?