What’s the deal with sequels? It’s something concerning creative bankruptcy when, looking at the American 2007 summer movie season, all of the big blockbusters are continuations of stories on celluloid. The big movies are the following: The Hills Have Eyes 2, Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean (3): At World’s End, Shrek The Third, Hostel 2, Harry Potter (5) and the Order of the Phoenix, Fantastic Four (2): Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Bourne Ultimatum (3), Die Hard 4.0 and so on. And when they’re not sequels, they are either remakes or re-imaginations of movies and shows that were already done, like the aforementioned “Hills Have Eyes” series, “The Hitcher,” “Disturbia,” “The Transformers,” “The Departed” and the list goes on and on. This has been going on since as far back at the early 2000’s, with the biggest offender (that I remember) being the Matrix sequels. When the first sequel, “The Matrix Reloaded,” was announced in 2002, it kick-started several things: back-to-back sequels, trilogies that don’t live up to the hype and are otherwise unnecessary, and ballooning budget.

Producing movies solely to make money is bleeding the industry dry… just like the pirates in Disney’s trilogy of films. Furthermore, seeing it from a totally analytical standpoint, making 2 sequels back to back in order to save money so that revenues can be higher at the time of their inevitably enormous opening weekends using a story where its characters are pirates, the most vile, deceptive and cutthroat men and women of the last 500 years, is something that’s very funny to me. The trilogy makes the audience root for the bad guys, because the bad guys are seen on a positive, heroic light. Brilliant. It’s like in “The Matrix,” whose heroes are basically terrorists. Now the characters of Neo and Jack Sparrow, each one as much of a pirate as the other, are now considered movie icons.

My dad always says that Hollywood doesn’t have any imagination and now I’m beginning to agree with him, but not just that; the movie-going public eats this stuff up. The only reason why there were 4 Scary Movie installments is because people actually went to see them. It’s all about the numbers: The Wayans Brothers still make movies because the public keeps paying to watch their stinking piles, no matter how vacuous they are. In contrast, original movies don’t make it out as well during their theatrical runs because they’re not as recognizable as, say, green CG ogres. It’s criminal.

I really like Asian cinema. I downright love it because I am never disappointed in the originality they bring to the table. I like the genre so much that I have my friends watch titles from my movie stash as much as I can, most of the time with a pre-conceived hope that maybe, just maybe, they will like original stuff as well. As a result though, I’m known as “the guy that has all the weird movies” in a very condescending tone. Recently I found the chance to ponder on that a little bit and have come to several conclusions as to why I’m shunned for doing what I believe is my duty as a movie lover to share exceptional flicks with people I care about and they might or might not reflect the way the movie-going public approaches movies with original themes.

For starters, language is a big factor that makes or breaks a movie for most people. Tony Jaa is incredible, and “Ong Bak” is an honest-to-goodness romp of a movie that has a thin 80’s-type plot to make way for Jaa’s amazing skills. My friends thought that movie was “weird.” The next movie he made, “Tom Yum Goong,” was considered even weirder and dismissible. Stephen Chow, a revered movie god in Hong Kong, has had his 2 latest movies released on our shores: “Shaolin Soccer” and “Kung Fu Hustle.” They’re funny flicks, but one of his best movies is, in my opinion, “God of Cookery.” Since these guys saw the American-released flicks I figured they’d dig GOC even more, but instead it was labeled as “weird” as well… as if “Shaolin Soccer” and “Kung Fu Hustle” weren’t weird themselves. The main difference is that they saw the latter movies in their dubbed versions, while I have GOC in its original language with subtitles. That’s the only difference, but it seems to be a commanding one.

Another factor that begs to be noted is the themes and outcomes of these stories. Some of these flicks (as in a lot of them) sometimes deal with hard, heavy subject matter and at times the exposition itself begs the viewer to sit and pay total attention for fear of losing the thread of the story. I’m not saying American movies do not play with form and heavy themes, but to prove my point I will jot down a list of movies that do exactly that:

1. The Fountain
2. Donnie Darko
3. Memento
4. Requiem For a Dream
5. OldBoy

Those five movies (with the exception of OldBoy, since it was sent out in limited release to movie screens in the big US cities and then to DVD), all play with storytelling methods and indirectly make the viewer pay attention to what they’re watching beyond the sex, violence and foul language. They were also box office flops that have found their audience on DVD. Who would’ve thunk it? The thematic quality (and popularity) of American movies seems to be directly proportional to how much the filmmakers want their target demographic to think. That is why flicks like the Shrek sequels and shows like Heroes rule over thematically superior entertainment like “Brick” or “Battlestar Galactica.” I suppose that the root of this is inherent to the very definition of entertainment and the skewered aesthetic produced by the mass consumer. The argument that some say when debates break out on stuff like the quality of shows like “Heroes” and shows like “Lost” is that they are simply stuff to pass the time with, and people shouldn’t search the be-all, end-all nirvana of entertainment in things like serials on the idiot box. But then again, entertainment is a very subjective thing, and what entertains me might not entertain others. I think “Super Troopers” is funny as hell, but there are people out there that don’t share my opinion. Thing is that whether one says a piece of entertainment sucks or rules, those thoughts come from a subjective point of view that is neither right or wrong. It’s all a matter of opinion, really.

It’s when a big group of people agree with their sentiments on a particular piece of entertainment that it somehow becomes the established way of thinking. Take “Star Wars,” for example. I didn’t particularly like the prequel trilogy as much as I did the original, But I’m sure that by saying that I actually enjoyed Episode III and can honestly say it’s one of the ones I like the most in the entire saga, I’m definitely getting a few angry emails. The problem with this type of mentality is that many people who aren’t necessarily in the loop pick up the zeitgeist on a particular subject and make it their own without really exploring what they themselves feel about it or even why the consensus has reached said verdict. And since the public is more about “White Chicks” and “Scary Movie” sequels than they are “Shaun of the Dead,” this is why we get so many “part 2”’s instead of truly original stuff. Hell, when the public wants Jet Li in more movies similar to “Cradle 2 the Grave” than they do “Danny the Dog,” we have a real problem.

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