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Looking in the entertainment industry, there are many things to look forward to this year. New TV shows, music albums, and video games. In the midst of all these things, we forget about one important thing that the new year brings: movie sequels.
2018 is going to bring many potentially amazing movie sequels, but it seems that it may bring even more disasters.
“Sometimes [movie sequels] work really well and sometimes they don’t,” said drama teacher Alex Barlow.
Some people jump right towards the negative outlook of these sequels.
“They don’t want to put the effort into making good movies,” said sophomore Isa Wright.
A recent survey among NS students revealed that 42 percent of students feel that there are too many sequels. So why do they continue to make more?
Many companies, Disney for example, see it as a great way to make money off of already established franchises.
“The large majority of them [are just for budget],” Barlow said.
For example, take the new sequel to Disney’s “Wreck-It-Ralph.” Creators already have a creative concept made for the original movie, as well as “rules” for the universe and the characters have already been introduced.
For a sequel, all they need to do is come up with something people are interested in (the internet in this case) and make up a new plot. The sequel, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” comes out Nov. 21.
Making animated movies is still hard work, but it’s a lot easier when you’re not coming up with a whole new concept; you don’t have to find an entirely new voice cast and it’s easier to advertise, because they’ve already built up the brand recognition.
“A lot of the marketing takes care of itself,” Barlow said.
Even though it feels like there are a lot of sequels coming this year compared to others, it’s actually quite the opposite. According to sites like “Business Insider,” 2018 will have less sequels than years in the past.
So with statistics against our reasoning, it leaves us to wonder why it feels like there are so many.
I guess it could be said, a little bit of bad will show up more than a lot of good. In other words, maybe the reason it seems there are so many sequels this year, is because there’s so many potential disasters, which seems more overwhelming than a lot of decent, original movies.
“I think when they make repetitive versions of the same thing,” Wright said. “It’s just too much.”
For example, there is going to be “Sherlock Gnomes,” which is a sequel to the horrible attempt to ruin Shakespeare’s classic, “Gnomeo and Juliet,” which had very crude humor and an unoriginal story.
“Hotel Transylvania 3” seems to be one of those series that gets worse and worse with every movie like “Ice Age” or “Despicable Me.” Both of these movies both created a similar problem when they shifted from a well-written story, to a “trendy” childish style.
“Some people don’t have a passion about their films,” Wright said. “They just want to make [what people will like].”
In the case of some of movies, there’s a very long wait for their sequels. There’s been a 14 year gap between “The Incredibles” and “The Incredibles 2” which comes out on June 15.
“I feel like the gap [between the sequels and the predecessors] is really large, to the point where some of them [felt] like you could have just left it alone,” said sophomore Cody Strange.
On top of the amount of animated sequels, expansive live action universes are constantly being added to, as is the case with Marvel and “Star Wars” movies.
“For movies like the Marvel movies, it seems like there’s an infinite amount of sequels,” Strange said.
Despite the multiple releases of these movies, many students still look forward to a continuation of its ever-changing universe.
“No matter how many Marvel movies you have, they’re still phenomenal,” Wright said.
Despite all of the conflictions though, a majority of these movies will likely just blow over after the DVD release.
