Are We Suffering Origin Story Fatigue?

brumgrunt writes "As more and more franchise movies look to cover the origin story of a character again and again, Den Of Geek wonders why film studios aren't looking a little harder for interesting stories to tell..."

Comments

I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Bloodwine77]

I like to fill in the blanks with my imagination. I hate overzealous exposition. I am not saying that I dislike story development or lore, but I do not need or want everything spoonfed to me.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[mikael_j]

I don't mind lots and lots of details, if the details make sense in the context of the movie's universe. What bugs me is when the details don't make sense and "explanations" just end up ruining the suspension of disbelief.

Then there's the outright spoonfeeding of things that are going on in the movie. I've heard more than a few people here in Sweden wonder if the average Hollywood movie could be an indication of there being some truth behind the "dumb american" stereotype...

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[elrous0]

I liked the way the Watchmen did it. It started out with the characters in place and we only learned of their origins (not even all of them) through their own flashbacks with their own voice-overs. We never learn how much of what we're seeing is real and how much is their own self-serving version of their origins. It was not only simple and effective, it also gave a lot of insight into how these superheroes saw themselves.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[earls]

Which is why I consider "lots and lots of details" exclusive to "makes sense".

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[GooberToo]

could be an indication of there being some truth behind the "dumb american" stereotype...

Its one of those stereotypes which also happens to be true. Contrary to political correctness stupidity, just because its a stereotype doesn't mean its not true. The average American is pretty dumb. At one point in time, there was even an official, unofficial list of words which were to be used for TV and movies; otherwise Americans wouldn't understand it. Even worse, Americans would get angry as they felt like the writers were making them feel stupid.

To be clear, that's the average American, not all Americans. Sadly, the average American is dumber than a bag of hammers; and even worse, proud of it!

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[jitterman]

Ah, Mr. Lucas could have learned something valuable from you. What you've mentioned are some of the contributing factors that made his prequel films so horrid.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anonymous Coward]

To be clear, that's the average American, not all Americans. Sadly, the average American is dumber than a bag of hammers; and even worse, proud of it!

If average people weren't so stupid, the rest of us wouldn't seem so smart.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[tixxit]

The problem is that the origin story usually has fairly little to do with the main plot (at least after the first movie or whatever). The show "Heroes" actually suffered from this. The producers thought that people liked origin stories, so in Season 3 (I think) they introduced a LOT of new characters with new origins. The story suffered greatly (lots of little threads, but with very little happening each episode). The season tanked as people didn't want to watch Season 1 again. The producers back tracked for the next 2 seasons, they scaled down to a much smaller base cast (about the size of season 1's), and stopped introducing new people with origin stories. Season 4 and 5 were much better as a result.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[MaWeiTao]

I'd argue that it's people in the movie industry who are stupid. Because they don't get it they expect that the movie-going public doesn't get it either. And to that end movies depict what people in Hollywood think Americans are like, not what they're actually like. But I have noticed that people in other countries seem to buy into the stereotypes depicted in movies.

That's not to say there aren't a lot of stupid people out there.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been told that the average American has an IQ below 100! O:-)

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[asdf7890]

I've heard more than a few people here in Sweden wonder if the average Hollywood movie could be an indication of there being some truth behind the "dumb american" stereotype...

It isn't just the yanks (though their population size means that the lower intelligence percentiles cover a large number of people over there). Most movies, especially the average summer blockbuster, aim for the largest market possible and that means not confusing the idiots too much or they might not come back for your next movie.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[asdf7890]

You can thank the source material for a lot of that though - they intentionally kept very close to that in both tone and detail.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[houghi]

That is why I disliked LotR. I had read the book already so I knew that they would trow the ring in mount Doom in the end.

Oh, sorry: Spoiler alert above.

(And yes, this was sarcasm)

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[DrgnDancer]

I think it's apt to argue that the average *person* is dumb. I've met dumb people from all countries and walks of life. Even more broadly, nearly everyone is dumb (and I include myself in that number, you too, no insult intended) about some things. I don't think it's at all arrogant to call myself fairly smart and well educated. I'm echoing an opinion expressed to me by others whose own opinion I respect. On the other hand I know quite well that my skill in many practical areas of life are rudimentary at best.

My mother in law is a quite a brilliant engineer and a fair visual artist, but her ability to understand literature (whether books or performances) beyond "see spot run" in abysmal. She asked me at the end of "le Mis" why Javert killed himself. She read the "Left Behind" books, not becasue she's a religious nut case, but becasue the story really engrossed her. She actually missed the entire subtext of "This is a right wing Christian fantasy fulfillment novel" until I pointed it out to her. My own mother is nearly the opposite, having no trouble with film or literature, but unable to understand more than basic math without a 20 minute explanation. Everyone is dumb about something. Most people are at least moderately smart about somethings.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[SilentStaid]

FTFY:

To be clear, that's the average person, not all people. Sadly, the average person is dumber than a bag of hammers; and even worse, proud of it!

Seriously, let's not be so ignorant as to pretend that any large sampling of people based on nationality will be anything other than average.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[TheLink]

Many are voters. So the options are help make them wiser, exploit them, or live with the consequences.

I see a fair number especially at the top have taken the #2 option.

I believe there are very many voters out there who see people like Sarah Palin and say "hey she's like me, so I'd vote for her!".

How voters would go "Hey that person has integrity, is smarter and wiser than me, and so should get my vote".

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anonymous Coward]

To be clear, that's the average American, not all Americans. Sadly, the average American is dumber than a bag of hammers; and even worse, proud of it!

The truly sad thing is that half are dumber than that. ;-p

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anonymous Coward]

I take offense to your post. You are just another liberal educated elite who doesn't know anything!

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[UnknowingFool]

You Insensitive Clod! Next thing you're going to tell me that the Titanic sank.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[chispito]

Yes, people can be stupid. The problem is that if you don't see the stupidity in your own culture, you're ignorant. If you see it in other cultures, you're, what, racist?

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[travdaddy]

I've heard more than a few people here in Sweden wonder if the average Hollywood movie could be an indication of there being some truth behind the "dumb american" stereotype...

Strangely enough, here in the US, I haven't heard anyone at all wonder anything at all about what the average Swedish movie indicates... because they haven't seen one. It's almost as if those brilliant Swedish filmmakers cannot attract a global audience.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[GeneralERA]

I'm not sure that's correct; see here for a global Q distribution chart. As one might expect given the cultural and racial diversity of the US, the average IQ is ~100, according to that 2006 data.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Blakey Rat]

Here's Superman's origin in 8 words: http://fuckyeahgrantmorrison.tumblr.com/post/1043287938/fantomex-supermans-origin-4-panels-8-words

The point isn't that the movie includes the origin (although even that is stupid-- who wants to see a Superman movie but *doesn't* already know his origin?), but that the movies are *about* the origin. Show the origin in the film equivalent of 8 words (say, 1 minute), then move on and tell a story.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[The End Of Days]

Either racist or northern European. But I repeat myself.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[jellomizer]

Origins normally make good story plots, at least in theory. Because it makes it easier to give the main character a reason to grow, and that is why many sequels fail, as we know the character and they rarely grow further in the sequel. Lets use the New Star Trek movie, Kirk is known to be the good guy who is rather noble, and addicted to command. So we use an Origin Story of Kirk to show him from being a flawed and rather unheroic character to the one we better recognize, which gave the Star Trek Movie a moderate success. Compared to Star Wars where they messed up the Origin Story of Darth Vader, where they failed to allow the character to grow into someone we like then when he turned to the Dark Side we would feel some pity for him.
However vs. trying to make sequels where the character has been established as a hero's.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[jaymz666]

If the median american is pretty dumb, how dumb is the portion of the population below it?

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[js_sebastian]

I liked the way the Watchmen did it. It started out with the characters in place and we only learned of their origins (not even all of them) through their own flashbacks with their own voice-overs. We never learn how much of what we're seeing is real and how much is their own self-serving version of their origins. It was not only simple and effective, it also gave a lot of insight into how these superheroes saw themselves.

You should read the comic.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[fahrbot-bot]

At one point in time, there was even an official, unofficial list of words which were to be used for TV and movies; otherwise Americans wouldn't understand it.

I don't know about *that* and would love to see a citation somewhere, but it seems to be a pervasive idea. From License To Kill:

Moreover, Licence Revoked was simplified to Licence to Kill because American test screening audiences did not understand its meaning, however, in the documentary, Inside Licence to Kill, narrator Patrick Macnee says the reason is that to Americans "license revoked" denotes lost driving privileges.

Yes, yes. "License revoked" can mean lost driving privileges. If only we understood the concept of "words in context".

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going by IQs americans are only a couple points lower than other first world countries, certainly not "bag of hammers" dumb. As for a list of words that americans are likely to understand, I believe it is sold as "webster's dictionary", you see most people have a certain portion of their local language that they understand. That is not uniquely american. I've lived in Canada, Germany, and the USA, and the main difference is that canadians and germans are convinced that they are smart, whereas americans will admit when they don't know something.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Renraku]

The average person is not dumb. The average person is actually so smart they'll surprise you fairly often. People only get dumb when they decide to conform to different things.

Like how the wisdom of the average school principal is totally negated by zero tolerance rules that the school must follow 100% or risk being sued for playing favorites.

Or the wisdom of your average citizen is totally negated by them being stuck in debt hell and unable to do anything except eat/breathe/work/sleep for most of their lives to pay it off because of snowballing interest.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anubis IV]

I think you're mistaking a cultural difference for a stereotype that you want to believe is true, and your assertion that the stereotype is true is incorrect, unless you want to assert the same for most of the developed world.

I was at a writing workshop not too long ago (in America, of all places), and one of the points that was made was that there is a drastic difference in writing styles as you go around the globe. In America, the cultural style of their writing is that the heavy lifting should be done by the writer so that the reader can understand it as quickly and easily as possible. Approaching it from a utilitarian perspective, you can see that it makes a lot of sense to do so, because for a marginal cost on the part of one person, you can save time for hundreds, thousands, or millions of people in comprehending what you had to say. Elsewhere, however, that style is not commonplace, and the reader is expected to engage a bit more with what they are reading, filling in blanks and figuring out the things that were left unsaid by the author. There's nothing right or wrong about either approach. They are just different.

It's not just in writing that you see this sort of thing either. In terms of foods, Americans prefer bold flavors with extremes on all spectrums, rather than subdued and subtle flavors (in fact, I was just having some skyr today, and was reading through some of the material associated with it, which mentioned that this particular brand was made precisely because the creator of the brand couldn't find the sorts of subtle flavors they were used to in America). Socially, you see much of the same, with American culture being somewhat brusque and forthright, as opposed to having layers upon layers of etiquette and formality that would slow things or complicate them. In terms of films, the same, with plots that have tidy endings, ample information to fill in all of the blanks, and few loose ends, which allows the viewer to enjoy the film without having to go through the effort of interpreting it. Music? Well, I couldn't say since I'm so out of touch, but the point I'm trying to make is that these are mere cultural differences, rather than differences in intelligence levels.

I agree with you that stereotypes are indeed oftentimes correct, and I would even agree with the idea that this sort of culture could have the potential to predispose future generations towards failing to think in a critical manner, but if you're going to make a blanket statement that the average American is unintelligent, which is a quantifiable statistic, then perhaps you would be so kind as to back it up with some numbers? In the meantime, I'll point you here.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Origins normally make good story plots, at least in theory. Because it makes it easier to give the main character a reason to grow, and that is why many sequels fail, as we know the character and they rarely grow further in the sequel.

It's an established archetypical story The Call To Adventure. Historically the "origin story" is pretty popular too, ancient gods often have multiple surviving origin stories and those are the ones that reached us, many more must be lost.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[domatic]

I think it's apt to argue that the average *person* is dumb. I've met dumb people from all countries and walks of life. Even more broadly, nearly everyone is dumb (and I include myself in that number, you too, no insult intended) about some things. I don't think it's at all arrogant to call myself fairly smart and well educated. I'm echoing an opinion expressed to me by others whose own opinion I respect. On the other hand I know quite well that my skill in many practical areas of life are rudimentary at best.

It is a matter of values. Yes, ignorant wage slaves are everywhere but that isn't the problem. The problem is what the OP closed his post with. Americans tend to be *proud* of their ignorance and disdainful and suspicious of anyone who shows obvious intellect outside of a VERY few approved areas like sports , cut-throat business practices, and efficiently bombing brown people.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anonymous Coward]

Only show that the average american don't want to "read a movie" and wants everything spoonfeed to them.

But most smart/cultivated "Americans" have seen movies made by swedes. For exampel movies directed by Daniel Alfredson, Hasse Alfredson, Tomas Alfredson Ingmar Bergman, Nic Cramer, Tage Danielsson, Gösta Ekman, Vilgot Sjöman etc.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Darinbob]

That's still an "origin story" though. The people who don't like origin stories to me always felt like they don't want outsiders coming into their comic book fan turf. In the real world though "how did this nobody become a hero?" is a very interesting story, vastly more interesting than "generic super power hero has a sequence of set pieces in which he fights generic super power villain".

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[nomadic]

I think that's untrue. Are you an American?

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[The Phantom Buffalo]

IIRC, Swedish films had very little clothing and even less plot.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Baron von Daren]

Its one of those stereotypes which also happens to be true. Contrary to political correctness stupidity, just because its a stereotype doesn't mean its not true. The average American is pretty dumb. At one point in time, there was even an official, unofficial list of words which were to be used for TV and movies; otherwise Americans wouldn't understand it. Even worse, Americans would get angry as they felt like the writers were making them feel stupid.

To be clear, that's the average American, not all Americans. Sadly, the average American is dumber than a bag of hammers; and even worse, proud of it!

Translation: You feel you are smarter than average, and thus average is dumb compared to you.

To whom are we comparing the ‘average American,’ and how would you designate one person or another as an ‘average American?’

My point is that the majority of Americans are probably of average intelligence for an American. They might compare poorly to the majority of citizens of some other country or another (or some past time in America), but put against the ‘average human’ worldwide, I’m sure Americans compare pretty well.

Also keep in mind that IQ ratings are not absolute through time and culture. An IQ of 100 simply means you score an average result in IQ tests as compared to other people in the test group. TBH, I’m not sure what the parameters of the test group are, but there are many know factors that bias the results. An IQ test is not some kind of omniscient, objective ruler against which all people from all historical epochs can be accurately measured for cognitive and computational ability. (The IQ comment isn't directly a comment on the quote of course)

Now I don’t disagree with the sentiment because I agree there is a frightful lack of education and critical thinking skills in many Americans; our educational system is deplorable for a nation of our means; there is a long standing current of anti-intellectualism in America; etc. The point is, however, that the average American isn’t dumb in the strict sense, they are closer to average intelligence (depending of course on what set of people you are measuring).

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Anonymatt]

What prejudice. Or self-hate, or whatever.

Hope these tools of yours help you sort the aggressors fast enough.

Does your partner make you hang out with too many dumb folks?

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[lennier]

It isn't a particularly Bondy title, though, is the problem.

"Never Diamond Licence Tomorrow Revoked" would have worked fine...

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[aix tom]

Well, I have found that there are quite some good *American* movies around. I found Winters Bone brilliant, The Way Back was also fantastic.

I don't really see most of Hollywood as "American", its more one of the "International" movie sweatshops. The problem with the big studios there is in my opinion that the want, or seem to think they need to, make movies that will sell to every person on the planet. (well, at least everyone that has cash to spare)

So after all the tinkering and sanding and polishing off of anything that might make a specific group *not* like the movie, what's left is so washed out and faded that the best they can hope for is a "Meh. pretty OK on a rainy afternoon". And to try to alleviate the washed out appearance they spend all the money on CGI and shiny effects.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Kjella]

Intelligence, yes. Ignorance and attitude to it, no. That is very much a social and cultural issue that'll depend on the availability, quality and affordability of educational institutions as well as peer pressure from parents, family, friends, teachers, role models, the opposite sex and others around you. The ignorant tend to get lumped in with the unintelligent, we don't really care if you miss the facts to make the right conclusions or the intelligence to do it. Either way you come across as dumb.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[dgatwood]

Even more broadly, nearly everyone is dumb (and I include myself in that number, you too, no insult intended) about some things.

You're not using the words "smart" and "dumb" correctly here. Everyone displays varying depth of knowledge in different areas (except for those who have minimal knowledge in any area, of course). Everyone displays greater aptitude for various skills. However, intelligent people are able to identify areas where they lack sufficient information or skills to do a task. It isn't ignorance that separates the intelligent from the stupid, but rather reasoning skills sufficient to learn what is necessary after one's ignorance is pointed out.

For example, sure, your mother-in-law missed the subtext. That just means she hasn't been exposed to enough ultra-conservative Christian folks to recognize it. Once you pointed it out, though, I'd imagine she was able to recognize it. Similarly, your mother probably hasn't done any higher level math since high school or college, and has probably forgotten most of it. It's a skill that has to be refreshed. That doesn't mean she wasn't capable of learning it once, nor that she isn't capable of understanding it again if she felt the need to do so.

So what you meant to say is that everyone is ignorant about something, and that most people are learned about at least some things. And that is certainly true. You can't be smart or stupid about something. You're either intelligent or you aren't.

And you'll notice I use the word "stupid" rather than "dumb" because the latter can also mean "mute".

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[dwywit]

Thanks - I'm glad there's at least a few people out there who don't need to be spoonfed. My assessment piece, a short film (comedy 10mins) left the ending open. You pretty much knew what was going to happen, as the last scene made it obvious that the perpetrator had been caught out, but I left it up to the audience to imagine what his wife was going to do to him. After its screening, some people in the audience came up to me and asked "what happened to him?", but others complimented me on leaving it up to them to imagine. They actually enjoyed playing it out in their own minds.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[eugene ts wong]

I was going to moderate, but I felt that your great perspective deserved a response.

What you say seems to really correctly describe Americans. It even seems to account for American movies and Canadian movies, and even Canadian movies about Americans.

I'm taking a writing correspondence course that emphasizes a good quick story beginning. I held that perspective, when I read "The Scarlet Pimpernel", recently, and compared the text version to the BBC movie version. What a huge difference! The text version seemed to do a lot less lifting. I found myself so confused. The movie version seemed very easy to follow.

I think that your comment also accounts for why the 2-party system is so strong in America.

Thanks!

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[chunkyasparagus]

I don't mind lots and lots of details, if the details make sense in the context of the movie's universe.

It pisses me off when too many details ruin a film though, like Willy Wonka's childhood in 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[Andtalath]

Actually, no.
In general, while intelligence doesn't exist in the general fashion, people who excel at one thing tend to excel at others.

There are many fringe cases (like myself, my curve is quite uneven (Aspergers and ADHD to prove it)), but, in general, stupid people are stupid, smart people are smart.

Being trained and having aptitude for something are also entirely different things, and not as easy to distinguish as one might think.
In reality, talent only accounts for a small amount of what makes a person good at something, most careers pretty much only involve cramming a system into your head and then reapplying that system time and time again.

However, remember, almost half of all people are less then average in intelligence, and the common man isn't smart.
To get to the people who stand out noticeably in intelligence, you have to go to 120+ IQ so to speak, meaning the top 20%, to get to brilliant, you need to go to the lowest 2% or so.

In short, most people are most decidedly not smart, some like to call that dumb.

Re:I prefer origins to be mysterious

[airdweller]

Looks like you've never heard of Mauritz Stiller, Ingmar Bergman, Tomas Alfredson or Lasse Hallstrom. That says nothing about them, but a lot - about you.

Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[chemicaldave]

We've answered this dozens of times already. There's no money in creating new stories when people will pay to see what they already know, no matter how bad/bland it is.

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially since a whole new set of customers, who haven't seen the previous origin movie, comes of age few years.

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[JackieBrown]

Maybe they were going for ironic? Blo

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[Hatta]

So then, are we suffering from origin story fatigue fatigue?

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[somersault]

Who says the remakes have to be bad/bland? The new Batman movies were IMO much better than the 90s movies. I also think that The Green Hornet might be my favourite movie so far this year.

I've just looked up more info on the Spiderman reboot I'd heard about, and I see it's going to be directed by the guy that did 500 Days of Summer. That film was rather unique IMO, I'm looking forward to see what the guy can do with Spiderman (who has always been my favourite superhero).

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[TheSeventh]

No, there is money in creating new stories, and it happens all the time. But there are hundreds if not thousands of new stories every year, and the movie studios buy hundreds of these scripts every year, and most of the time it's a guessing game as to which script will be a money maker, and which will bomb terribly.

They take chances on a small number of new stories, and some of them might make money.

Even the franchise movies sometimes fail, but the chances are higher that they won't. It's a simple money equation.

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[nabsltd]

There's no money in creating new stories when people will pay to see what they already know, no matter how bad/bland it is.

Mostly, reboots are either to fix a franchise that became broken (e.g., Batman) or about not having enough money to continue paying the actors in a successful franchise. The relative failure of the third movie and the "origins" concept, plus the large cast means that for X-Men, the reboot is probably for both reasons,.

Even if the actors aren't too expensive, some just want to move on, and another thing the '90s Batman films showed was that you really need actor continuity (although audiences will generally overlook it even for a major part when the actor dies).

"Green Lantern" could be Hollywood's dream, as the comic book has Doctor Who-like reboots built in. So, you can change actors and change the whole tone of the movies, while still being "Green Lantern".

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[drb226]

So then, are we suffering from origin story fatigue fatigue?

Actually, I believe it would adequately be called "origin story fatigue story fatigue".

Or, for you lispy people, (fatigue (story (fatigue (story origin))))

[insert inception pun here]

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[drb226]

Doctor Who has an amazing way to allow the series to continue indefinitely. All you have to do to keep it going is fulfill the minimum complete definition for the show: tardis, time lord, and companions. The look and feel of these can vary in any way (though keeping the tardis whoosh sound and centered complex control panel is a plus). I secretly hope that the show drops Daleks but that hasn't happened yet :P

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[Darinbob]

Reboots because the audience changes. The new audience has no idea who this hero guy is or how he came to be. Comic book fans may scoff, but not everyone keeps up with the comics.

Second, these stories are interesting and different producers/directors want a chance to tell the story. Ie, the Tim Burton Batman (the best I think) is very different feel from the Batman Begins, and similarly the comics on which they were based are very different too. And Batman Begins tells part of the story that wasn't told before, the intervening years between tragic childhood and emerging as full fledged superhero. Vastly more entertaining than some generic story where Batman starts as a hero at the beginning, doubts himself a little in the middle, and ends up as a hero at the end, which is part and parcel of the "must have a new issue every month for decades" story mill.

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[praxis]

Or use an existing English construct: origin-story-fatigue story-fatigue.

Re:Oh look, some blog is doing this story again.

[coolmadsi]

Doctor Who has an amazing way to allow the series to continue indefinitely. All you have to do to keep it going is fulfill the minimum complete definition for the show: tardis, time lord, and companions. The look and feel of these can vary in any way (though keeping the tardis whoosh sound and centered complex control panel is a plus). I secretly hope that the show drops Daleks but that hasn't happened yet :P

I've heard a rumour that they're skipping a Dalek story in the next series, but have not read too much into the planned storylines so don't know how correct that is.

I read recently they're splitting the series slightly, having half the episodes starting now, then having a mid-series clifhanger, then having a break for a few weeks or so until towards the end of the summer, then continuing with the rest of the series. In that case, I would be surprised if they had a Dalek storyline in both half-series.

Nothing surprising here

[Anonymous Coward]

Movies need to make money. The people who do that for movies don't really know enough about fictional characters to go see or appreciate a more in-depth story.

Even if "we" stopped going to movies, they would still be made.

Re:Nothing surprising here

[Anonymous Coward]

The businesses that make movies hate risk. They like guarantees & sure things. They like to know their income isn't going to drop in the next few years (payments on that 3rd yacht etc). They'd rather spend 50 million on a remake/reimaging of film that made a few hundred million profit last time and is very likely to make 50 million profit this time than spend 10 million on a film that might only make 5 million profit. The 10m film might make 100 million or it might make 5m. The remake is a sure thing, especially if they make it prettier, louder, in 3D and use a few 'current' actors. It doesn't matter that people are getting sick of the same old crap and that more and more often the reviews end up being comparisons to the previous versions if it keeps the money rolling in. They are running out of ways of telling the same old stories so they have to explore origins, backstories and anything just to make the reimaging seem 'fresh'.

Re:Nothing surprising here

[DrgnDancer]

Quite the contrary, the movie industry is one of the least risk adverse out there. I'd argue that only people like angel investors take more risks than movie studios. I don't remember the exact statistics, but some freakishly large percentage of movies don't make any money, or outright lose money. One way of mitigating that risk is to make at least some movies with built in fan-bases like franchises or "based on literature/comic books" stuff. Even those don't *always* make money, but they tend to be less risky than completely new stuff.

Re:Nothing surprising here

[Unkyjar]

Actually, just about ALL movies lose money (according to their accountants), no matter how much they take in at the box office and in sales. Why? Because of something called Hollywood Accounting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Don't kid yourself, studios don't take risks, and when they do it's why they employ a veritable army of people to minimize the risks.

Slashdot Origin

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, can somebody post the story of Slashdot's origin, please?

Re:Slashdot Origin

[GameboyRMH]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#History

Fun fact that doesn't seem to be mentioned here: Originally Slashdot was running from a box in Rob Malda's closet. The original hardware Slashdot was hosted on was auctioned (or raffled? Don't remember) off a few years ago. I'll have to see if I can dig up the source and add it to Wikipedia (and hope the deletionists don't see it)

Re:Slashdot Origin

[maxwell demon]

Hey, can somebody post the story of Slashdot's origin, please?

Once upon a time, there was a lonely slash. And far, far away there was a lonely dot. They both were lonely wandering around the internet, seeking for someone with whom they would be for the rest of their life. One day they met, and immediately knew that they were made for each other. So they went together and formed Slashdot.

Re:Slashdot Origin

[PPH]

It was a dark and stormy night.....

Re:Slashdot Origin

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody thought it was funny to create a url that's pronounced http:///..org/, decided to add tech-type stories to the site, and voila.

Re:Slashdot Origin

[elrous0]

Once there was an evil sorcerer name kdawson...

Re:Slashdot Origin

[somersault]

What, you haven't seen the trailers for "The Anti-Social Network"?

Re:Slashdot Origin

[Anonymous Coward]

And three centuries* later, all that's left on Slashdot is two-days old dupes, ACs and trolls.

* IT time.

Re:Slashdot Origin

[phrackwulf]

Tonight on "Biography!"

Re:Slashdot Origin

[Bing Tsher E]

It's a shame that Slashdot has to be based in 'IT Time' though, isn't it? Because it passes so quickly. Geek time runs so much more slowly. I have test equipment from the 1960's that is still fabulously powerful. But that's because I am a geek, not a member of the IT Drone collective that has slowly taken over here.

I might suffer origin story fatigue

[Anonymous Coward]

But I can't get past my superhero fatigue to get to the origin story fatigue.

Re:I might suffer origin story fatigue

[clang_jangle]

I know how you feel, I've been suffering from mafiAA fatigue for years now so no worries about varieties of fatigue which arise from throwing money at that particular enemy of culture.

Jimmy Olsen

[boristdog]

From third-grade science-fair pinhole camera to photojournalist and Superman's friend. The story you never knew.

Re:Jimmy Olsen

[JamesP]

I always wanted to know the past history of Jar-Jar-Binks

NOT

Re:Jimmy Olsen

[ifrag]

Unless his origin story is that a time travelling assassin kills him before he can appear in any of the films. I suppose a separate film is not needed, episode 1-3 could simply be edited. That's edit / re-release model is more familiar ground for him.

Re:Jimmy Olsen

[Skywolfblue]

Oh crap... Now you've done it, now Lucas knows. Incoming Jar-Jar edition in HD 3D Blue Ray Directors Edition With Extra Bonus Jar-Jar Contentâ.

Easy cash, what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its much easier to reinvent the wheel. Just like its a whole lot easier to resell the same stuff over and over these days since many people easily forget.

Simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

They found a formula with predictable success ( because we line up like the little piggies we are, eager to hand over our 20-30 bucks for the slop they throw our way ).

When they've run this formula in to the ground ( to the point where not even teenagers are willing to tolerate the crap ), they'll move on to the next.

Film makers aren't about telling stories. They're about making money.

Origin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hallowed are the Ori

Re:Origin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you hear your franchise died? Some gods you turned out to be.

Re:Origin?

[blair1q]

For they have...gin?

Spiderman

[just_another_sean]

All I know is if I have to sit through Peter Parker getting bit by a radioactive spider one more time, well, I'm just not going to do it. My understanding is that the next Spiderman movie is a reboot; here's hoping they "cut to the chase".

Re:Spiderman

[elrous0]

Yeah, but this time he'll be all emo and brooding after he gets bit. The demographics for the teenage girl market necessitated it. Product placement also requires that the spider infect him with a strong thirst for refreshing Coca-Cola.

Re:Spiderman

[GameboyRMH]

It's a genetically engineered spider now, because genetic engineering is the new Hardly Understood Mystery Force that Might Give You Super-Powers. Radiation went out of style in the early 90s.

Re:Spiderman

[hedwards]

For well established franchises, I really don't get the point of doing the origins again. However for ones that are less known in the mainstream like Hellboy was, I think it makes sense. But it also depends how much there is to it, Spiderman doesn't deserve any origins more than a very quick bit, radioactive, spider, because quite frankly his origin sucked.

Re:Spiderman

[Anonymous Coward]

This really should be modded funny or if we had the option snarky, but I think sadly Insightful would be the better option

Re:Spiderman

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but this time he'll be all emo and brooding after he gets bit.

So... just like last time?

Re:Spiderman

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they'll finally shake it up and go with the idea of Spiderman being a nice Jewish boy and stop with this radioactive spider malarky. (Not sure who originally suggested it, although I found a clip of Jon Stewart mentioning it in 2002.)

Re:Spiderman

[Zenaku]

Yes but after recent events in Japan, it could make a come back. After seeing the massive and ongoing media reaction to that disaster, I actually wondered to myself whether or not Spiderman's origin story would flip back to using a radiated spider.

Yes, my priorities are fucked up. I'm okay with that.

Re:Spiderman

[blair1q]

I think they do it to give the actor a chance to own the character. And to throw out the gadgets and sidekicks and baggage from the previous episodes.

Only James Bond could get away with being a different guy in every movie, because we're not meant to know his past, and his present isn't an alternate superhero universe that needs underpinning and justification for suspension of disbelief. It's assumed to be the current world each time. Even that doesn't really work, because they went all backstory and rebooty in Daniel Craig's debut. But they only really did that because they were out of ideas and wanted to recycle Fleming's.

Re:Spiderman

[lwriemen]

Are you talking about the movies or the comic books? ;-)

Re:Spiderman

[DarthVain]

Spiderman: "So doc does this mean I have super powers?"
Doctor: "God no, what are you an idiot? You have radiation poisoning, you're going to die a horribly painful death with no possible cure"
Spiderman: "Oh."
G.I. Joe "...and Knowing is have the battle! Go Joe!"

Re:Spiderman

[Darinbob]

I dated someone when Superman 2 came out who had no idea who Superman was. The whole concept baffled her and she left the movie saying "did they honestly expect us to believe that guy could fly?" I imagine to her it was like when I watched Heroic Trio first time. And Superman was a major franchise that I suspect most Americans knew about; Spiderman on the other hand is small fry in comparison. He's only had one origin story on screen and it was a long time ago (not counting parodies). We don't necessarily need a reboot of Spiderman, but similarly we didn't need the generic sequels either.

Re:Spiderman

[SteveFoerster]

Yeah, except this time he'll be sparkly.

Re:Spiderman

[Andtalath]

It's re-entered some movies again actually (the Hulk for instance).
But, yeah, between Godzilla and Deep Blue sea, something definitely happened (heck even the Hulk before the last one was genetics).

Playing it safe

[NoSleepDemon]

Isn't that basically what it boils down to? A franchise has an established fan base, a successful film means that the formula works, the director / cast combination works etc. etc. Couple that with a PG13 rating and you've got a money maker. Sadly we're in the minority regarding spoon feeding, people like that - they like (at its most basic) being told what to do, to have a leader figure no matter how abstract that figure is. I find that there are few franchises that really require sequels, and even fewer require prequels - I'm quietly glad for example that District 9 and Cloverfield haven't been turned into giant cash cows. Cloverfield would be especially suited to an alternate telling of the story from a different character's perspective. Having said that Paranormal Activity 2 seemed to work really well, despite it being an obvious cash grab. I expect the third and fourth installments to be terrible though.

Re:Playing it safe

[GooberToo]

I find that there are few franchises that really require sequels, and even fewer require prequels

Seems you're not alone.

I'm quietly glad for example that District 9 and Cloverfield haven't been turned into giant cash cows.

Except Cloverfield is a classic example of shitty storytelling. And last I heard, there was a strong desire to do a sequel to District 9. The ending was specifically left open ended so as to allow for it; assuming it made some money.

Re:Playing it safe

[medcalf]

I would amend that slightly. People like being told what to do, but they like thinking that they are unique, creative individuals, responsible for themselves, and not needing or wanting to be told what to do. In other words, yes, most people want to be sheep, but they also want to see themselves as sheepdogs.

Re:Playing it safe

[NoSleepDemon]

The way I see it there's two possible reasons for this:

1) We're wired up to be like that, to obey the leader, or perhaps a little less insidiously - to respect those we admire. But in todays society we all like to think we're pretty little flowers. So the trick is to pamper to the high order brain functions, while secretly targeting our inert need to follow.

2) We're all just lazy slobs.

Re:Playing it safe

[asdf7890]

There is also due to be a Cloverfield 2, apparently. http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/820796/cloverfield_2_still_on_the_cards.html

Re:Playing it safe

[NoSleepDemon]

The story wasn't all that impressive, but it's the best 'shakey cam' movie I've seen. I think part of it is that I'm an FPS and survival horror fan, so when I see a film that really draws those two genres together... into a film, it has a certain resonance with me.

Re:Playing it safe

[tlhIngan]

Remember, a movie's sole purpose is to put asses in seats. Sure there's some kinds of asses they'd prefer over others, but in general, a movie that makes people feel smart (spoon feeding them until they can draw their own conclusion) will appeal to the masses, as are the ones that provide relief from the world for a couple of hours, hence the summer blockbuster.

The origin story attempts to put nostalgic asses in seats, by appealing to people's childhood days when they read the comics or other such things. And for recent franchises (e.g., video games), it's meant to appeal to those who want a deeper backstory.

It's all about putting asses in seats. And those asses are getting extremely tight these days, so filmmakers are trying to appeal to different groups of asses to get them to spend money. Broadening the market, really.

Re:Playing it safe

[GooberToo]

Eeek. There should be some kind of trivial punishment for ruining someone's day like that.

Re:Playing it safe

[Anonymous Coward]

>The story wasn't all that impressive, but it's the best 'shakey cam' movie I've seen.

That's sort of like saying: "There was lots of pain and bleeding, but it's the best jailhouse anal rape I've received."

Re:Playing it safe

[GooberToo]

I'm confused. Did you enjoy the story or the act of telling the story? It sounds like the later. My beef is with the former. I have absolutely no problem with stylized storytelling - but you must have a story regardless. The story there - sucked; and failed to deliver. Sadly, that's JJ's calling card - lots of hype, generally excellent concept, and failure to deliver.

Re:Playing it safe

[chispito]

Remember, a movie's sole purpose is to put asses in seats.

There is also a smaller set of films that get made as director ego or studio prestige films. You know, audiences-be-damned Oscar bait.

Re:Playing it safe

[NoSleepDemon]

Yep you're right - it's actually kind of like Half-Life (which for some reason I find Cloverfield similar to). The story in HL is really, really simple and can be summarised as "government do silly experiment that may or may not have been sabotaged that opens portals to an alien dimension", but the execution draws you in. For me watching Cloverfield wasn't so much about deep and involved characters with dramatic back story; it was about a group of students caught in their own little apocalypse and their desperate (and sometimes stupid) attempts to escape. Out of interest, what was it about the story that you disliked? Was it simply not developed enough, or was it unbelievable, or something else?

Re:Playing it safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Cloverfield is a classic example of shitty storytelling.

Agreed. Too bad Reeves got to do the LtROI-remake, because the original was pretty awesome.

Re:Playing it safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, a movie's sole purpose is to put asses in seats.

Ah, THAT explains why they made a movie out of Atlas Shrugged - every Randroid I've ever met was a *complete* ass... ;)

Re:Playing it safe

[cOldhandle]

What about "Rec"?!?!?! Or "The Blair Witch Project", or even "The Diary of the Dead".

Re:Playing it safe

[Darinbob]

You also need origin stories to explain what's going on. You need to market to more than just the long term fans who already know everything about Batman, Ironman, NextGenMan, or whoever.

Re:Playing it safe

[g0bshiTe]

I enjoyed Cloverfield, District 9, Paranormal Activity (the first, never saw the second, is there really a need?) and I also enjoyed Sucker Punch. I like movies that try to break the Hollywood cookie cutter formula.

Re:Playing it safe

[NoSleepDemon]

Sucker Punch was amazing. It's difficult for a film to fail that has sword wielding girls facing off against giant robot Samurai's with chainguns.

Re:Playing it safe

[davester666]

There is. He won't get mod points for a week!

Re:Playing it safe

[lennier]

The story in HL is really, really simple and can be summarised as "government do silly experiment that may or may not have been sabotaged that opens portals to an alien dimension"

Which for the observant in the audience, is also the same story as Doom (1 and 3), only on Earth and done better.

Re:Playing it safe

[lennier]

So the trick is to pamper to the high order brain functions, while secretly targeting our inert need to follow.

So... a brain spa, deep cortical massage, a few casual rounds of solving Kerr metrics in general relativity, followed by a quiet night in sitting on a couch being towed behind a bus?

Re:Playing it safe

[lennier]

Difficult, yes. But far from impossible.

Re:Playing it safe

[shermo]

asses are getting extremely tight these days

If only...

www.peopleofwalmart.com/

Re:Playing it safe

[Vastad]

The Honorable Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang will see you now. If you would just take a seat here by the Nerve Stapler....

Re:Playing it safe

[TheTurtlesMoves]

I think a lot of people forget that when someone puts up 100Million to make a movie, they want their money back with interest.

Directors like Michal Bay get the cash because they get the cash back x2. Hell even his biggest critics seem to go to his movies just so they can rag on the directing.

Re:Playing it safe

[GooberToo]

Out of interest, what was it about the story that you disliked? Was it simply not developed enough, or was it unbelievable, or something else?

Cheese did a pretty good job of answering. Its been a long while since I've seen the movie so I'll try to recall. IIRC, the character development sucked, character motivations were nonsense, there wasn't a real plot and what they presented as even a weak plot, the characters violated.

The problems are frequently one of the biggest problems many movies make. People know people. When you have people who behavior in a fashion which violates human nature you better have really good character development and motivation to explain it. If you don't, the writer breaks their contract with the viewing public. The violations were so egregious, it was basically a giant, "Fuck you, we already have your money. Hahaha."

As I said, the concept was cool, for its time the stylization was interesting yet overdone, but the characters and story absolutely sucked.

Gloss over them, if you can

[Quantus347]

If everyone knows the origin story, I tend to have more respect for the films that just gloss over the origin and move on the the main plot. Both The Incredible Hulk and Superman Returns did this fairly well; they just accepted that these characters were known and understood by audiences as part of western culture. Now, if your whole goal is to reset and alter/update the origin, such as was done with the Batman reboot or the Spiderman franchise, then sure, go do your storytelling best. But otherwise it just wastes screen time, and ends up dragging down the whole film as we are subjected to what amounts to a regurgitated history lesson.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, some times you don't want to know the origin. The Dark Knight didn't go into the Joker's origin and was a better movie for it.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[TrekkieGod]

If everyone knows the origin story, I tend to have more respect for the films that just gloss over the origin and move on the the main plot. Both The Incredible Hulk and Superman Returns did this fairly well; they just accepted that these characters were known and understood by audiences as part of western culture.

I disagree. The origin is where the motivation behind the character lies. In fact, Superman Returns being the worst superhero movie since Ang Lee's Hulk proves that point. The only reason it wasn't worse is that it was kind of a sequel to Superman II, so you could take that same world story as the background. I'll agree with you that the latest Hulk was actually pretty good, but I did feel like we lost out on character development.

Now, if your whole goal is to reset and alter/update the origin, such as was done with the Batman reboot or the Spiderman franchise, then sure, go do your storytelling best.

Well, if you're not doing that, why bother telling a story at all? In that case, I'd just as soon they don't do the movie.

Each time somebody tries a new take on a superhero, the worst mistake they can make is skipping the origin story. Unless it's a direct sequel to a previous movie, the script writers and directors undoubtedly have new directions to take a character in and it's impossible to do so without establishing the setting. The Dark Knight is a much better movie than Batman Begins, but it could not exist without Batman Begins. That movie set up what Christopher Nolan's version of Batman was, as opposed to Tim Burton's.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[hedwards]

The Joker doesn't really have an origin. At least not one that's been agreed upon, it's changed several times and due to the nature of the character adding a new one every few years is reasonable. The Dark Knight did spend a bit on his origins, IIRC, at least one of the choices was in the film. But in general doing origins for a character that hasn't really got reliable origins in the series is a waste of time for something that's either not important to most viewers or going to piss off the comic fans who have a favorite one.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[jaymz666]

Disagreed. Why doesn't every movie begin with the birth of the protagonist? Because it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Motivations can be gleaned before or during or way after the event that transforms Peter Parker into Spiderman.

Everyone knows the basics of the Spiderman, Superman and Batman characters. A basic understanding of that is all that's really needed.

The reason Superman Returns blew chunks was because the plot was awful, not because we didn't know the origin.

Did we know John McClane's origin? No, we figured out his motivations as he crawled and bled through the Nakatomi tower.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[TrekkieGod]

Disagreed. Why doesn't every movie begin with the birth of the protagonist? Because it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Motivations can be gleaned before or during or way after the event that transforms Peter Parker into Spiderman.

Ah, but almost every movie does begin with the "birth" of the protagonist. Not the physical birth, but the first events that make him who he is. John McClane was a nobody until the events of the Nakatomi tower. That was the birth of the hero, not the day in the hospital when he was born. Similarly, I don't care about the day Peter Parker was literally born, but Spiderman was born when the radioactive spider bit him. You can't skip that. It's like skipping to Die Hard II. You see the reporters trying to interview McClane about his actions in the Nakatomi tower, and if you hadn't seen the first movie, you'd be asking yourself, "that story sounds cool, why didn't they show THAT? They keep telling me this McClane dude is a badass, but they didn't show it to me."

Superman Returns sucked because the story is Clark Kent. Who gives a shit that this dude is picking up planes and islands. The important part is that this guy has all this power, but doesn't completely end crime by killing everyone he doesn't like. He was raised like a human being by people that instilled him with certain moral values, he's alone, the only surviving member of his race, trying to fit in but not quite fitting in. That's the story. And before you point out Smallville, the problem there was exactly that instead of focusing on the character they focused on kryptonite-based villain of the week.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[residieu]

Yes, the origin of Superman is very important to the character and the movie. Superman Returns didn't need to cover it, though, because EVERYONE KNOWS IT.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[TrekkieGod]

Yes, the origin of Superman is very important to the character and the movie. Superman Returns didn't need to cover it, though, because EVERYONE KNOWS IT.

And if you're not going to add a new angle to it that people haven't seen, you shouldn't be making a Superman movie at all.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[metrix007]

No. By failing to have Batman create Joker the classic and iconic co-dependent rivalry the two have was not present, and was a poorer movie because of it.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you need a new angle on the origin? I want to see What will Superman do in THIS situation? What would Superman do if he was gone for 10 years and no one really seemed to miss him? What if Lois Lane was getting married to someone else? What if it turns he's the father of Lois's son? You don't need to rehash or play with the origins to answer those questions..

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[zzsmirkzz]

At the time of The Dark Knight, Batman had been around a while, so it is feasible he did do something to create the Joker. Just because neither of them realized or talked about it does not mean it didn't happen that way.

Re:Gloss over them, if you can

[Draek]

In other words, you want either Yet Another Superhero Origin movie or no movie at all.

You do know it's people like you we have the problems noted in TFA, right?

Suffering? Is that the right word?

[eepok]

I know the guy that brings pedantic perspective to the conversation is rarely the one invited to drinks afterward, but I don't think anyone's "suffering" at the hands of repetitive character backgrounds.

Try "bored with" or "uninspired by"...

Suffering? Really?

Re:Suffering? Is that the right word?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the guy that brings pedantic perspective to the conversation is rarely the one invited to drinks afterward, but I don't think anyone's "suffering" at the hands of repetitive character backgrounds.

Try "bored with" or "uninspired by"...

Suffering? Really?

You can suffer from boredom. "Suffer" is a term with a wide range of definitions.

Wonders why film studios aren't looking harder

[dimethylxanthine]

Some studios try too hard.

this is a problem

[circletimessquare]

what we need to do is look into the origins of this counterproductive preoccupation to find out how it started

lol really?

[phantomfive]

Does this guy not understand how the movie business works? As soon as they find something that works, they keep doing it. They want to make money. As soon as one movie comes out that works, soon there will be a bunch of copycat movies. Like sports movies in the 90s. Or CGI movies in the previous decade.

But it's not like the movie industry is trying to push it on us, they are content agnostic (and money religious). The only reason they do it is because it makes money. When people stop going to see them, when the movies stop making money, then the studios stop making that kind of movie.

Re:lol really?

[Anonymous Coward]

People are cutting down on movies, but the movie companies can't see that, or choose not to because they're looking at last year's record profits. Why record profits when there are less people going? People are spending more, often twice the price, while they work through the current 3D fad and fake IMAX screenings.

Last weekend I was at my local fake IMAX (20 screen AMC), there were only two other people in that screen for the entire movie. Last year you'd be queuing up and having to get in early to ensure you got a reasonable seat.

Re:lol really?

[phantomfive]

Makes sense, if people go to more expensive movies, they go less frequently. It's not like people are suddenly getting more money to spend on movies these days.....

Re:lol really?

[Locke2005]

For God's sake, they did a REMAKE of TRUE GRIT! Apparently because John Wayne really sucked in his original (Oscar winning) performance! Yes, I'd have to say it's all about the benjamins, and not about art or originality.

Re:lol really?

[UnknowingFool]

Yep Hollywood execs are notorious for being lazy. They want to follow formulas instead of evaluating movies individually for their merit. Take for instance, Disney. Back in the 90s, Disney led a resurgence in traditional animation. Execs like Eisner felt they could keep duplicating the success by following the same formula of hiring big name actors and ignore story and plot. If it wasn't for the Pixar films, Disney Studios would have been in serious trouble. Pixar is the counter example to what Disney forgot. Pixar spends about 18 months on the story before they start rendering. While Pixar has done sequels, they are better than the originals. I would hate to see a Toy Story prequel.

Re:lol really?

[blair1q]

I wonder if people got all pissed-off when the actors repeated a performance every day on the stage, before movies existed.

Re:lol really?

[drb226]

Remaking a movie is more analogous to performing the same play with a completely different cast and an altered script. And yes, I can easily imagine the connoisseurs getting angry at playwrights for remaking the same play just for the cash, rather than producing an original creative work for art's sake.

Re:lol really?

[blair1q]

A Cats revival on Broadway could make half a billion dollars right now.

Toss in some Cirque du Soleil type production numbers, you could charge $300 a ticket and run it for years.

Can't imagine anyone would complain, and then not go see it anyway.

Re:lol really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like sports movies in the 90s. Or CGI movies in the previous decade.

Dude, seriously? There was one CGI movie in the '80s: TRON. And that took a bodacious amount of work to create. What are you thinking of?

Hollywood being unoriginal?!?!?

[elrous0]

Surely you're not implying that almost all major motion pictures today are remakes, reboots, re-imaginings, sequels, and adaptations?!?!?

Re:Hollywood being unoriginal?!?!?

[jellomizer]

Why do you say this like it is a new thing. Motion Picture is full of this type of stuff. 5 more years we will need another Robin Hood Movie, Perhaps King Author? Perhaps it will be time to redo parts of the Bible? We look at the old movies with fondness for many reasons.
1. We forget about the tons of Crap we forgot about or never went too.
2. As a kid this this was new to us. and probably didn't read the book first.
3. As kids we used our imaginations and made the hero's even more great in our minds
4. Your parents paid for it so you didn't feel ripped off
5. You could just sit back an enjoy the movie without feeling like to need to be a critic of it.

Re:Hollywood being unoriginal?!?!?

[drb226]

And the cycle is ripe to start again with our children...

Re:Hollywood being unoriginal?!?!?

[lennier]

King Author

And the Knights of the New York Times Bestseller List?

Origins are easy.

[thesandtiger]

Origins are easy because you can behave like your audience doesn't know who anyone is, and can thus focus more on introductions and sledgehammer subtle bits of character development rather than more subtle aspects. Even in cases where it would be difficult to find someone who is both able and willing to go to a movie, it's still easier to do an origin. And it's easier to be compelling with an origin because there's so much change happening that even a jaded viewer will at least try to follow along.

Any hack can write a decent origin story, but it does take some skill to thrust viewers into a universe populated by real people who the viewer has never met before, and to make those real people come alive and be compelling. They go from being ciphers to being people we know.

Look at something like LA Confidential - anyone who watches it can figure out who the main characters are, why they do what they do, and understand how they change through the course of the film. Yet we don't get full-on origin stories, the exposition about their backgrounds leading up to the things we see in the film is minimal or non-existent in some cases, but we know them.

Contrast that with an origin story - I'm going to take the most entertaining and ham-fisted one I can think of: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In the space of 30 minutes we learn how Indy became the man we've seen in the prior films - how he got his scar, his hat, his fear of snakes, his passion for archaeology and on and on. It's entertaining, but it's one of the laziest ways to force-feed a bunch of character development imaginable.

People who can pull off a compelling story and create compelling characters with a minimal amount of exposition are not the most common breed, thus we get origin stories.

No

[Necron69]

Hollywood is suffering from story writing fatigue (or good story writing fatigue). How many decades more this will continue is anyone's guess.

As 'Avatar' proved all too well, no amount of glitzy special effects and 3-D can make up for bad writing.

Personally, I find the superhero stuff more interesting than most Hollywood dreck, but the quality of the screenwriting and casting all too often leaves much to be desired. "Van Wilder" as the Green Lantern? Seriously??

- Necron69

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Avatar proved that even with bad writing you can make billions

Re:No

[Riceballsan]

Indeed, the movie industry dosn't judge a movie based on whether the movie was good, having good reviews and die hard fans is just a tool that helps sales, even if the movie was horrible, if it made a ton of money it is a success. Every dollar spent on a writing team is a dollar taken away from the special effects, and well lets face it the 1 minute commercials aren't going to draw someone to the theater based off of story. Heck I don't think the average movie goer has enough intelligence to care about writing, pretty colors, half naked hot chicks, that is what fills the seats.

Re:No

[RavenLrD20k]

Ummm...you might want to clear up which "Avatar" you mean. While the glitz and 3-D couldn't save "Avatar: The Last Airbender" from utter abysmal failure (IMO), the "Avatar" with the big blue bipedal cats and complete CGI environment around them did make for some stunning visuals to go along with a relatively ho-hum storyline and writing. (Isn't the word 'Unobtanium' one of those that the tech guys are supposed to replace with one of the super rare elements from the actual Periodic table...or actually use creativity in coining a proper element name that isn't so obviously a cop-out? Oh wait, they blew the budget on the CG so there were no tech-writers on staff to speak of. My bad.)

The problem with Big Blue Cat Avatar now is that they probably can't do it again without bringing some damn good writing on board. Since everyone's already been wowed by the glitz that Cameron's team is capable of, it's now a "been there done that, bought all the marketing shinies and even 'Avatar'd' my profile pic on facebook" type of experience for the movie goers.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

As 'Avatar' proved all too well, no amount of glitzy special effects and 3-D can make up for bad writing.

Yeah, if only the writing was better it wouldn't have had to settle for being the highest grossing film of all time and then go on to be the best selling Blu-Ray movie of all time.

Re:No

[Blakey Rat]

(Isn't the word 'Unobtanium' one of those that the tech guys are supposed to replace with one of the super rare elements from the actual Periodic table...or actually use creativity in coining a proper element name that isn't so obviously a cop-out? Oh wait, they blew the budget on the CG so there were no tech-writers on staff to speak of. My bad.)

Given the tone of the speech, it's much more likely that the element has an actual name and he was saying "unobtanium" to emphasize how rare it was. I think that's a completely invalid criticism. (Unless you can prove that the writer was just being lazy.)

Re:No

[lennier]

As 'Avatar' proved all too well, no amount of glitzy special effects and 3-D can make up for bad writing.

But the writing in Avatar was perfect!

There are dinosaurs and space marines in space and they fight each other and there are helichopters and dinosaurs and space shuttles and I get to fly a flying space dinosaur and they all go wheeee! and then we fight with giant robots and he has a knife but I have a dinosaur and then I kiss a blue space girl and a magic tree and and and flying space dinosaurs and the end.

The most important thing always

[rolfwind]

is to tell a good story. The concept, no matter how compelling, can't make a story. It's always just the launching pad - some have better foundations than others but the rocket can still fail spectacularly.

The problem with origin stories is that you run the risk is violating what some fans filled in by themselves - it runs counter to their sensibilities and cherished beliefs and what they see in the character. Consider midichlorians as destroying the mysteriousness of the force and making it something rather mundane.

The second problem is that the character may be cool and all that, but isn't the hook to a series. Essentially you're writing a story nobody demands or wants to see. Joey from Friends with his spin-off, for instance.

I think resetting a story constantly, when done maybe 30+years apart, like the new Star Wars, can keep a series fresh and with the times. But doing it with something like Spiderman (which I heard talk of) really just tosses away any attachment the existing audience had rather prematurely - it would be like rebooting HP right after movie 7 in the cynical hope to hook the next wave of children. And then sometimes its time to do some hard work and come up with entirely new characters and stories!

How about multiple choice

[medv4380]

Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha ha ha!

The Killing Joker

You really weren't created by a divine power

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution FTW.

Not the origin story you were looking for. Tell your religious leader he's wrong.

Re:You really weren't created by a divine power

[Yvan256]

I wish I could, but have you ever tried to find the Invisible Pink Unicorn? She's INVISIBLE!

Re:You really weren't created by a divine power

[Duradin]

Please remember to fire *up*. We don't need another Invisible Swordsman incident.

Yes and No

[wazzzup]

It depends, I think the Magneto/Charles Xavier origins story can be quite interesting - far more so than Wolverine. Wolverine, while likable, is just another mutant. The X-Men universe centers around Magneto and Xavier and their backstories. Plus, the X-Men comic books have such complex and convoluted continuity issues, frankly a reboot to the beginning is needed to introduce them to a new generation. FWIW, I've never found the slutty psychic thing Emma Frost has going nearly as compelling as Charles Xavier. Then again, I think comic books hurt their own credibility when they portray female characters as they do.

Despite, my enthusiasm for the Magneto/Xavier origins, I don't have much hope that the movie will be pulled off well though. I hope I'm surprised.

The Spiderman reboot is completely unnecessary - especially with an Avengers movie coming out soon. It's overexposure. There are plenty of interesting characters from the Marvel universe to draw from.

Re:Yes and No

[phrackwulf]

In a similar vein, the one bright spot in the total train wreck that was the Charlize Theron version of "Aeon Flux" was when she shoots a grappling hook at the giant air ship thingy and it bounces off. It is about time that happened to someone in one of these movies.

Re:Yes and No

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

In a similar vein, the one bright spot in the total train wreck that was the Charlize Theron version of "Aeon Flux"
I assume you mean besides the obvious bright spot of Charlize Theron running around in a black catsuit.

Re:Yes and No

[nabsltd]

I assume you mean besides the obvious bright spot of Charlize Theron running around in a black catsuit.

It would have been much brighter if the live-action movie had kept the same outfit from the anime.

Re:Yes and No

[DarthVain]

I'm waiting for the Charles Xavier/Juggernaut story. Whats more back story than estranged brothers.

Re:Yes and No

[QuasiSteve]

total train wreck that was the Charlize Theron version of "Aeon Flux"

Perhaps I'm biased for having watched the movie first, and the TV 'cartoon' series second. But I found the latter to be a far greater trainwreck. Between the inconsistent drawing and the artist's desire to draw wriggling tongues from a myriad of characters, there's the death of Aeon Flux. The multiple deaths of Aeon Flux, I should say. I'm not sure what I watched, but I'm sure glad it was only about $10 when I picked it up out of a bargain bin. Not excusing the movie for its obvious flaws, but at least something coherent was roughly built around the 'universe' set up in the series.

Re:Yes and No

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a nice touch. The main thing I was hoping for in Aeon Flux (the movie) was that the main character die and it be revealed explicitly that way that she was a clone.

Honestly, other than not killing her, I thought the movie version was pretty decent.

Vote with dollars then

[dkleinsc]

The reason Hollywood produces stuff is because they think it will make money. Period. Any artistic value in film is purely coincidental. They've discovered that re-hashing the same old material is much cheaper and easier than doing something really new and innovative, and still sells well. Ergo they will do so whenever possible.

Re:Vote with dollars then

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about this, yes if everything has to be done through the unions then you're right. But there is space for passion driven work, most independent films build cast and crew because of great scripts, or at least lousy scripts that are fun.

Re:Vote with dollars then

[drb226]

Frankly, I don't think they care much about the minority geek vote.

Are we?

[phrackwulf]

Suffering from redundancy fatigue? Read my convoluted blog post about it. Won't you?

I'll never tire of Idgy Vaughn

[ElmoGonzo]

Idgy's debut CD "Origin Story" is not fatiguing at all.

The origin and everything that follows

[GodfatherofSoul]

Most comic movies are following a fairly safe pattern; even through all 3 movies in their trilogies (though some franchises aren't making it that far). I've gotten really bored with them.

The Watchmen was the most original I can think of. And, the Batman reboot origin was pretty cool as well.

Wider audiences ...

[gstoddart]

Part of the reason we need/end up with origin stories is the film creators are trying to cater to a wider market.

If people didn't know who the X-Men were or how they came to be, they might not be interested in the movie. Targeting geeks who are already 'in the know' and not telling everyone else what is happening doesn't fill cinemas.

I guess the same goes for a Spider Man origins story, though in this case it's more of a "reboot" of the series to start from scratch, sell more tickets, and try to pay big name stars even less money. Which, one might argue is a little cynical and money-grasping.

Besides, it's not like the series reboot and fresh origin story hasn't been a staple of comics for quite some time -- it seems to me we've been through a fair number of incarnations of Spider Man and Iron Man (and Super Man and Bat Man) throughout the years.

As long as it's a good (enough) story, and has the requisite effects, fight scenes, car wrecks, and chicks in spandex ... well, they'll probably do fine. Den of Geek comes from a certain perspective of people who would want some more "hard core comic geek" movies -- but studio execs want to maximize the number of ticket buyers.

My sister in law or wife won't want to see some super hero movie that just jumps into the middle without an origin story.

Re:Wider audiences ...

[residieu]

Strangely, though. X-Men, was not an origin story of the X-Men. It gave an origin of Rogue and an origin of Wolverine as "kinda mysterious", but the rest of the X-Men were an established team, with an established villain.

I'm mostly opposed to a new Spider-man not because I don't want to see the origin again, but because J. K. Simmons did such an awesome J Jonah Jameson and I want to see more of him. Kirsten Dunst is nice to look at too.

Re:Wider audiences ...

[gstoddart]

Strangely, though. X-Men, was not an origin story of the X-Men. It gave an origin of Rogue and an origin of Wolverine as "kinda mysterious", but the rest of the X-Men were an established team, with an established villain.

Fair comment ... I guess they couldn't possibly hope to do the backstory of all of the X-Men, but they did need to be able to introduce them to us and they had to find a way to do that. However, short of Blade, X-Men was one of the first comic-based movies to really do well in the theaters, and has ushered in a whole decade of pretty good films and even caused Marvel to do their own studio -- as I recall, when the DVD came out for X-Men, its sales actually beat whatever was in the box office that weekend, which was a first.

I'm mostly opposed to a new Spider-man not because I don't want to see the origin again, but because J. K. Simmons did such an awesome J Jonah Jameson and I want to see more of him. Kirsten Dunst is nice to look at too.

I'm kind of inclined to agree ... I think I'd rather a 4th Spider man with the cast who had done the first three. I checked on IMDB, and as far as I can tell, there simply isn't a Mary Jane character.

I must say, I'm definitely a little leery about the upcoming Spider Man reboot. I'm just not sure what to expect, and I'm not sure that a do-over and a new telling of the back story is going to entice me enough to go see it in the theater.

If nothing else, it's good to see both Marvel and DC being much more involved in the creation of movies based on their properties ... it prevents some Hollywood hack from bastardizing good material.

Re:Wider audiences ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Spider Man and Iron Man (and Super Man and Bat Man) ...

Spelling counts, especially when you're dealing with geeks and comics.

Spider-Man. There's a little hyphen in there separating the two words.
Iron Man. You got that one right.
Superman. One word.
Batman. Again, one word. In his very earliest incarnations it was two (hyphenated, IIRC), but for decades now it's been Batman.

No we're suffering from retread-itis

[decipher_saint]

Nothing original, but it keeps paying off so studios bank on it. And why shouldn't they? As long as idiots line up to see it they have a business model.

Where things get dark is that once you've seen the Spiderman or Batman story three or four times, you just stop going (well, one would hope, we are talking comic book geeks after all, they just have to see if "this version" is "right version"... I digress) at some point (and this may already have happened) the people who make big budget films forget how to tell new stories and they will blame every single potential point of failure except themselves along the way.

Movies are "dying"? Clearly internet media pirates at work...

hey, look, a plastic castle!

[Ephemeriis]

I blame our dwindling attention span...

It seems like folks can't remember something for more than a few minutes. How else do you explain politicians who say one thing today, deny it tomorrow, and get away with it despite piles of evidence that they actually did say it? How else do you explain CNN being able to repeat the same few stories every hour and still hold on to viewers? How else do you explain the insane popularity of things like twitter?

Hell, TV shows have started showing "last time on..." flashbacks just to make sure that people remember what happened in the last episode.

I think you'd have a hard time doing a 4+ movie series without going back somewhere along the line and re-introducing the characters. I think you'd have people forgetting what happened in the first movie, and folks coming in midway through who wouldn't bother to go watch the first movie.

Re:hey, look, a plastic castle!

[jittles]

Hell, TV shows have started showing "last time on..." flashbacks just to make sure that people remember what happened in the last episode.

It's worse than you think. There are plenty of shows, reality and otherwise, that have a recap of what happened before the last commercial break. It drives me nuts. I can remember what was going on 5 minutes ago, thank you very much! It just makes it feel like they are trying to stretch 5 minutes worth of content into a 42 minute show!

Re:hey, look, a plastic castle!

[I'm not really here]

It just makes it feel like they are trying to stretch 5 minutes worth of content into a 42 minute show!

They are...

I want them alive!

[Yaddoshi]

Darth Vader was far more frightening until they showed us Anakin hitting on a girl twice his age and shouting, "Now this is Pod Racing" while attacking the Trade Federation control ship. Anakin became even more pathetic after we watched him turning into a creepy stalker teenager who used the Jedi mind trick to get Padme to like him. And the final insult - Anakin becomes a Dark Lord of the Sith so he won't get in trouble for cutting Mace Windu's hand off? Lame. Really, if Lucas had avoided giving us Vader backstory entirely, our own imaginations would have been more than sufficient at keeping Vader a truly frightening Dark Lord of the Sith, even after the helmet removal in Return of the Jedi.

Re:I want them alive!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait... you can use Jedi mind tricks to get girls? Where do I sign up?

(Waves hand) "This IS the penis you've been looking for!"

Re:I want them alive!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree!! I was over the whole Star Wars thing after the second film. Really, Lucas had only one story to tell, and kept telling it, and telling it, and telling it, until it exhausted itself; then he made it animated..... Kind of symbolic IMHO; all of Hollywood only knows how to recycle the same stories now -- remakes of remakes, story lines you've heard/seen done better. A story teller in the Middle Ages would have been beheaded for belaboring one story that badly.

Re:I want them alive!

[phantomfive]

Darth Vader was far more frightening until......

And thus it is with all villains, they are much more scary until you see them for what they are.

Re:I want them alive!

[painandgreed]

Well, he didn't become a Dark Lord to keep from getting into trouble. He killed Mace and became a Dark Lord because he finally decided to believe and follow the Emperor because out of everybody, Palpatine had been just about the only person to treat him as a person, empathize with him, and tell him that he wasn't a fuck up. The only other competition was Obi Wan, and Anakin showed more hesitation in trying to kill him that an entire building of children. If the Jedi and Mace hadn't have been so blinded with hubris, they could have seen it and defused the problem. Instead, they were fixed in their ways and broke instead of refusing to bend. Out of all that can be said bad about the SW movies (and there is plenty of criticism for the first three also. Ewoks anybody?), I think that is one of the points he pretty much gets right. Sure, there could have been some decent acting, but hey.

Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're a bit over-eager to act like you're above the ignorant masses...people dont *want* to be spoonfed, but that is certainly what they are getting, and theres not much of an alternative. Indie and foreign films aren't any better, because the overwhelming majority of those suffer from exactly the same problems.

Its just a symptom of the studios wanting to make as much money as possible, making movies that are least likely to alienate any section of the intended market, which means dumbed down and unimaginative films. Thats a far cry from the "all the sheeple just want to be spoonfed, *I* on the other hand..." drivel you posted...

There are more examples

[RogerWilco]

There are many examples:
Enterprise, Green Lantern, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, every Hulk, all 10 seasons of SmallVille.

It seems that especially in the SF and Comicbook genre the studios feel the need to make these genesis movies.

If they do another FF movie, let it be them fighting the Hulk or something like that. Wolverine vs. Hulk would be nice too.

Superman should fight Brainiac or Doomsday or Darkseid. Preferably with Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League.

Or get me an "X-men: Phoenix Ressurection", something like that.

There are plenty good stories to tell.

Re:There are more examples

[Synn]

"all 10 seasons of SmallVille."

LOL. I watch the show and really forgot about that. 10 years and he still hasn't learned to fly yet.

Re:There are more examples

[Shadow99_1]

I think 'inworld' only about 6 years have passed... Either way I preferred Smallville to any of the Superman movies.

Re:There are more examples

[Kongzilla]

Clark is the slowest learner from Krypton. Flying came naturally to all the rest; Supergirl, Zod, the Kryptonians... hell, even "Bizarro Number 1" picked up on flying straight out of the gate.

Thankfully...

[CrackedButter]

James Bond never got an original story until 40 years after he was created, even then, it doesn't go into detail (2006 Casino Royale). Meaning we don't see him as a child, then at school, then in the Navy, then signing up for the MI6. We cut to the chase with his required double kill in the title sequence.

That should be good enough, and it is, its great in fact, especially when there are 25 EON Bond films. Spiderman gets 3, then they want to redo the origin story again, less than 10 years to the previous trilogy? What short attention spans we have.

Again, look at the Bond Franchise against the argument for a different actor requiring an origin story. We knew who Bond was, when Roger Moore, Dalton etc took over, just give us a new plot. The same can be done with Spiderman by carrying on from the third movie.

Re:Thankfully...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever heard of the theory that each time a different actor takes up the role of James Bond, he is in fact a different "Bond"? Basically, Bond is just the name of whomever is 007 at the time. In "Casino Royale" you see the origin story of only one of the James Bonds.

Re:Thankfully...

[Anonymous Coward]

Watchmen did well in this respect also, in my opinion. Origins were woven in to expand on characters that were already introduced and also to establish a historical context.

You also bring up another topic that I'm trying to figure out. Why does it seem like England has "Heritage" roles while the US seems to reboot every second? Does it come from the Shakespearean tradition? I mean roles like Queen Elizabeth, Hamlet, James Bond and Doctor Who have been played by a billion different people over the decades with a need for a rehashing of an origin.

Re:Thankfully...

[lennier]

James Bond never got an original story until 40 years after he was created, even then, it doesn't go into detail (2006 Casino Royale).

Um, not quite. Casino Royale was written in 1953 and was in fact the first Bond novel. The 2006 movie keeps remarkably close to the novel's plot, by Bond movie standards.

But you're right that CR isn't really an "origin" for the character. The original Bond's background is WW2 British Royal Navy, only vaguely alluded to in the books, but given Fleming's own very interesting WW2 activities which were still classified when he wrote the novels, a true age-appropriate Bond origin would likely involve running around Germany stealing Nazi technology.

And that would actually be a neat story. But the modern movie Bond is a creation of a different era.

Re:Thankfully...

[CrackedButter]

I have and I like that theory. But I'm also happy with x number of actors playing the same character and not feeling indifferent towards it.

Re:Thankfully...

[CrackedButter]

Maybe UK viewers are more accepting of having different actors playing the same characters? During Shakespeare's time they had men in female roles, probably stems from that? Or they are so historical it's ingrained in our culture (we know who they are) and we relish seeing famous actor x playing that figure.

Re:Thankfully...

[CrackedButter]

In movie terms he never got the origin story but that's even better then isn't it? Since they never made CR with Connery, we were denied the origin story until 5 years ago and nobody DIDN'T understand the character before CR. It was simple, he's a spy, he's on a mission and he loves the ladies. Spiderman is a young chap bitten by a Spider, I get it, I don't really need to see it happen.

Re:Thankfully...

[CrackedButter]

Oh btw, the theory can't really work unless we ignore certain movie elements like Bond getting married. The Roger Moore and Dalton movies reference the events in the Lazenby movie.

Bill And Ted 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying Hollywood can't think of original content?
What would ever make you think of that?

Arthur
Bill And Ted 3
Annie (3rd remake!)
Footloose (Did we really need this movie again?)
True Grit
The Three Musketeers THIS TIME IN 3D!
and much more!

Easy reason....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's profitable. You reboot with an alternate timeline /story line, and you can do new stories and the attached fan base will make you /your studio rich. Plus it is SO much riskier to come up with UNKNOWN and therefore POSSIBLY FINANCIALLY RUINOUS story lines. Sort of sounds like "recycled old is now thenew fashons" to me....

Of course, I don't remember Jack Sparrow in the Disneyland version of Pirates of the Caribbean, so it could be that the 'zutes do not have a clue about how to do story development over the career of a character nearly as well EITHER.

fanfic

[fermion]

Pretty much everything has gone to glorified fan fiction. Nothing wrong with that. It employs people, it makes money,

But that is not originality that makes long lasting art. That is the adaptation of originality to create something that is currently accesible to the masses. That is rewriting KJV into contemporary language and believing on has done something great. For a while yes, but we will alway back to the KJV.

It kind of reminds me of good tv and bad tv. Bad tv is where we have the same characters, all the time, with no growth. Good TV, like the stuff that Whedon does, has a base set of characters, but also a good background of characters that come and go. This is why MI-5 is good. The regulars tend to be in the background positions, while the primary characters are always recreated and there is no fear of having one go.

Why?

[Phoghat]

Den Of Geek wonders why film studios aren't looking a little harder for interesting stories to tell..."

I think there looking in all the wrong places. I have Starz, Cinemax, Showtime, Encore, TMC and HBO. I think I'm going to drop them all except Showtime and HBO because they sometimes have great ORIGINAL programming. I also find I watch IFC shows more and more, because they are ORIGINAL films. While HBO and Starz have a vested interest in GOOD shows because viewership depends on it, the IFC shows are original because so little constraint is placed on them. Note the use of the words "ORIGINAL" and "GOOD" in the above.

The only problem with Hollywood today is that they're trying to play it safe with stories that have an established fanbase (hence comic book stories up my arse. II don't know who green lit movies like "Inception", but he neweds a shit load of money piled on him to find more like it.

Because origin stories are limiting/boring

[npsimons]

I've watched a number of movies lately that *could* be construed as "origin stories", but they weren't - and they were that much better for it. Let's face it, most origin stories are retreads; we already know what the end result is going to be. Sure, sometimes limits can help creativity, or really good writers can make an incredible story, with twists, that still fits into canon. But most of the time good writing and creativity get thrown out the window in favor of staying in canon (just look at the Star Wars prequels).

I hate when similar movies out at the same time

[tekrat]

Example" "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" came out the same summer. Each studio heard the other was doing a "rock from outer space" movie, so, they had to do the same movie.

Then there was "Red Planet" and that other Mars movie (can't remember the title, but they were both out same summer and both sucked).

When Dreamworks heard that Pixar was doing "Bugs", they came out with "Ants" -- they aren't even copycat films, they are productions that are literally greenlighted because of the other guy's PRESS RELEASE, before shooting even starts!

In short, there isn't an ounce of creativity. Heck, TV isn't even any better if fact it can be worse. StarGate SG-1 and Star Trek Voyager used the same script around the same time as each other about the crew being brainwashed to be cheap labor for some other planet. I swear, it's like the scriptwriter comes up with a plot and then sells it four times to various people. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder had it right, you have to sell 250% of every production.

So, you know why everyone's doing "origin" stories? Because the other guy's doing origin stories! OMG We gotta do origin stories too!

Eventually, they'll all latch onto something else, and it'll be all at the same time. So next summer we'll have 3 movies about genetically enhanced athletes that are secret agents in their spare time....

Re:I hate when similar movies out at the same time

[lennier]

StarGate SG-1 and Star Trek Voyager used the same script around the same time as each other about the crew being brainwashed to be cheap labor for some other planet.

Farscape did that plot too. Did Firefly?

Christmas and Easter

[at10u8]

It is obvious that questions about this topic should be asked twice every year for the indefinite future in order that we can ponder the need for such.

Oh. Good. Lord.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Are We Suffering Origin Story Fatigue?"

If I just agree we are, will it help us pull out of this self-masturbatory nerdgasm and stop analyzing to death every little fucking thing that any of us ever might possibly have once liked?

/heh. 'pull out'. pun intended, i guess.

it's about direction

[v1]

when they run out of ideas on how to take a character/franchise forward, the only two options are a reboot or to take it backward. So this really comes as no surprise. Yes, they've ran out of material.

business not art

[Sarcileptic]

The movie studios have marketing data that shows a correlation between marketing success and profit (or loss, if Stan Lee is reading). Origin stories are easy: characters already well known and script already drafted. Movie studios actively reject smaller markets, like those with new creative intellectual ideas.

original stories or finite number of plots?

[k6mfw]

An article from TV Guide in the 1950s titled "Seven Ways to Plot a Western" (I have a hardcopy someplace from an English writing class back in 1970s), instructor gave copies of this article to students. Original author described all the scripts he wrote for TV and movie westerns basically had only seven plots, he tried to create an eighth but failed. Plots were (let me see if I can recall all of them):
1. Marshall Dillon story, sheriff facing outlaws, High Noon for example
2. Union Pacific story, involving railroads
3. King Ranch story, these involve ranches of immense size, of tycoons battling the laws of nature, the land
4. Indians story (author did write in 1950s this theme is changing from Indians being bad to simply defending their native territory being taken)
5. [forgot name of story] involving cow country heros and villians
6. Jesse James story, how upbringing made the person what they are. Author wrote you can never go wrong with a villian story and can always count on this plot being a good money maker at the box office.
7. [ I can't remember!]

Speaking of plots, what about space movies? It seems all involve laser beam battles or alien space monsters (exception 2001, Apollo 13, and very few others). So far we've been getting constant retreads from the 20th century, i.e. Star Wars and Star Trek.

Or maybe it's simply Hollywood has priced themselves out of the market (it costs money to hire all those lawyers going out sueing people) and as many have posted, "$50 million on special effects, $5,000 on writers." So they only stick with crime/law, medical, or reality shows (for the latter, they can save that $5000!).

Perhaps the problem is Copyright law?

[TemporalBeing]

They've pushed so hard to make Copyright law so strong in order to enforce their monopolies forever on their own content that they've excluded themselves from being able to get a hold of new content at reasonable prices in reasonable time frames, thus inhibiting their ability to make new works. Ironic, no?

Re:Perhaps the problem is Copyright law?

[blair1q]

As a human being with a mind and a means to communicate its thoughts, you can always make new content. That's the point of copyright law. To make you creative, instead of letting you just steal someone else's work.

Re:Perhaps the problem is Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many of Disney's great Masterpieces stole from old faerie tales? How many of Shakespeare's works ripped off other playwrights? Art has a long beautiful history of stealing other people's work and making it your own. Today's over exuberant Copyright laws are killing that.

Re:Perhaps the problem is Copyright law?

[blair1q]

They didn't do that until the copyrights were up, long after the author died.

And then they slapped an effectively eternal copyright on the results (just wait until Mickey comes up for renewal and the money pours out of Glendale and into Washington; it'll be life^2...).

But feel free to steal the same fairy tales and make your own masterpieces.

That's what copyright is for.

Re:Perhaps the problem is Copyright law?

[lennier]

As a human being with a mind and a means to communicate its thoughts, you can always make new content.

Not if you can't reuse any previous elements used by others. That would be like writing a novel without ever repeating the same letter twice.

Re:Perhaps the problem is Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's my point. Disney benefited hugely from the public domain, but now refuse to give back. EVER. Sure we can always go back to the same sources they used, but imagine what we could do if we could stand on their shoulders, like generations have done before.

Re:Perhaps the problem is Copyright law?

[TemporalBeing]

As a human being with a mind and a means to communicate its thoughts, you can always make new content. That's the point of copyright law. To make you creative, instead of letting you just steal someone else's work.

As the AC's have pointed out, that may be the intent of Copyright Law, but the massive media companies - Sony, Disney, RIAA, MPAA, etc - have all subverted it to protect their monopolies from ever going into the public domain. They actively work to extend copyright terms to prevent people from using things that they created nearly 100 years ago. Mickey Mouse first debuted in the 1920's - but Disney will have to be dissolved as a company before they'll let Mickey or any of their other characters enter the public domain.

The irony is, the same rules apply to them. So it also limits what materials they can use to create new materials without breaking Copyright Law. Not that that has stopped them mind you - they (Disney at least) have actively stolen materials and modified "just enough" to get around Copyright Law when licensing negotiations have broken down in their opinion.

Valhalla Rising

[Anonymous Coward]

Strong Characters, little dialog, utter refutation of modern religion. And chances are you haven't heard of it.

Making of....

[tnk1]

I love when they have the Making of... specials for origin story movies. It's like a double dose of origin!

Re:Making of....

[lennier]

I love when they have the Making of... specials for origin story movies. It's like a double dose of origin!

"Mild-mannered scriptwriter Stanley Sluggins, struggling with a yet another failed Spider-Man screenplay, is one day scalded by a radioactive moccacino. Inspiration courses through his veins and he becomes... Reboot Man!"

Re:Oh. Good. Lord.

[blair1q]

Why do you feel the need to say "self" when saying "masturbatory"?

Was it something that happened to you when your parents were being murdered by robbers when you were a child?

Or is it an isotope in the radioactive spider's venom that causes you to emphasize the obvious?

Marketing, Branding, and Translating

[catdevnull]

The problem with Hollywood has several layers that contribute to the origin story fatigue issue:

1) Marketing
"Give me something I can sell" is the mantra of the salesman. Hollywood executives are in it for the money. Period. They don't give a flying fuck about the integrity of the story, character development, story arc, catharsis, or any of that artistic stuff that makes a good movie good. They think they can pay the rainmakers to make it rain craft be damned. If their marketing firms give them research data that says "teenaged vampires and werewolves is the sweet spot," they will make those movies. They are looking for projects that fit market analysis. When the average feature film marketing budget is $50M, your movie better be a rainmaker by their voodoo or it's not getting a green light for development much less going into production.

2) Branding
Because "the brand" is ever so important in our increasingly consumer-conscious pop culture, teenaged boys between 13 and 25 are the target audience for a "Brand" like Spiderman or any other comic book coming to the big screen. They will milk that cow dry and grind the meat for sequel burgers.

Here's where your fatigue starts to set in.

3) Lost in Translation
Production companies have become mills that hire production teams to crank out scripts for material we've already seen. (franchise fatigue).
The problem with comic books becoming movies is that the screenplay genre often generates a completely different storytelling form from the original work. Comics and graphic novels have a very unique and staccato language of storytelling that is negated by the transition to live action. The art of the comic or graphic novel is the craft of telling the story without telling you too much. This economy of words and pictures leaves much to the imagination--an abstract economy where the reader experiences the story in a world co-created between his imagination and the artist's craft. When you jump to to big screen, the viewers' intimacy of the details is hijacked by the director and the viewer is no longer an active participant. For this reason, I think adaptations of comic, graphics novels, and even regular novels will always disappoint those familiar with the prior art.

That said, producers, writers, and directors think that they can do better a better job than our imaginations so they keep trying to find formulas, remakes, reboots, and new origin stories to keep us interested when, really, it's already a losing battle for the reasons I posit.

This isn't to say that there are no good comic book movies--but most will agree that there are, in fact, very few in that category.

Audiences keep paying money to see movies they usually dont' like. We're enabling their behavior. Well, the 13-25 yr old males are anyways.

fatigue you say?

[slick7]

When I see this story at the movies or on TV, then there will be cause for discussion.

Interesting stories are easy to find.

[Anonymous Coward]

Den Of Geek wonders why film studios aren't looking a little harder for interesting stories to tell..

It isn't that interesting stories are harder to find, they're harder to tell. There are so many interesting real-life stories (dramatized or not) to tell, it is ridiculous. You can literally pick them out of the air (or headlines, or history books, etc). The problem is telling them in a timely and cinematic fashion.

The best "movies" I've seen recently are The Parking Lot Movie.(74 minutes, $?), Carlos (mini-series, 330 minutes, $18mil. budget), Mesrine (2-parts, 246 minutes, $45mil. budget). These are all interesting and entertaining in their own way, only one of them (The Parking Lot Movie) tells it in the classic timely cinematic sense and its main character is something as simple as a piece of pavement. The story of this piece of pavement is deep enough to be interesting but the scope small enough to be told within a short period of time. The other two are based on single characters (a terrorist and a gangster, respectively) and, as such, run much longer being that the subject matter is more wide-spread, and just as deep if not deeper.

Take, for instance, The Revolution. There is a HUGE story, one which you couldn't possibly tell do in 90-120minutes and do it any justice. Considering the characters involved, each with their own (at times very deep) backgrounds/stories, the political and social aspects, let alone the war itself and the aftermath; you simply could not tell it in a movie format. You couldn't even do it in 330minutes. It would take you literally tens to hundreds of hours running time to fully flesh out this story on-screen.

This is the real reason we get these same tired (or at least simple) stories being told. They all begin, middle and end in a timely fashion. They're (for the most part) simple. They are comic books as compared to books. There is also the problem of cost/profitablity. How does one tell great stories in great fashion yet keep them the same price or actually less (for the viewer)?

Personally, I would love to see great stories told in great fashion. I would love to see more epic movies/miniseries/cinematic experiences. There are problems though. You couldn't sit in a movie theater for five and a half hours, let alone ten hours. The question is how can the movie industry tell these stories in a fulfilling and quality fashion and still be profitable. At the same time, I happen to think that this really is the future of the movie industry. As the streaming format becomes more widespread, and competition arises, we could see a transition to streaming these to your home, rather than showing them in theaters (or on television). You will be much more willing to watch a five-hour, or even 9-hour tale, (in multiple parts) at home, than sitting in a movie theater for the length of a work day. There will still be a place for your 90-120minute story. Witness "Fair Game" (108mins), which is a well-done, classic hollywood type story. If it were not so well known a tale you would think it was made up by hollywood writers. It focused on a comparatively narrow aspect of the overarching story and is well encapsulated (kind of a mini-story within the overall story) and it works well for the "big screen" as it is currently comprised.

Duh, Winning!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, Hollywood wants to make as much money as possible and who goes to the movies? Preteens, tweens, teens and those under 30. So while it may seem to those over 30 that Hollywood is regurgitation old screenplays, for the main marketing target these movies and plot lines are brand new and interesting. Why not regurgitate that which was already proven successful? Duh, Winning!

You want unique productions? Fuhget traditional Hollywood. The only huge players who even attempt originality are the Weinsteins and the BBC and the Weinsteins have proven they're willing to gamble as they are really good at eventually picking a huge winner.

Cloverfield

[Iamthecheese]

Cloverfield was the stinkiest pile of tripe and the most obnoxious waste of my time since two girls once cup. The story was preposterous, the plot nonexistent, the special effects worthless, and the acting atrocious. I would have been more entertained by an hour and a half of grandma's vacation and the screenwriting would have been three times as good. Only the overwhelming sense of nausea kept me in my seat until the glorious minute it was over.

Re:Cloverfield

[NoSleepDemon]

You're just angry because it made you pukey wukey.

Re:Cloverfield

[Walt Dismal]

Okay, those were the good parts. Now tell us the bad parts.

It's worked for over 10,000 years.

[sdguero]

Why would it stop working now? There are always going to be new generations inspired and transfixed by origin stories, and there will always be story tellers that are more than willing to get paid to do their thing.

Captain America

[DarthVain]

Actually has a cool origin story however, I am looking forward to the movie.

The obvious remedy is Ending Stories...

[Anonymous Coward]

How does your favorite hero die?

As an American....

[helios17]

I grudgingly agree. The ratings for Jersey Shore and Dancing with the Stars pretty much bears out your point. Any quality TV show with anything akin to a plot device usually dies within the first season. Wrestling however seems to have found a permanent home on our airwaves.

No...

[cyberfin]

...only if you do not follow the path of origin. Hallowed are the Ori.