I'll echo this.
Dac, make sure you pay attention to what Hollywood has done in the past (the typical movies, not just the most famous ones) before you judge Hollywood today
Has Originality died in Hollywood?
- Thread starter Dac
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I'll echo this.
Dac, make sure you pay attention to what Hollywood has done in the past (the typical movies, not just the most famous ones) before you judge Hollywood today
Well, those aren't quite comparable. They're about as much sequels as films featuring Charlie Chaplin's Tramp are sequels of each other, in that it's just repeating a familiar comedic act in a new movie. The successor to that would be Borat and Bruno, not Spider Man 2 and 3.
These are much better examples. However, The Planet of the Apes films are my preferred example of exactly what I mean - it was expected in Hollywood at the time that a sequel would make less money, and the budget was slashed accordingly. Compare the ape makeup in Beneath the Planet - especially on the extras - and this is particularly notable. Films like the Empire Strikes Back and so forth sort of turned that notion on its head, and the consequence of that is our age of innumerable action/adventure and/or sci-fi/fantasy trilogies released this decade. Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Carribbean, Spider-Man, the Matrix, so on and on.
Anyway, I wasn't claiming that sequels didn't exist or even that there weren't franchises of such (I myself name-dropped Bond), but that I do think there's a much greater focus on tentpole franchises today then there has been in previous decades.
I believe the whole lack of originality issue deals with studios not wanting to take financial risks. When you take something that was previously successful and remake it for a modern audience, then you decrease the risk of financial loss. Even if you remake a previous failure, you've decreased risk because you have critical reaction to review in an attempt to fix what the problems were.
Of course, there is the strategy of just capitalizing on a movie title that's beloved, but that's not always the case. For instance, the Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan movie "You've Got Mail" was really just a modernized remake of the 1940 Jimmy Stewart movie "The Shop Around the Corner".
There are some very original things in borrowing from the past, though. One of my favorites is the George Clooney film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" from 2003. That film was actually a sequel of sorts to the 1941 movie "Sullivan's Travels". In "Sullivan's Travels", the story involved a director who was attempting to adapt a novel for the silver screen; but he felt he couldn't do it properly unless he completely immersed himself in the depression era culture of the poor. After much trouble from his effort, the director finds the inspiration he was looking for; but he is surprised that he now feels his movie should be a comedy meant to lift spirits instead of the serious depression piece he intended. The movie ends with the director returning to Hollywood.
The name of the novel the director was going to adapt? "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The 2003 Clooney movie was an example of what the director would have made after returning to Hollywood at the end of "Sullivan's Travels".
Of course, there is the strategy of just capitalizing on a movie title that's beloved, but that's not always the case. For instance, the Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan movie "You've Got Mail" was really just a modernized remake of the 1940 Jimmy Stewart movie "The Shop Around the Corner".
There are some very original things in borrowing from the past, though. One of my favorites is the George Clooney film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" from 2003. That film was actually a sequel of sorts to the 1941 movie "Sullivan's Travels". In "Sullivan's Travels", the story involved a director who was attempting to adapt a novel for the silver screen; but he felt he couldn't do it properly unless he completely immersed himself in the depression era culture of the poor. After much trouble from his effort, the director finds the inspiration he was looking for; but he is surprised that he now feels his movie should be a comedy meant to lift spirits instead of the serious depression piece he intended. The movie ends with the director returning to Hollywood.
The name of the novel the director was going to adapt? "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The 2003 Clooney movie was an example of what the director would have made after returning to Hollywood at the end of "Sullivan's Travels".
First off, thank you all very much for the responses, I haven't read through them all just yet, as I came across this gem:
Thank you SO much. I've mentioned sequels in my proposal and planning works, but Ive never really put much thought into focusing on them. Now I've finally started the "heavy lifting" if you will with research, Ive found that originality looking at remakes and adaptations is far too broad a subject to focus on, where as chrisspringob said, sequels are a much more recent trend to look at.
I have a meeting with my tutor tomorrow, I'll have to see how shifting focus goes down then, but Im sure they'll support the decision. Again, thank you both so much
Thank you SO much. I've mentioned sequels in my proposal and planning works, but Ive never really put much thought into focusing on them. Now I've finally started the "heavy lifting" if you will with research, Ive found that originality looking at remakes and adaptations is far too broad a subject to focus on, where as chrisspringob said, sequels are a much more recent trend to look at.
I have a meeting with my tutor tomorrow, I'll have to see how shifting focus goes down then, but Im sure they'll support the decision. Again, thank you both so much
Oh, totally. My first job was to try and find out the first remake...amazingly enough, the earliest I could find narrative wise was based on "The Great Train Robbery" from 1903...which was then remade one year later in 1904 virtually shot for shot.
I'll make sure to take a note of the golden age of cinema too, as that's an era which Ive been completely blind too until mentions of it here.
Again, thank you all for the great suggestions and opinions on the subject.
I hate this argument.
"Originality" in storytelling is a myth. Heck, most of Shakespeare's plays were "remakes." When you get right down to it pretty much everything written in the last two thousand years has been a remake or retelling. It's the nature of human communication---we hear a story and tell it in our own way. There's no difference in Hollywood.
Now, sequels are a slightly different animal. Certainly, there are cases where it's simply a story evolution/continuation. However, there are clearly those that are simply meant to be cash cows: High School Musical 6, for example.
"Originality" in storytelling is a myth. Heck, most of Shakespeare's plays were "remakes." When you get right down to it pretty much everything written in the last two thousand years has been a remake or retelling. It's the nature of human communication---we hear a story and tell it in our own way. There's no difference in Hollywood.
Now, sequels are a slightly different animal. Certainly, there are cases where it's simply a story evolution/continuation. However, there are clearly those that are simply meant to be cash cows: High School Musical 6, for example.
I don't think sequels are anything new:
Andy Hardy (17 films)
The Falcon (16 films)
East Side Kids (21 films)
The Lone Wolf (24 films)
Blondie (28 films)
Godzilla (29 films)
Carry On (31 films)
Charlie Chan (47 films)
The Bowery Boys (48 films)
Hopalong Cassidy (66 films)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_series/
I used Wiki for the series with 10+ entries but just going off the top of my head there was The Thin Man, Mexican Spitfire, Topper, The Saint and I'm sure many more.
Andy Hardy (17 films)
The Falcon (16 films)
East Side Kids (21 films)
The Lone Wolf (24 films)
Blondie (28 films)
Godzilla (29 films)
Carry On (31 films)
Charlie Chan (47 films)
The Bowery Boys (48 films)
Hopalong Cassidy (66 films)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_series/
I used Wiki for the series with 10+ entries but just going off the top of my head there was The Thin Man, Mexican Spitfire, Topper, The Saint and I'm sure many more.
No offense, hombre, but while I'd be interested in seeing cold hard numbers for the prevalence of remakes, adaptations and spinoffs made by Tinseltown, I find your proposed dissertation as described to be severely flawed. You say you'll be doing research, but your bias is clear as day.
First, you say that sequels can't be original. Now, a movie like Made of Honor is, for copyright reasons, not an adaptation of My Best Friend's Wedding. But does that make it any more original than the Bourne sequels, which use almost none of the first movie's cast apart from Matt Damon?
And a hundred other issues besides:You mean the most original story a writer can come up with is to take stuff that actually happened (i.e., he didn't come up with it himself) and adapt it?
So yeah, Dac, you could count the number of intertextual films (a far more accurate and neutral word than "non-original", imo) and see what the trends are. Personally, I don't much see the point in going to university to learn to count, but then, I didn't do a dissertation, so what do I know?
Hah, the things I could tell you about my course...I came here to do animation, but a requirement of the "animation" course is to do an 8000 word dissertation on anything you want...makes perfect sense to me.
As for my bias...well, I suppose looking at my original post I was much more in favour of "originality" than remakes, but in fact my favourate movie is an adaptation, and my favourate TV show is a flat out remake (The Shawshank Redemption and Battlestar Galactica).
Looking at everyones opinions has made me think that I desperately need to rephrase my question and the whole meaning of the essay...I definitely want to focus on Hollywood productions and the studios apparent recent tendencies toward remakes...as you have all pointed out it's been going on for years, but when I started dreaming up ideas for an essay I was blind to the fact that it had been going on for years, so that's one thing I should mention when it comes to writing the dissertation.
Indeed. It's the journey that is most important. It's kind of like when you're watching your favourite show or movie and the hero is in a precarious position. You know he's not actually going to end up dying, he's the hero after all, the thing that is keeping your interest is how he manages to stay alive. The drama is not in the question of whether or not he lives or dies but in how he continues.
I don't think that originality was ever that prominent, but for the big-budget Hollywood film industry, the increasing need to appeal to a global lowest-common-denomenator certainly hasn't improved the situation.
TV is the opposite case, at least on cable, where the ability to succeed financial off a paltry audience of say, 2 million viewers, has really freed shows up to do more daring and interesting things.
The appeal of a remake is that it can be pitched as a known quantity and therefore mollify the nervous bean-counters. Both movies and TV are a risky game; most things flop, and you have to compensate for the nine flops you can expect with that tenth movie or show that is a monster hit. Having to pay for nine flops just increases the financial pressure on that one-out-of-ten success.
BSG is a good example why something that's a remake doesn't have to be dull or even have much in common with the thing it's allegedly a remake of. Ron Moore probably just said "BSG" to Skiffy's bean counters so they would greenlight his show. Then he went and did the show he wanted to do, which had no more than a surface resemblance to the original. He could have called it Generic Space Romp Number Forty-Seven and it would have been the same show.
Star Trek IX is another example, except in that case, it made sense to bring back elements of the original, since they were durable and worth reviving.
Remakes are just a strategy for getting a movie (or TV show) funded. It's no excuse for unoriginality since most old stuff has such a small dedicated fanbase that they're irrelevant. You slap some name on your new show or movie and do as you please. Nobody knows or cares differently.
TV is the opposite case, at least on cable, where the ability to succeed financial off a paltry audience of say, 2 million viewers, has really freed shows up to do more daring and interesting things.
The appeal of a remake is that it can be pitched as a known quantity and therefore mollify the nervous bean-counters. Both movies and TV are a risky game; most things flop, and you have to compensate for the nine flops you can expect with that tenth movie or show that is a monster hit. Having to pay for nine flops just increases the financial pressure on that one-out-of-ten success.
BSG is a good example why something that's a remake doesn't have to be dull or even have much in common with the thing it's allegedly a remake of. Ron Moore probably just said "BSG" to Skiffy's bean counters so they would greenlight his show. Then he went and did the show he wanted to do, which had no more than a surface resemblance to the original. He could have called it Generic Space Romp Number Forty-Seven and it would have been the same show.
Star Trek IX is another example, except in that case, it made sense to bring back elements of the original, since they were durable and worth reviving.
Remakes are just a strategy for getting a movie (or TV show) funded. It's no excuse for unoriginality since most old stuff has such a small dedicated fanbase that they're irrelevant. You slap some name on your new show or movie and do as you please. Nobody knows or cares differently.
Don't forget serial films, which were basically pre-planned, once-a-week sequels.
Boston Blackie (9 films, first series; 14 films, second series), also comes to mind. I think many persons have a false impression of the history of sequels because they grew up between Hollywood's bright ages (pre-1960 or so, post-1994 or so). Sequels were very popular for about the first 50 years of cinema; movies series tended to perform somewhat consistently - much like the Star Trek movies between 2 and 9 (inclusive). At some point, sequels began to falter as a rule; it's this period (the second half of the 20th Century) which most persons remember as "normal," though it was a bad time for Hollywood overall.
Isn't O'Brother a "remake" of Oddyseus?
Aren't they all
The 70's was actually the end of the golden age of film making. The age of the sequel began in the 80's and continues unabated today. In fact, just read an article in the L.A. Times which indicates that because of the new economic realities, we're going to see even less originality and more sequels.
BTW, I don't mind sequals per se, only bad ones, which so many tend to be.
^ The Golden Age of Hollywood is generally agreed to have ended by about 1960 (the consensus span is 1910-1960). Within that era, the Classical Period (which was the first of two periods dominated by classical style filmmaking) is generally held to have been between 1927 and 1954.
That is very flattering, sir (though chris of course brought it up). Thank you, and best of luck with this.
Nobody was saying they were. I was just observing there's an uptick in sequels of blockbuster films in Hollywood, as a marketing strategy it's become arguably more of an expectation now than it has been hitherto.
You know, there's even been talks of sequels for Star Trek and Avatar before either film was released in theatres - these kind of potential tentpole films are built with sequel potential hardwired into the concept. Which also leaves us with more films that are the first in would-but-never-will-be trilogies, like Hulk, Golden Compass and Superman Returns.
Exactly how many ways does this have to be phrased before it sort of makes sense? I'm not saying sequels are new, or tentpole franchises with sequels are new (Star Wars is a classic example of this and that was a while ago), but I do think Hollywood has shifted towards this sort of film output with regards to action-adventure cinema.
Which in turn was a sequel to the Illiad.Aren't they all
For that matter, the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes is basically a fanboy work, full of self-referential nods to Homeric epics and other classics of Greek myth. That's right, one of our core sources of the Jason and the Argonauts myth was to Greek mythology what Mike Sussman was to Star Trek.
The 70's may not be known officially as part of the "golden age" to which you refer, but a decade that produced movies like, The Godfather, Chinatown, Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Apocalypse Now, Network, and several others will do until another "better" Golden Age comes along.
A few more, I almost got it...and of course, my answer was directed only at you.
Star Wars was likely responsible for both the shift toward blockbusters and the propensity for sequels.
