Why Do So Many Sequels Seem to Hate Themselves? | The Backdrop

Watched the video yesterday and the point about Scream 4 coming out in 2011 and predicting the legacyquel trend reminded me of a fact I've returned to time and time again: Ready Player One also came out in 2011 and while it was wholly unintentional it ended up being a warning of where pop culture was headed in the coming decade-plus. Not just bathing in familiar IP to the exclusion of new ideas, but showing this slavish devotion to them as sacred texts and fans as the keepers of the holy knowledge. There's an actual plot point that the villains miss a vital clue because they're not Real True Fans of the works being referenced in the game. Of course Cline was not saying 'This is all bad, this is the wrong way to engage with media,' but in his obliviousness he did unwittingly signal an alarm that people didn't seem to pick up on.

There's an irony in an essay about sequels being so original and well-written. Great job digging into movies that are kind of painful to watch and coming up with this insight. Sometimes I'm genuinely torn which is harder: Creating a proper sequel that honors the previous work, while adding something that enhances the new work meaningfully, vs creating something new from scratch.

I’m not sure I got that sense from John Wick 4 but maybe that’s why it seemed to be trying to cram everything it possibly could into the runtime. I feel I’ve recommended this to to you before, but the OG video game self-hating sequel is Metal Gear Solid 2; I think you’d get quite a lot out of it if you have a few hours to watch “game movie” of MGS1 and 2. Either way, excellent work on what you love :)

Great work as always, Darren

What a great essay!

"Death grip GenX has on culture" News to me.

So will Ghostface return in Aven - no. Not going there. I guess if you don’t want to make an angry self hating movie, you could do what Alien Earth did and Trojan Horse original content into your established IP.

Beyond the usual top notch essay on sequels, I also want to point out the great work on the editing which feel more and more evolved each new episode :)

I recently discovered the French movie, Infested. One of the best horror movies I've seen in a long time, but all the algorithms of all the services I sub to neglected to recommend it to me. I bet if it had been called "Arachnophobia 2: Sacre Bleu" or something it would have been all over my feeds. Original ideas just don't have a chance, it seems.

Am I the only one that hates the "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards" line? I think that's a awful quote, especially because so many people who use it often complain when a movie or video game out right tells you everything upfront, and not let you have time to considered or think for yourself.

I consider Matrix Resurrections the outlier in the list you provide. Lana directed it as a protest to the greed of Warner Bros. I fail to consider Zazlav as the "poor victim" of a "vindictive" creator. I'm so glad we agreed on that.