I learnt recently nostalgia used to be considered a psychological illness, an affliction based on the want for a happier time when one was in a general malaise or depression. If you're happy, you're not leaning towards the past. Based on this emotion, or rather this state of mind, Hollywood is making a fucking killing.
I want research on what percentage of genuinely original films have been made in the last ten years. No reboots, no re-imaginings, no affiliated brand names or comics. One hundred percent original. I guess it's less than half, I'm sure there are more movies I personally haven't heard of. I miss heaps. But I think I'm blinded by reboots and franchises. Thor Ragnarok looks kinda cool, but I've just spent almost three hours in a theatre to watch Blade Runner 2049, and I'm done. You don't have to wait for the director's cut, kids. I think there's about two minutes of deleted material. I'm pretty sure the whole thing is there on film. I watched one of the original cuts this past week, over two days since one of my streams went down. It's an okay movie but I'm not in love with it. The people who are going to this have to be fans of the original. It's not a date movie unless your date is your live in partner and you've both been fanatical about the original. I was with someone who had no frame of reference and someone who was more clued in. The former was getting very bored and I do not blame her. I was really dedicated to this until towards the end of the second act, which was just dragging. I know the original was based around some heavy, philosophical dialogue, but some of it was stretched. And we did not need nearly a minute of a giant naked hologram to explain Gosling's heartbreak over losing his hologram girlfriend and realising love can be a construct too. The twists were probably more obvious way before I saw them, but by then there was nothing new to learn. The point was made. It was thematically bathed in theological references, heavy-handed at times, and lingering shots that went well past the point being conveyed. It was self-indulgent, and Ridley Scott was only exec producer. Even the plot was weak and kinda hack. I wasn't thrilled by it.
We all thought Lucas was doing the good work when he remastered the original trilogy. My understanding was they were rescuing the film stocks that were deteriorating for a straight remaster when he suddenly decided to just add stupid things, and stupid scenes that looked bad, because he had the opportunity to do so, when all most people wanted was the splody shit to look cooler than it did in the original. And it did. The splody stuff was great. It was the incidental back/foreground shit we didn't need. Or Han "stepping" on Jaba's tail... Ok it meant younger kids like me who missed the whole thing got to go to the movies and see the "originals", and I enjoyed them, but the first cuts were fine.
We think we'll feel as good as we did back then, but it's like your first high of anything, by rights, it's never replicated. We'd have to wipe our own brains clean to see something again with fresh eyes. And if those were our adult eyes, would they see what we saw as kids? Probably not.
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