Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Ahh, Nostaligia....!

Sometimes I get the feeling that we’re living in the middle of some kind of cultural “Dark Ages” because of how much the entertainment industry seems to rely on “Nostalgia.”

I started noticing they did this about ten years ago when VH1 launched that “I love the 80s” show.

I’m sure this technique has been around for a lot longer than that – the phrase, “return to simpler times” has probably been the slogan of countless politicians for ages – but it seems like we’re all feeding into it so much now that we’re not giving anything else a chance.

There are so many adaptations, remakes & “re-imaginings” of books, movies, stories that were popular over a decade ago that are just being re-hashed as a movie, cartoon, stage-musical, etc. that I’ve lost count. TV series that should’ve ended years ago are still on the air! Every profitable franchise with a storyline is being “re-imagined” to the point where I’m losing interest.

It was fun & novel at first, but it’s been ten years – can we stop reliving our childhoods and move on to something new to love?

The final straw for me is how they’re marketed the “new Karate Kid movie” that just came out. I mean, it’s clearly NOT a re-make of the original; it’s just total rip-off of it.


But since they advertised it as a remake / re-imagining / whatever, they can avoid all the “it’s just like ________” criticism that other movies get (ex. Avatar“it’s just Dances with Wolves w/CGI, lulz”) while still profiting from the name of the original franchise!

You see, people won’t go see a movie that they think is a rip-off; but they will go see a movie that they think is a ‘remake.’….even if it isn’t.



Because of Nostalgia.

Sorry – somehow this turned into a rant. I didn’t even like the original Karate Kid movie….!

3 comments:

-∆ said...

well so word around the campfire is that Hollywood is taking fewer risks these days b/c of the shitty economy. A lot of movies have lost money lately and some big studios are in danger of going under, so they're doing a lot of shitty remakes.

The way I see it, the nostalgia thing is a way of getting more bang for their buck. The entertainment industry thrives on trends and actively works to make its own product less cool by pushing it aside shortly after. Remember how back in middle school we couldn't praise a song that was even a month old for fear one of the popular kids would say, "that song is so old already!" So they wait a bit and bring it back this way to make it okay again for us to listen to it. Fuckin stupidest shit ever.

Also, I need windows 7 on my computer very soon but the only stores I"ve been to are ripping me off. ideas?

Stoodert said...

Go halves with a friend and get Windows 7 Pro? This may not be true, but I hear the "pro" version lets you install it on multiple omputers! (cuz obviously you'll need it on more than one computer for your business)

That is, if there even IS a pro-version....! (I still use XP)

R.E.M. Borja said...

Since the new one is about kung fu, it really should have been called "The Kung Fu Kid," but of course that does away with an easily marketable title. But never mind that it's a misnomer.