Hey guys, the Irascible Corpulent One here.
I was puttering around on the computer yesterday (as if that's any different than any other day) when the beloved eldest child o' mine - the 20-year-old - came in and started discussing a movie that's coming out soon: The Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
He was bemoaning the fact that originality in movies is practically non-existent, and that every movie in the past ten years or so (with few exceptions) is a remake, a reboot, a sequel, or a prequel. The eldest was flabbergasted that they were now getting ready to release a prequel to a reboot of a movie from the 1960s.
Oh boy, did I have bad news for him. Did I ever.
Being the tender age of 20, my eldest had no idea that this movie was not just a prequel of a reboot, but it was a reboot of a prequel (AND SEQUEL!) to the original movie that was rebooted!
I think I broke his brain with my old man memories.
Once he shook off the effects of his mind being blown, the boy and I discussed why movies were like that now. It was easy to figure out, once I thought about it from the publishing point of view, thanks to the wonderful insights of my wife.
The Hollywood movie industry is oligarchic. This used to be necessary, because the expense of bringing a movie to movie theaters was (and for the most part still is) a horrendously expensive enterprise. The movie studio Royals were the only ones who had enough gold to pay everybody who needed to be paid and to afford all of the expensive equipment and expertise involved in making a movie.
This was true until the digital genie, freed by the Royals ironically enough, began granting wishes for the common folk. This was the same mischevious genie that had overrun and knocked down the music castle a fews years earlier.
The movie Royals thought they were safe. "Our walls are much thicker, protected by the impenetrability of chemical-based film!"
Once again, they were betrayed by their own greed and asked the genie to come further out of the bottle to conjure more gold for them. More and more of the movie distribution and delivery process became digitized.
Some of the more ingenious of the commoners saw what was done to the music castle and asked for the genie's help in sieging the movie castle.
"Done and done", said the genie.
Now the movie Royals, like all royalty in decline, has descended into mediocrity and madness. Because they want to hold on to their gold, they play it safe by never venturing far from the castle. They keep doing the same thing over and over again, thinking this time, just this time, they'll regain the power and influence they once had. And what is it they say about the definition of insanity? Repeating the same action over and over, thinking you'll get a different result if you just do it enough times.
And that's why we'll keep on having remakes of reboots of comic books graphic novels of sequels that are actually prequels, until the movie industry realizes that the castle walls were breached a long time ago and they're just doddering old fools hiding in the corner, gripping their few remaining gold coins in their fists.
Look out book castle. There's a big hole in your wall, and we're at the breach.