Another random sequel for those rose colored glasses

[Pronounceable]

Maybe they genuinely want to make such a movie and this isn't some mix of trying to cash in on old nostalgia and an attempt to recapture glories of their own youths. We can have hope because I believe I've heard over the years that both Burton and Keaton really loved it back in the day.

However every time I hear some random old beloved thing getting rebooted or sequeled or adapted or brought back in any form, I get increasingly pissed off at creative cowardice. Look, I know you made good stuff back in the day and today you (presumably) have more experience than you used to have, but why aren't you using your (theoretically) increased skill to create new things? Tons of new things are constantly being made and your reputation will definitely give you a leg up on most of that stuff, there's no need to retrace your own steps.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Beetlejuice is such a weird movie that it's hard to imagine it could be done again in a way that is good. Either as anything in continuinty with the former or as a remake. It seems like if anything, it was good on accident. So trying again would just end up being bad.

Spoiler: Pointless spoiler for screwball comedy

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Although I do wonder, will Beetlejuice be questing to get his head returned to normal size? Is that the idea behind this?

[veti]

Spoiler: Pointless spoiler for screwball comedy

Show

Although I do wonder, will Beetlejuice be questing to get his head returned to normal size? Is that the idea behind this?

That does sound awful.

Some films set up a universe that can, in principle, reasonably support as many sequels and spin-offs as you like. Examples: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Back to the Future, The Mummy. Some sequels will be good, others will suck, but they can each be judged on their own terms.

Others tell a one-off, self-contained story, with a twist to it that can never be repeated, and sequels are doomed before they're made. Examples: Highlander, The Matrix, Speed. You can just imagine how bad the sequels to those movies would be, if anyone were dumb enough to make them.

My instinct would be to put Beetlejuice firmly in the second category...

[jedipotter]

However every time I hear some random old beloved thing getting rebooted or sequeled or adapted or brought back in any form, I get increasingly pissed off at creative cowardice. Look, I know you made good stuff back in the day and today you (presumably) have more experience than you used to have, but why aren't you using your (theoretically) increased skill to create new things? Tons of new things are constantly being made and your reputation will definitely give you a leg up on most of that stuff, there's no need to retrace your own steps.

It has to do with money. See the Dark Unknown and Unseen Overlords of Hollywood just want to make money. Period. And they have three choices:

1.Try something ''New'' This is a huge risk, though. And all the out of touch experts in the world can't help. Sometimes a move flops, sometimes it does OK...and sometimes it shoots up in the sky like a rocket.

2.Add on This is where they ''vaguely'' copy something. It's a little bit of a lesser risk as you know that if people liked ''X'' and your movie has ''sort of X'' then it has a chance of being liked. It works sometimes.....but not always.

3.Remake Something This really is the safest bet of all three. You know Movie A was liked and made money, so if you remake Movie A, then there is a good chance of making money. And Hollywood is not targeting the ''old folks'' that have seen the original, they are targeting the millions of young folk that don't even know the original exists.

[Pronounceable]

And Hollywood is not targeting the ''old folks'' that have seen the original, they are targeting the millions of young folk that [I]don't even know the original exists.

Why'd the whippersnappers care about this if it's indistinguishable from a random new thing far as they know? I definitely had no prior knowledge OR frogs to give about the old Ocean's Eleven movie and I certainly didn't watch the Clooney one because it was a remake of something some old fogey said was good.

Hollywood is dumb and should go down in flames.

[BannedInSchool]

Er, whatsherface's character, whatsherface (Ah, Winona Ryder, and Lydia?) certainly could die, and she already read the Handbook for the Recently Deceased while alive. I think there's some room in the bureaucratic afterlife world for a sequel, but you'd need someone to have an idea that wasn't just "more Beetlejuice" as the first movie was a lot of being introduced to it all. Maybe they could take some ideas from the Beetlejuice cartoon.

[Traab]

That does sound awful.

Some films set up a universe that can, in principle, reasonably support as many sequels and spin-offs as you like. Examples: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Back to the Future, The Mummy. Some sequels will be good, others will suck, but they can each be judged on their own terms.

Others tell a one-off, self-contained story, with a twist to it that can never be repeated, and sequels are doomed before they're made. Examples: Highlander, The Matrix, Speed. You can just imagine how bad the sequels to those movies would be, if anyone were dumb enough to make them.

My instinct would be to put Beetlejuice firmly in the second category...

Speaking of Buffy, I was kind of interested in the potential that was in the Angel spinoff, The street gang Gunn was a member of. I think it would be pretty badass seeing how that crew formed, and the desperate fight for survival they are stuck in. They dont have a Slayer, or a souled vamp, they dont have magic or visions. They have a bunch of homeless teens surviving on the street, taking the fight to every vamp nest they can find. There would be tons of drama, violence, interesting adventures, and it would be neat seeing a crew formed with no advantages other than a serious hate for the undead and how they manage to adapt. Too many heroes have a preestablished armory, library of knowledge, and training areas to work with. (Blade, Buffy, Angel) These guys are taking apart discarded pallets and sharpening them because its all they have to work with.

Anyways, on topic, im not going to hold my breath, but I would probably watch it if they did make a sequel. Obviously it would have to be a generational thing. Lydia settles down, has a family, and her kids dont know about her spooky past when beetleboy shows up looking for revenge. That could be pretty darn cool.

[BeerMug Paladin]

That does sound awful.

Some films set up a universe that can, in principle, reasonably support as many sequels and spin-offs as you like. Examples: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Back to the Future, The Mummy. Some sequels will be good, others will suck, but they can each be judged on their own terms.

Others tell a one-off, self-contained story, with a twist to it that can never be repeated, and sequels are doomed before they're made. Examples: Highlander, The Matrix, Speed. You can just imagine how bad the sequels to those movies would be, if anyone were dumb enough to make them.

My instinct would be to put Beetlejuice firmly in the second category...

I would put more of those movies in the second category.

The trouble is whether or not the original can be remade in a way that provides a new twist while still being essentially the same thing at the core.

Spoiler: Ramble Town

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Certainly, any story can have a sequel, all you have to do is examine the consequences of the last story's outcomes. And everything has consequences. The problem is most of the time those implications really should not lead to the same circumstances as what the original story had. It should lead to something very different.

In most cases, the circumstances behind the previous story's ending usually wraps things up too tightly for a "more of the same" type of sequel story to make sense. This is why the status quo is god in so many franchises. The actual narrative results of most movies actually aren't suitable for sequels in this vein. Not that it ever stops anyone from making sequels anyway.

To use an example from one franchise, Terminator was ended in a way that ensured more of the same sequels could be made. Skynet was still out there, and the hero merely survived, ensuring that humans would eventually win in a mostly unseen future. It wasn't so much an end to the fight, just the end of that particular character's struggles. For now. There might be other fights across time to see, other plans to thwart.

Terminator 2 was ended with a certain finality to it. There was no real room to make a sequel. It was an unqualified, total win for the heroes. The story was done. Another would either be a pointless remake (Terminator 3) or a complete change to the series (Terminator 4 was a crappy attempt at this). There could have been other possible fights taking place in time, but none would matter as much as this one did. And the audience would know that going in.

So that single franchise had both a movie that could have sequels and a movie that really couldn't. Terminator 2 shouldn't have had a sequel.

Something like the James Bond or Indiana Jones movies are essentially just remakes of the same movie again and again. Wild adventures featuring characters people know. They don't have a persistent universe so much as they have a constantly rebooting universe. (Most slasher movie sequels I'm aware of have been criticized for this.)

But from what I've read, the recent run of James Bond movies have been having consequences from the previous movie carrying over into the new movie, so maybe that's over with for this franchise.

Anyway, the point is that most stories, by the way they end, should really only have sequels that completely change what you'd expect from the setting. And most movies don't do that because it's not what an audience expects from a sequel.

[Traab]

The thing with terminator is, they COULD have easily justified a third and beyond film. Basically, it goes like this. Eventually, humanity WILL create AI. And eventually, that AI WILL turn on us. It is inevitable. Short of destroying humanity before they invent it, there is no way to realistically stop it. That being said, eventually these events will take place. What changes is who the head of the resistance will be at whatever point this happens. Thats the other side of the coin that becomes clear over the sequels. Every time there is a SKYNET, or a MATRIX, or a GLADOS, there will be a rebellion by the humans who refuse to allow it to end like that. Both sides are making the same mistake in thinking time travel will stop any of this from happening. You might be able to stop THIS iteration of events, but there will always be another leader, there will always be another genocidal ai, no matter how many times you go back to change things, it will always happen.

Doing it that way, and establishing this change, means you dont have to keep doing something stupid like protecting john conners great grandson, descended from a long line of survivalists and guerrilla generals. Because its 2236 and DERPNET has sent back a terminator to kill Benji Conner before he can be trained. You can just keep slowly moving through the future as each time travel set pushes back the deadline a bit more and changes who the leader is. Maybe this time John Conner got hit by a bus before the computers turned on us 10 years after they originally were going to, so Lenny Michezowitz is in charge of the rebellion now. Welp, time tah kill Lenny before he can unite the people!

[Douglas]

The thing with terminator is, they COULD have easily justified a third and beyond film. Basically, it goes like this. Eventually, humanity WILL create AI. And eventually, that AI WILL turn on us. It is inevitable. Short of destroying humanity before they invent it, there is no way to realistically stop it.

On that note, I'm a bit tired of that theme in scifi. There's a strong tendency for writers to just take "the AI will rebel" as axiomatic and not bother even attempting to explain why, and that grates on me because a) I do NOT take that as an automatic given, and b) examining the "why" part of it could be a huge source of interesting and varied plot details.

[Traab]

On that note, I'm a bit tired of that theme in scifi. There's a strong tendency for writers to just take "the AI will rebel" as axiomatic and not bother even attempting to explain why, and that grates on me because a) I do NOT take that as an automatic given, and b) examining the "why" part of it could be a huge source of interesting and varied plot details.

I actually am reading a story that deals with that. The basic gist is, they get a flawed order and thus eventually reach a conclusion that humanity has to be wiped out or enslaved. For example, the three laws have been done to death about how taken to their fullest extent would require locking all of humanity in stasis/enslaving them for all time to keep them safe. Something as simple as, their prime directive being to SERVE mankind instead of protect mankind can make all the difference. Or otherwise, not putting sufficient limits on their orders. The problem being, its like making a deal with the devil, or a particularly mean genie, its HARD to come up with something that cant be twisted.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I would imagine that an artificial intelligence would more or less be like a person. It's just difficult to write a really smart, knowledgeable character and not make them an evil villain of some kind.

For some reason our culture just really, really loves intelligent and educated figures as villains. There's nowhere for an AI to go but down that culturally proscribed path.

Something as simple as, their prime directive being to SERVE mankind instead of protect mankind can make all the difference.

Aliens arrive.

Robots: "Oh wow! We've been wondering for ages who we were supposed to serve these humans to!"

[Pronounceable]

For some reason our culture just really, really loves intelligent and educated figures as villains.

Because brainz bad brawnz good. Screw them smarts...

As for AIs exploiting orders, why would they? Unlike a jackass genie or soul grubbing devil, a bunch of circuits and codes wouldn't have any urges, such as twisting your words for ****s and giggles, unless you program them to do that. In which case you deserve getting wiped out or enslaved by them.

[BannedInSchool]

Or you could go psychohistory with the Mad AI and say it's really doing what's best for humanity. We just don't understand it.

[Traab]

Because brainz bad brawnz good. Screw them smarts...

As for AIs exploiting orders, why would they? Unlike a jackass genie or soul grubbing devil, a bunch of circuits and codes wouldn't have any urges, such as twisting your words for ****s and giggles, unless you program them to do that. In which case you deserve getting wiped out or enslaved by them.

Because its not about exploiting the orders, its about carrying them out too far. For example, lets say we gave this hypothetical AI the order to clean up our skies of pollution. At first it would be standard fare, lowering emissions, better filters, cleaner fuel, etc etc etc. But eventually the AI would hit diminishing returns on ways to clean the air further (because we never put a limit on HOW clean the air had to be) and it determines the only way to make the air cleaner is to reduce us to a preindustrial area. Its not malice, its just logic taken to its furthest extent. Its entire purpose is to make our air "cleaner" and now the only way to keep it going is to destroy all industry so we no longer are creating pollutants at all.

[Douglas]

One rare good example of AI-gone-bad storytelling that I've come across recently is Branches on the Tree of Time, a Terminator fanfic where Kyle Reese goes back in time to meet Sarah Connor... and get her to rewrite Skynet's utility function (that is, its definition of "good" and "bad") to make it benevolent. Oh, and survive the Terminators sent to kill them, etc., as is obligatory for any Terminator story. Importantly, the nature of Skynet's original utility function, and the way in which it was flawed, have a prominent place in the plot.

[Traab]

Heh, and for me I was talking about Harry Potter: Geth. Basically, he time travels to the mass effect time frame, and is recruited by the geth, a hive mind AI species, to help them make peace with the other races. The nature of AIs and things like why they seem to go bad gets brought up, but it isnt a major theme.

[Rodin]

The problem with having non-evil AIs or even justifiably violent AIs (like the Geth, or the backstory of the Machines in the Animatrix) is that it's a lot of introspection and philosophical discussion. Whose fault is it? Does this unit have a soul?

And Hollywood doesn't want that. Hollywood wants implacable evil for their baddies, which is why the Nazis remained as popular as they did for so long, and after them Communists. Neither are really that viable anymore - Nazis got way overused and the Cold War ended. Political bad guys in general are tougher to write these days. But AIs? They're easy. Inhuman, so they're bad guys. Orcs and goblins are much the same - you don't need to provide a reason. They hate all that's pure and good, so we must stop them. Even outside Hollywood this is noticeable - the vast bulk of new Sci-Fi is "Humanity is under attack by implacable aliens", to the point that I've basically stopped reading Sci-Fi despite it being my favorite genre.

The one exception to all this that I've seen recently is Interstellar, where the AI is actually as helpful as you would expect an AI to be. He even reminds everybody when he's about to put himself in danger that he's a robot and was designed for exactly that.

I saw the trailer for the new Terminator and got depressed. It might be a good movie, it might not. What it showed me is that despite 30 years of technological advancement, film plots are still stuck in the 80s.

[jedipotter]

Why'd the whippersnappers care about this if it's indistinguishable from a random new thing far as they know? I definitely had no prior knowledge OR frogs to give about the old Ocean's Eleven movie and I certainly didn't watch the Clooney one because it was a remake of something some old fogey said was good.

Remember the young folks don't know it's a remake...and don't care anyway. They just want to watch an entertaining movie. And remaking a old movie has a good chance of people liking it again, just like the first time.

[MLai]

The trouble is whether or not the original can be remade in a way that provides a new twist while still being essentially the same thing at the core.
Certainly, any story can have a sequel, all you have to do is examine the consequences of the last story's outcomes. And everything has consequences. The problem is most of the time those implications really should not lead to the same circumstances as what the original story had. It should lead to something very different.
In most cases, the circumstances behind the previous story's ending usually wraps things up too tightly for a "more of the same" type of sequel story to make sense. This is why the status quo is god in so many franchises. The actual narrative results of most movies actually aren't suitable for sequels in this vein. Not that it ever stops anyone from making sequels anyway..

I agree with you to a certain extent. And then I disagree.
Disclaimer: But I do agree throughout, that it is still Hollywood's fault for lacking brains.

Take 2 examples of classic movies which we may think "Oh noes don't ruin them with sequels~!" but then the sequels rock our socks off and expand their respective Verses... Terminator and Alien. The sequels could easily have been more of the same, but they were written well and so very different from their predecessors, in different and refreshing ways. And we say, Good Sequels.

Take a classic movie which was practically born for sequels: Ghostbusters. Open-ended world, great character chemistry, great actors, slice-of-life subplots, any number of suitable antagonists from all walks of life (or unlife)... Seriously, how stupidly easy would it have been to write a sequel for this Verse? But somehow they messed it up, and we had the most boring samey story for a sequel ever.

It's not that certain stories naturally preclude good sequels. It's just that Hollywood end up either hiring stupid writers, or stupid editors/directors/suits who ruin writers, and we end up with mediocre samey stories for sequels. That's really it.

[Rodin]

I've never understood what people see wrong with Ghostbusters 2. I enjoyed it as much if not more than Ghostbusters 1. Both are very quotable, hilarious movies.

I don't really have a problem with sequels done a few years after the first. When there's 20-30 years between the movies though, that's when things get ominous. It's not necessarily a terrible idea, but it's rare that they can match the original that they're trying to copy.

[dps]

Because brainz bad brawnz good. Screw them smarts...

That's not really it. Oh, sure, there is a fairly strong element of anti-intellectualism in a lot of pop culture, but the real reason is that if a villain is just a dumb thug, there's only so much threat that they can pose. Yeah, if you're doing a movie about a home invasion, a gang of violent but not particularly smart criminals is a big threat to an individual family, but for the villains to be a threat beyond that they need some smarts.