Everybody loves a trilogy. It’s part of the natural order of things like the Fibonacci sequence or the golden ratio- it just works, beginning middle and end, top middle and bottom, Hope, Empire and Jedi.
Pythagoras was really onto something 2500 years ago when he was going on and on about those bloody triangles. But what mathematical genius sought to illuminate, Hollywood marketing has seen fit to destroy. Why settle for gay Greek triangles when you can have endless all American quadrangles, pentagons, hexagons and so on until once again the audience are chewing their own tongues off with frustration and happy memories have been set about like Marilyn Monroe’s still twitching corpse.
I’m not sure if it’s a point of pride or shame but it’s a ‘British’ franchise that’s had the most ‘seeings to’ and with Sam Mendes being touted as the director of the icositriddecagonal (that’s 23 to you and me) James Bond recently it doesn’t look like the Martini fueled gravy train is stopping anytime soon.
From what I can gather there are 6 franchises currently on the IMDB top 250 that aren’t based on books, comics or TV series and that break through the holy trinity barrier.
Rocky
Die Hard
Star Wars
Indiana Jones
Alien
and Terminator
Of these 6, it’s only Die Hard, surprisingly that manages to hold a consistent 7 plus IMDB score into the fourth chapter. In all other franchises there is an obvious downtrend in the scores of each as they go on.
A modern way of dealing with this downtrend of the wilting franchise without having to risk money or (heaven forefend) think of new ideas is to rebrand the concept entirely. To forget about the homoerotic fourth installment or the failed attempt at red and blue edged 3D, and just start again. A prequel, a reimagining, a modernisation, call it what you will this tactic has proved popular with cinema goers, as Star Trek and The Dark Knight’s successes go to show. So it is with this in mind that we now see an ever expanding list of old favourites, previously left at a trilogy or punched into submission at the fourth quantum, being reanimated and tarted up like Dr. Frankenstein’s fuck doll, so they can be paraded up and down the red carpet once more.
Jurassic Park, Evil Dead and Scream are all set for fourth installments as Alien, Terminator, Indy and Rambo head towards number 5. The seventh chapter of Saw is also in production, a series so tedious formulaic and vapid I think I would actually have to cut myself and masturbate simultaneously during a screening just to garner a glimpse of human emotion and keep what is left of my sanity. Although if self harm combined with public masturbation was the answer to holding on to your sanity then things would be as hopeless as the Underworld franchise. Underworld 4 is currently in production.
Associating blockbuster directors with an ability or even an interest in creating good cinema seems a little naive. Hollywood’s enthusiasm for making meaningful films is about as fervent as Simon Cowell’s interest in music or Noel Edmunds’ interest in quality programming. Just as Cowell’s personal journey lies in the acquisition of trouser based nipple support and Edmunds’ real goal seems to be to slowly morph into Princess Diana, Hollywood’s head honchos, to use the parlance of our times, are all about the bling bling, the Benjamins – cold hard cash. And making movies isn’t cheap, the total national debt of Sub-Saharan Africa could have been paid for by simply omitting to film the deleted scene in Transformers 2 where Optimus Prime has his wind screen wiper blades replaced. The real question then becomes: Do the numbers stack up? Is there still money to be squeezed from the dignity of these films? Well yes, yes there is. McG and pals might not know chiaroscuro from a chiropractor but they certainly know how to balance a spread sheet, or at least pay someone else to.
The Underworld series is a prime example of this. Despite each and every film creating as much cinematic enjoyment as a snuff movie starring your Dad and girlfriend and despite relatively large production budgets, each one has consistently made money, and the series will continue to do so as long as the mentally slow carry on showing up on ‘date night’ and acting like a Soviet bread line so that they can receive their meager cinematic nourishment. At least if Mao Tse Tung or Stalin had had the impetus to make a film it would probably have contained a message of some sort and on reflection I would recommend staying at home and waiting for your communities to be purged or relocated to Siberia rather than sit through half of these shit awful sequels.
Hollywood’s current money making strategy boils down to; if you hit on something good rape it to dust and then, when people have stopped talking about it, drag it’s retarded cousin out from the attic and throw him on the stage so that the hapless public can shove change into the depression in his skull.
What’s the answer then? Well to start with, boycotting these shit storms seems the logical course of action, but I’m sure discerning film fans such as yourselves already do – so what’s the next step? After a little research I found it; the HS Precision Pro Series 2000 Heavy Tactical Rifle. If you care about film like Mark Chapman cared about music or Lee Harvey Oswald cared about America then you could sit at the Grassy Knoll or whatever your local Weatherspoon’s is called and with a good view of the local cinema take care of the feckless morons queuing up for Citizen Kane 2, Dr Strangelove 3D or whatever is on that week.
The real problem is that that like all oligarchies Hollywood has become stagnant and predictable in an attempt to keep those in power, in power. They spend millions of dollars finding out how our minds work and then herd us like sheep into their projected exhibitions of banality. They spend more time worrying about the way we think and act than we do, so with or without resorting to deranged acts of terrorism they are going to win.
But if this way of doing things is so cost effective why haven’t other bank rolled peddlers of inconsistent nonsense done the same? It’s a chance to not only rebrand and gain new supporters but as it seems no knowledge of film making is needed to part today’s frail brained cinemagoers with their cash it’s a way of turning a tidy profit as well. Here’s a trilogy of resurrected diegeses from my underfunded, predictable imagination to help real world wilting franchises.
A New Pope
The Vatican could surely get their act together and fund the filming of The Bible 2. In which ‘Zak’, Jesus’ cool younger brother, played by Robert Downey Jnr. returns to earth to wreak havoc on the godless atheist world. Like a Terminator (2) style super best friend he befriends a young choirboy and without a sniff of buggery they rock around the globe crucifying anyone using contraception or exercising free will, while simultaneously explaining in txt spk the inconsistencies of the fossil record and carbon dating techniques all some sort of holy hover Prias. Think ‘Buddy Christ’ with an iPhone an a righteous rocket launcher. Gibson to direct.
The Umpire Strikes Back
Unfortunately I don’t know how wilting this franchise is but all organizations need new conscripts so here goes…The Daily Mail gets tagged on to the Mad Max series, creating a post apocalyptic England where gangs of hoodies, immigrants and gay couples fight for territory. Only a single middle class white family descended from King Harold and led by ex-cricket umpire Hugh Grant stand against them. Gibson to direct.
Return of the Squiff-eye
Just as the dying Alien and Predator worlds were resurrected together or Freddy vs Jason was thought to be a good idea in a boardroom somewhere, why not tag Gordon Brown and pals onto the next Star Wars release, or just use his weird breathing thing to do the dub for Vader. Mo Mowlam could play a spectral paragon in the place of Yoda and Kenobi and the Millibands would make a great replacement for the Skywalker siblings. Star Wars is all about trade disputes and debates in the senate now anyway, kids love that political shit.
