Time & Nostalgia Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Time & Nostalgia Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

By Jake Cohen

                        2015 was a year the box office felt the impact of sequels, but not just any sequels. These were “long gap sequels” to films that are in some cases decades old. Creed, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Force Awakens, and Jurassic World are all sequels to films that are at least a decade old and with the exceptions of Jurassic World and Creed these films previous iterations were released in the twentieth century. In the case of Jurassic Park 3 it barely squeaks by with a 2001 release.  What is truly remarkable of all these films is that their previous iterations had mixed to negative critical and financial results. The outlier is potentially Rocky Balboa which was seen as an improvement on the much derided Rocky V but was never the critical darling Creed is. 

            Is it the passage of time combined with nostalgia that primes audiences for these films? In an age of home video, cable, and streaming it is easy for a film to remain in the public conciseness. This phenomenon makes remakes more difficult but reboots and sequels more feasible. Why make a new thing if the audience has yet to forget the original. Despite this new phenomena enough time has passed that audiences have either forget or never saw poorly received sequels and are only nostalgic for the good films in these franchises.

            Mad Max: Fury Road is the exception despite its success no one was nostalgic for a Mad Max sequel before the film came out. Point Break on the other hand is an unsuccessful remake to a decades old film that no one asked for that did not work critically or financially. Terminator Genisys tried to capitalize on the formula of time plus nostalgia with mixed success (China is the reason for its positive box office return). The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, and Terminator Genisys actively try to remind audiences of the iterations they loved and try to forget the iterations they did not.  Terminator Genisys had several scenes that specifically pay homage to Terminator and T2 like the Arnold v Arnold battle at the observatory and the liquid metal terminator. However, the film did not give the same fan service to T3 or Terminator Salvation. The Force Awakens wanted to capture the magic of Star Wars in 1977 in tone and emotion that the prequels never succeeded in capturing.

            Both Jurassic World and The Force Awakens pay homage to the films that started their respective franchises. Not quite reboots they do follow the beats and feed off the nostalgia of the originals. They don’t just evoke the original films with their score they bring back familiar characters like the T-Rex and Han Solo. Both of whom are weathered with age and remind us of our own mortality while simultaneously making us feel like kids again.  Beyond aping story beats the real reason for the success of The Force Awakens and Jurassic World is they create feelings and emotions that are reminiscent to what audiences felt when they saw the original iterations all those decades ago.

            With accountants playing a large role in the film industry we will continue to see reboots and sequels. In terms of marketing its cheaper to sell an IP to audiences they are already familiar with as opposed to teaching them about a new thing. Many of the films I talked about I enjoyed, I am not trying to be reductive. The goal was to identify a trend that is evolving new genres, sub genres, and trends in modern Hollywood cinema. Often cultural and artistic trends are hard to identify while they are occurring. We are now experiencing an evolution in how major studios develop and market motion pictures and it would behoove those in the academic study of cinema to take notice.