the reason Michael Caine and Tim Curry are so good in their respective Muppet movies is that Michael Caine treats the Muppets as fellow actors, and Tim Curry treats himself as a fellow Muppet

discuss

No, no need to discuss your analysis is spot on.

Reblogs and replies got disabled, surprise surprise.

Reblog while you still can.

i hope this e-mail finds you in a shotgun shack

i hope this e-mail finds you in another part of the world

i hope this e-mail finds you behind the wheel of a large automobile

I will NEVER FORGET the Palestinian delegation showing up to Standing Rock. NEVER. THEY SHOWED THE FUCK UP EVEN FROM A WORLD AWAY.

One of my favorite media-related fallacies to contradict is the idea that sequels and remakes are a recent market trend and speak to a lack of new ideas. From the start of film as a medium, people have been re-telling or following up on previous works. I have a few favorite examples.

Universal Monster movies are a particularly egregious case. Movies like Dracula and Frankenstein performed well, so they made sequels, a number of spin-offs, and spoofed them with Abbot and Costello. They even made crossover films with other monsters owned by the studio.

Disney’s Alice in Wonderland was the third adaptation of the book. Their classic, animated Cinderella was the second time they’d adapted that story, and the fourth screen adaptation at the time of its release. This is true for most popular folk tales, children’s stories, and popular novels. Almost all have a silent or black and white adaptation and multiple adaptations in the decades since. And I don’t think we’ll ever stop remaking Dickens and Shakespeare into the dirt.

But my favorite example is Cecil B. DeMille. He directed the classic biblical epic, The Ten Commandments. Twice. The classic with Charlton Heston is a remake of DeMille’s own 1923 silent film of the same title.

Humans like patterns, and that includes plot beats and familiar characters and archetypes. And with the evolution of pop culture, films pick up their own followings which allow for perpetual interest. There is massive, innate demand for sequels and remakes and it’s made them a safe bet for studios since the dawn of the industry. Yes, it gets utilized for marketing, but that’s a byproduct of the economic system, not the medium. And even DeMille wasn’t afraid to make something a few times until he had it how he liked.