Dear Hollywood: Enough With Sequels and Revivals!

I don't know the exact point where I reached my limit on this.  Maybe it was Picard with dying, geriatric Picard and tubby Riker and unattractive Troi.  Maybe it was The Matrix Resurrection.  Or Halloween Kills.  Or Michael Keaton coming back as Batman in that "The Flash" movie.  Or Tobey Maguire coming back as Spider-Man.  Or Stallone doing Expendables 4.  Or The Connors, Saved By the Bell, and Punky Brewster revivals.  Or Scream 5 or...make it stop!  Make it stop!

The point is, I'm really sick of Hollywood bringing back characters from the past in sequels and revivals and shit like that.

Someone might say, You loved them in the past, don't you love them now?  But really it's like people you knew in school:  you knew and liked (or didn't) that version of them.  It doesn't mean I would like the version of them 25 years later.  In fact I probably won't because I remember them a certain way and now I have to update my mental image to some new, lesser version.  Some older, grayer, often fatter version.  Yuck.  (This is one of many reasons I don't go to class reunions.)

It's worse for fictional characters because now that hero you adored in the 80s or 90s can barely do anything--except for Tom Cruise, yay Scientology!  It just makes me sad and contemplate my own mortality and a bunch of gloomy stuff I don't want to think about.  And part of this is Hollywood never, ever allows these characters to be happy.  Nope, they've all got to have some tragic, miserable backstory where they broke up with their love or had a kid die (or both) and/or became old and bitter.  Enough!

The only times Hollywood has done this right was in The Mandalorian where they used motion capture and deepfake computer technology to recreate the Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi.  Or like in Lower Decks where because it's animated they could bring back a young(ish) Riker and Troi and Tom Parris.  And that's the point:  I don't want these people as they are today; that's just sad.  I want them as they were back when they (and I) were young.  

I hate to say it, but I think I'd take a reboot of Star Wars (or another of Star Trek) over another one of these sad-assed sequels.

But, as usual, if people keep watching these crap movies and shows then Hollywood will keep pumping them out for as long as they can.  Because God forbid they try anything different or original, right?

I just don't get why people even want this shit?  Why do you want to see a 60-something Keaton in a black rubber suit as Batman?  Or a 70-something Stallone pumped full of steroids for one last action movie?  Or an 80-something Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones?  Why do you want to see your former heroes all wrinkled and gray and feeble?

I get we like nostalgia but there's a limit--at least to me.  We like these characters and often the actors playing them, but at some point you have to let go.  I get why the actors do these things:  it's a way to get back in the spotlight and pay the bills.  I just wish some of them had the integrity to say no, that character's story is done now.  Otherwise it seems that only Death is going to stop this.

I'm not a fan of Will Farrell's movies but there was a story a few weeks ago that he turned down $29 million to do Elf 2 because he thought the script was a rehash and he didn't think he could honestly promote it.  That's the kind of artistic integrity that's needed to stop this shit.  But in 10-15 years if someone offered Farrell a truckload of money, would he turn it down again?  Probably depends on his financial situation then.

And really, how much longer can it last?  Most of the people referenced above are in their 60s-80s.  They have maybe 10-25 years left.  I suppose that's more than long enough for Hollywood to cash in, but what then?  At some point you need fresh blood as more than just some old guy's sidekick.

I only hope this is a fad that will die out before the actors themselves literally die out.  Though probably not.  In a world where we're on season 32 of The Simpsons and season 41 of Survivor, perhaps nothing ends anymore.