I mean, who doesn't occasionally want to be a giant dragon that gets to sleep all day or burn things it doesn't like? ...Oh wait, he meant the sickening greed.
Copyright lengths are out of control. If most of these properties had entered the public domain decades ago, we could have had dozens of interpretations of them from a variety of creators, just like the Arthurian legends, Greek mythology, the Three Musketeers, Journey to the West, etc. Maybe not all of them would be good but we'd get something unique and interesting once in a while. And on the flip side publishers and studios would have more incentive to develop new stories, characters, and worlds, or adapt newer books, comics, and games. Maintain a healthy creative ecosystem for entertainment. Instead we have these megacorporations sitting on these megabrands for almost a century or more, effectively rent-seeking the mass culture.
The public domain also encourages the 'rip off, don't remake' mentality. If you want to profit off something that's like a thing that's in the public domain, you make amalgamations of public domain properties, essentially what Star Wars and Lord of The Rings already are. It will lead to flops, but that's also how it used to work. Die Hard and Terminator were surprise hits, studios have to be willing to throw things at the wall in the first place if they're going to get anything at all to stick
@@RandomnessStudiozI'd go 25-35. This way the copyright holder gets to profit of the 20 year nostalgia wave but also people would be able to expand upon works that have been created during their lifetime.
This goes really well with what I was going to say, because I don't think the problem is inherently in "franchisation", but rather in the approach and level of respect that is given to them. The appeal (from the viewer perspective) is having new stories in a world that you already know/understand. Therefor you must have an understanding & respect of the pre-existing canon. A lot of people (most of Hollywood included it seems) think of writing for a pre-existing character/world as "easier", but I would argue that it is harder; because on top of having to keep track of what has come before you (or at least having an understanding of "the heart" of the character(s)/world, if you're doing a re-imagining), you also have to write a good story that serves some sort of "point" that the audience will believe as justification for it's existence. It's a very similar problem that adaptations had back in the day, when they would just slap the name of a book/comic/etc onto any old screenplay just for the name recognition. Or also how a lot of direct to vhs/dvd sequels were as well. and of course, as always with these kinds of arguments, in an ideal world that had a goal other than "make the most money" we would have both new stories that stand on their own and stories that build off of each other to make a bigger world.
Halway through this, up pops an ad, the script of which read; "Ah Age of Empires, the game of my childhood. Its back, Age of Empires Mobile is here" With no appreciation of irony. So you know, not just a Hollywood problem.
They already tried. Several scripts were tried and Disney attempted to buy the rights to the stories and characters, in perpetuity, which prompted two middle fingers from Sir Terry.
An interesting factor for Middle Earth specifically is that there are still stories to be told and source material to plunder. For better or worse, the most substantial remaining material is locked away. Studios are now picking at the edges of the books they do have the rights to, which makes this endeavour all the more desperate.
Say what you will about any of the individual projects, I think the most devaluing thing Disney has done to Star Wars is the sheer onslaught of it. That cow was marched right into the milking machine.
Yeah tbh I can't believe they'd try to do more with Rey after Rise of Skywalker. People gave The Last Jedi shit but people only even talked about it so much because there was actually some good in that, some great scenes, some directorial intent. No one talks about Rise of Skywalker except to quote its worst line because there's nothing to say. It's not a trash fire, it's a pile of biohazard waste. Though yeah, its biggest sin is probably just the onslaught of crap. I feel like the Mandalorian was kind of a poison pill in that it was a fun little spinoff that got *really* popular and convinced them they should just shotgun out star wars crap until people got sick of it. Which... they have.
A fundamental truth of the world is that integrity alone does not earn you money. Talent earns you money and talent minus integrity earns you even more. But talent plus integrity earns you the love of the fans. If all you love or need is money, then integrity is an easy sacrifice.
The key to this equation of course being that you need to have talent. Unfortunately most Hollywood types seem to have left their talent at home if they had any to begin with. So that leaves you with integrity. So when you toss that you have nothing except a pissed off fanbase who don't want to give you money anymore for the expensive big name franchise you purchased.
Funny that James Bond(bodil) joke is in here. The fact that THAT franchise’s masters seems to be more concerned about maintaining prestige compared to everyone else around them is fascinating.
It helps that it's basically a 50-year-old family business. That doesn't mean the Broccolis don't make mistakes--far from it. But it means they often work from motives other than just profit.
It's kind of like having a beautifully manicured lawn; you can only retread that ground so many times before the view is stale and the grass is dead, no matter how much people marveled the first time seeing it.
I wanted to like that show. I found the first season passable, but by the third episode of the second season, I found I just didn’t care about a single character. As for content soup, yeah. I’ve watched every live action Star Wars movie and TV show and most of it is mediocre at best. What’s annoying is it’s still capable of making some excellent entertainment (Andor, for instance) when somebody with an actual vision (in this case, Tony Gilroy) makes the decisions. But otherwise, I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m not enjoying something and letting it go rather than worrying about FOMO. Most recently, it was the new Pixies album. They’re my favorite band, but their best years are long behind them and I accepted that I’m just not into the new one. I’m not going to waste my time and money on the lackluster stuff when there’s still an archive of much better material to enjoy. If they somehow improve again, I’ll be there.
Stories should end, but it's audiences that keep them going long after they should have stopped. I've watched a grand total of zero pieces of LotR media outside of the trilogy. It's nice to not have to see beloved characters run into the ground by hacks chasing a buck, or well-intentioned creatives who don't know when to stop. I invite everyone to do the same.
Because instead of marketing original works better or maintaining their star system of actors and directors whose reputations might encourage skeptical audiences to take a chance on something they'd otherwise pass on, they're all following the Disney model of dropping hints about established franchises and letting fandom speculation dominate the algorithms, giving them effectively free marketing. Which definitely worked for a while. But now, even leaving aside the obvious reactionary culture war tourists, the fandom chatter online is far more obsessed with minutia and fidelity to the lore that only they care about. And maybe that's fine for a comic that sells tens of thousands of copies, but when you're making a film or TV series for $150+ million dollars, you need to appeal to a lot of people who could not care less about any of that.
I could only get through a couple episodes of "The Rings of Power." Same with "Star Trek: Picard." I'm starting to suspect that any IP licensed by Amazon is going to be hot garbage.
LotR needs to take a more “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” approach to their other projects. Have characters that showed up for a scene or two in the original trilogy, and give them a completely unrelated story. These characters have a whole separate life unrelated to Rings of Sauron. They just happened to, for example, be in the Prancing Pony the night when a group of weirdos stabbed some pillows. And then these characters go about their lives, oblivious to Frodos struggle. Of course, it would still need to be a good story, with a good script, and good actors, good direction, etc. But trying to make everything about the Rings will invite comparison to the original, better story about the rings.
I’ve been hearing Darren describe the “Bombadil, Tom Bombadil” scene on a couple of podcasts and my impression was that it was absolutely terrible and cringeworthy. Now, seeing the actual footage, I realize that I was way off. Even in my worst estimates I wasn’t even close to imagine its terribleness.
As usual we have scumbag lawyers to blame - those who took corporations' money and fought tooth and nail to extend the copyright length from 2 years to decades. They too viewed Smaug as an aspirational figure and the entirety of the human race suffered for it.
I mean, it's not just Hollywood. Marvel and DC still use a lot of their original characters - just in various alternate universes, iterations, adaptations, reboots... The idea of having franchises end and create new ones is something you find more in eastern media with Anime and Manga. But even they are not immune to reboots from time to time.
I genuinely worry across the board what we expect this youngest generation to attach to as their own identity. Growing up I didnt hook on to ninja turtles, dc or marvel comics, star wars, planet of the apes. They were the things my uncles or parents liked. I had power rangers, pokemon, disney Renaissance and all of those new films mentioned in 2001. Now with everything being remade or crossed over I cant think of a new franchise that isnt drenched in other crossovers that wouldnt put off a younger me.
At the same time we get shows like The Penguin or Andor that take the world of a franchise and tell creative stories within it. The key is what story the writers want to tell and how well that meshes with the established lore.
Hollywood studios don't want to make film or television, they want to make content. But, it's a handshake agreement with the audience. If Star Wars spinoff number 19 it's another one didn't gross a billion dollars, after a while they'd stop and we'd get more new interesting stories. Can't have one without the other. We get sequels, prequels, live action adaptations, sidequels, animated versions, alternative universes, metaverses, etc. because they, to some extent, require minimal effort and pay off. So people who are exhausted by this are kind of held hostage by everyone else who thinks we need another round of Marvel movies and TV shows or Jurassic Park Infinity.
"Bad sequels and spin offs don't diminish the original work in any meaningful way." I think it depends. These stories don't exist in a vacuum once new stories are created, they're subject to redefinition in the context of other stories unless the viewer can compartmentalize themselves back to the world where the spin offs and sequels didn't exist. Just like how critics and reviewers reflect on a discourse prior to the discussion of an analysis of a piece of media, viewers are drawn to connect with a story within the context of its interconnected stories. I would suggest creators know this when they decide to get involved in the creation of stories they'd otherwise like to remain self contained (like Wachowski), to minimise the harm (or maximise the benefit) a new story brings in connecting to an old one.
I left the series after the trilogy its what i wanted out of the franchise. It wasnt perfect but then again how do you make a perfect adaptation that appeals to all fans. It was simply adequat in my eyes. So i agree not everything needs to be milked dry. I also recommend anyone not familiar with Ralph Bakshis interpretation of the books to give it a look. It is a curiosity if nothing else. Not necessarily good but i cant deny that Bakshi didnt have ambition.
Even Peter Jackson didn't want to make three movies for The Hobbit. They *claimed* at the time it was because they just had SO MUCH GREAT MATERIAL that two movies was not enough, but I'm pretty sure he admitted later on that it was because they felt they DESPERATELY needed more time to plan out the climax, and that adding more scenes to the parts of the story they had already filmed to make it into three movies rather than two was easier than having to plot out and film the entire Battle of the Five Armies in a few months. ...I mean considering that even in the finished product the Battle of the Five Armies was a mess I can very much buy that explanation. The extended cut helped somewhat, but mostly just in the sense that... at least the extended cut felt *finished,* whereas the theatrical cut flat-out forgot to resolve its plot and had a central action set piece that was horrendously disjointed and overly cheesy. It was still overly cheesy in the extended cut, but at least scenes felt like they flowed together much better.
We need a re-edited cut of the hobbit. I really feel that it could be cut down into one long, solid movie that would feel far more aligned with the LotR trilogy.
@@Queldonus Fan edits exist, but they are naturally somewhat tied down by the existing material, like, say, Smaug randomly being covered in molten gold when he breaks out of the mountain. At least one edit tried to paint that out but it still was like, he's clearly covered in *something* that he shakes off as he flies into the sky.
I might be fine with billionaires if they had to keep all their wealth in some giant hoard of gold and jewels and anyone that can successfully steal part of their vault gets to keep it.
I would argue that low quality content pumped out to wring an IP of cash actually DOES diminish the originals. I haven't seen any Nightmare on Elm Street films because there's so much of it, I don't know which one's are crap, and I have enough on my watchlist to not bother doing the leg work. That will be the future for all these IPs. I stopped watching Star Wars and Marvel stuff years ago, because I just can't keep up with all the homework you have to do, watching endless spin off series' etc. Imagine trying to come in as a newbie.
I agree and disagree. If you are a newcomer to any of these old, tired, drawn-out franchises, then yes, you are screwed. But, if you were there in the first place, i.e., above the age of 40 and knew Star Trek, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, LOTR, etc. when they first came out, then you already know what is good and you can always come back to them whenever you like. Moreover, if a newcomer has an interest but doesn't know where to start, you can give them valuable guidance. I, for one, am very happy to be over the age of 40 and take great comfort in my old, original stories; they were there for me as a kid and they will always be there for me as an adult.
@thereadersvoice yeah, this is probably the most balanced take, it's just a shame that from now on, newcomers are going to be faced with this, isn't it.
The solution for me is quite simple. I don’t watch the endless franchises anymore. I hang onto my friends that I can play D&D and other tabletop role-playing games with, and we write our own stories. I’m not claiming what we make is as good as Lord of the rings. It never will be. But it’s our story, and it has our heart and passion in it. And that makes it better than most of the soulless mass produced things that Hollywood is releasing right now.
Just read instead. Authors are generally passion over greed which is why literature has much better stories to offer and (generally) don't go on forever just because it makes a quick buck.
It wasn't just Hollywood that was sucked up in the combination of franchise seeking and LOTR. Games Workshop - wargame creators of Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy - used to have a great deal in their shops where you could earn points with each purchase. Yet once they got the license to make a LOTR tabletop wargame, this was shoveled out of the door because of said license. And the reputation of the LOTR game is mixed, since it's far more difficult to build an army entirely your own when confined within a clearly defined story.
Talking about long-running franchise fatigue is always a weird topic for me considering I love the Godzilla films. But I think Toho deserves credit for constantly reinventing the character and allowing directors to make their own versions of him, rather than maintaining one continuity to build endless prequels, spin-offs and more to.
Ooo! Mother's Basement has an excellent video dissecting this subject from a cultural standpoint of specifically U.S./Hollywood unwillingness (but also the wider general audience) to let go of favorite characters/franchises called "Let Goku Die." It's REALLY good, y'all should go watch it next if you haven't seen it yet.
Keaton saying "Lets get nuts" in Flash and you can see his soul unalive in his eyes. That line was og improv in '89. And to say it in the movie is just pure nostalgia bait. Pointless ref for the nerds & fangirls (like me).
I used to say that The Lord of the Rings was my Star Wars, since these where the movies that defined my childhood (and I didn't watch Star Wars until I was an adult). Looking at the current state of things, The Lord of the Rings has become more like Star Wars than I could ever imagine.
do you know that chapter of the old Powerpuff girls? when an old companion of the profesor stoles the chemical X to make "knock-off" superheroines each time charging more money for the malform girls and each generation being worst I am waiting for the big industries to have the same ending of that episode
Youll always have my attention with videos on the culture oroboros. Ive talked a lot on questioning if later generations have an culture of their own. My friend is beyond excited that he can connect with his kids because they love the stuff he grew up with. Lego, pokemon, star waes. Something that crossed my mind is maybe theres some sort of inevitable culture terminus. We're culturally older than we've ever been, theres more ability for things to persist than ever before. Maybe we're living through an plateau moment that we've never been able to see before but this is just how things go. But on the other hand, this might less be a terminal culture point and more end stage capitalism as cultural monopolies are financially driven to continually rely on safe and guaranteed or proven streams. I see this with other nerd hobbies like collectibles as the timeline went their creation for a generation, that generation grew up, the product aging with them, and the companies increase focus on appeasing that audience and extracting value. Looking at you magic the gathering. But marvel and comics went through a similiar moment before the MCU as they became increasingly focused on an aging demographic and the MCU refreshed the audience. I think. Debatable if that was a change or a continuation. Star Wars is struggling with that identity now
I'm curious how the James Bond Franchise will go with this moving forward. No Time to die really felt like the franchise was still trying to carve it's own path while still being more smart with it's past references than even Spectre. On the other hand, Sam Mendes (Director of Skyfall and Spectre) had recently said that the Bond Studio want directors who can be controlled which feels like they want more of the same. Fingers crossed they don't plan on remakes and keep to developing new stories.
Honestly? Gaming is in the exact same pickle, just speedran. Everyones so laser focused on the old, that no one wants to make anything new. Halo is getting a sequel, or is it a remake, Gears is getting a prequel, Borderlands keeps chugging long after interest has died, there will never be a FINAL Fantasy, etcetera. Everyone is so focused on the golden eggs that they dont notice the goose is too old to lay them.
The problem lies with the creators. For movies, TV and gaming, (excluding indies) they are made by large corporations who value safe profits over passion. Safe profits means doing something that has worked in the past because its therefore likely to work again. Creative works made by a single person or a small group of people with a cohesive vision will always produce the best results because they actually give a shit about what they're making.
It feels like the solution might be something the games industry has started to glom onto: the "spiritual successor". Where the original "authors" do a technically unrelated but similar work that builds on what they learned from their original hit.
Well, quite: don't sell your IP to a giant, shameless corporation, and you can avoid all that. People like to blame Disney, but they only got their hands on Star Wars because Lucas sold them the rights to it. He didn't need to, but he did it anyway.
@@peterclarke7240 The tradition of pumping out tons of VERY varying quality Star Wars products was alive and well for years before Disney got the license. They only turned it up.
I think a lot of cashing in on LotR is the corporation that owns the right to the works (which AFAIK is not Tolkien's family) wants to cash in as much as they can before the copyright expires in like 20 years. Ring out every drop of money they can, no matter the quality or legacy.
based on 30 seconds of research, lotr seems to be entering the public domain in 2044, which isn't that far away, though it does incentivize the current rights holders to aggressively license that shit while they still have it
Straight Fan Service. Predators and Alien: Covenant were both "Remember all the great set piece scenes you loved in those first two movies you really liked? Well here they are again, nearly unchanged but for cast."
It's not even that other movies aren't being made, it's just that they aren't being given the opportunity. Marketing and theatre screens are costly and limited. The triple-A movie industry is the same as the triple-A game industry, where production has gotten so expensive that there is no room for a middle class anymore. You need to go out and look for interesting new media on your own, because advertising will only show you what the executives think you want to see.
I may be missing something here, but I think the point about the public domain brings it back to the real solution. If being public domain puts it in the hands of people with artistic integrity who want to make a good work, that brings it back to the actual solution: creative integrity. So why do we have a system where creative integrity isn't valued/seen as important?
Rewatch the matrix. Near the beginning Morpheus explains how civilization peaked in the late 90s. 2000 was the end of history. We are just experiencing its echo.
I used to be a big star wars fan. used to. Disney has ruined my interest into that IP, completely, utterly and likely irreversibly. How has it done that? By spamming me with it and making a lot of that spam not worth watching.
I would definitely sign up for a LotR marathon. I had to settle for the films being shown on back to back to back days. In a sold out theater that had been upsized from what it had been originally scheduled to play in. And they added a second run of the trilogy the following weekend.
It's definitely gonna take some time before the public domain can reclaim these works. Between trademark law and not wanting to face the ire of companies like Disney, I imagine it'll be years after entering the public domain that any large production will take a chance on them. Like Tolkien's works are already public domain in New Zealand, but there's hardly any talk about that yet.
"Every follow-up has to be a prequel". I disagree - so much lore is available in franchises such as LOTR that there never needs to be mention of Sauron, the Ring, Gondor, Hobbits, or dragons. Sequels could include the demise of Dwarves, the power vacuum left by the elves and the Easterlings. Prequels could cover the demise of the Dúnedain, Númenor, or the Blue Wizards. If you wanted to expand on known characters, Saruman has a rich untapped history, Arathorn was clearly in an unstable position before Aragorn was sent to Rivendell, Elrond obviously has past mistrusts with mortals... there's so much. But the Rings of Power cuts too close to already an well ended idea.
The problem is not an oversaturation, but a lack of care. People who want to make a name for themselves see a popular IP and want to do their spin on it, which changes it from why is was popular in the first place. The Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy is an example of people who loved and respected the source materiel and the author. Some book fans don't like all the changes from Tolkien's work, but the heart and soul shows up on film. Contrasted with the Rings of Power where the writers and showrunner's openly admit they don't know the source material. They see the popular thing and want to do their take on it; missing the point completely and putting more effort into aping the Jackson movie's than respecting the original source. If they truly loved the professor's work, they'd be handlining their massive money sink with a lot more care. We saw this with Star Wars and Star Trek, people with a passing cursory knowledge at best and to be popular, so they take popular thing and produce a much worse version because they don't understand why the IP was popular.
The fix (if you can call it that) is to watch new movies that take on new directions, even if they are flawed, and to avoid franchises, even if people say that they are good. There will always be a lazy crowd that flocks to known franchises anyway, but the will of the audience has bombed franchise and spin-off films before. If we are persistent, maybe the studios will eventually learn; they do only ever listen to money.
Studios spending ungodly amounts of cash on projects means they want them to succeed - and what do they think people like? More of the same thing they already know. Why risk millions on an unknown IP when LOTR fans will watch a series set in the world.
As long as someone with money thinks they can use an ip to make more money, they will make more content for it. The only way it stops is if the franchise has been run into the ground so hard that nobody thinks they can make money from it anymore. The silver lining is they need to make some good shit to even get to that point, so at least we get that.
I just wish the LOTR films could get a real restoration and release because the 4k versions we have are obviously just poorly upscaled version of the BluRay.
Despite there way to bring in the doe franchises do have limits in the end. Though James Bond may be the exception to this but at least it is an argument for original stuff. Nice video Daren
There is something you can do: stop watching the milked-out franchises. And by and large, that's what people do. The Sequel trilogy of Star Wars had severe diminishing returns, The Marvels was one of the biggest flops in movie history, The Flash was an complete embarrassment no matter how you look at it, and yes, even Rings of Power seems to be on the back foot. Amazon does have it a little bit easier hiding the fact that the show is not really hitting a chord with the general audience because streaming numbers are kept quiet, but they are having to square the circle of the show not bringing in the kind of viewership a show that expensive absolutely needs to sustain it.
Coulda gone with "going to leave audiences Sour On..." Great vid as always. It's crazy that no one sees the problem for themselves in 10-20 years. Kids don't go to Disneyland anymore because there's almost no Disney movies to grow up on. It's eating your foot for food when you need to go hunting later.
"Bad sequels and spin-offs don't really diminish the original work in any meaningful way" - I agree, however you then argue that "these gems do get drowned in a sea of endless content soup" - this I don't agree with and to me these statements contradict each other, if the gems can't get diminished in a meaningful way, then they can't drown in the content soup either.
Personally, I'd even disagree that "Bad sequels and spin-offs don't really diminish the original work in any meaningful way." They don't diminish the *achievement* of the original on an abstract level, but if an IP has been polluted by an ocean of slop, I personally feel less inclined to watch even the originals that made the series great. That's the thing about fandom--it's deeply personal and emotional, and fans can feel betrayed by an IP that is endlessly exploited for profit.
The problem with these "prequels" for LotR is that they weren't prequels, LotR was a sequel and the stories that came before are the reason that The Hobbit and LotR exist at all. However, Hollywood wont let these stand on their own and neither do they have the competence to execute them well. Reminder as well that LotR is first and foremost a book, that is untouched by all of these clowns, including Peter Jackson.
Annoying thing is, I'm not inherently against more Tolkien adaptations. The ones that came before Jackson were very different from his take and did arguably certain things better, so it would be cool see new interesting filmmakers do their takes. What I don't want are cash-ins, which treat Jackson's trilogy as the definitive take by either heavily emulating them or being set in the same continuity.
Darren, you're really digging yourself into a (hobbit) hole with all these cold opening puns. They are too precious to through away though, so embrace your inner Gollum and keep them coming.
![กิโลเมตรที่ 0 เดินทางรอบโลกไม่ใช้เครื่องบิน [Around The World Ep. 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/toJG9oofLFY/mqdefault.jpg)
"Smaug is nothing if not an aspirational figure." 10/10 writing.
I mean, who doesn't occasionally want to be a giant dragon that gets to sleep all day or burn things it doesn't like? ...Oh wait, he meant the sickening greed.
l really liked the "one ring to rue them all" at the end
Followed by "...Faramir few million dollars."
Copyright lengths are out of control. If most of these properties had entered the public domain decades ago, we could have had dozens of interpretations of them from a variety of creators, just like the Arthurian legends, Greek mythology, the Three Musketeers, Journey to the West, etc. Maybe not all of them would be good but we'd get something unique and interesting once in a while. And on the flip side publishers and studios would have more incentive to develop new stories, characters, and worlds, or adapt newer books, comics, and games. Maintain a healthy creative ecosystem for entertainment. Instead we have these megacorporations sitting on these megabrands for almost a century or more, effectively rent-seeking the mass culture.
LOTR but its a scifi epic like Ring or Once Human
@@irishijo1 so... Star Wars? Lol j/k
The public domain also encourages the 'rip off, don't remake' mentality. If you want to profit off something that's like a thing that's in the public domain, you make amalgamations of public domain properties, essentially what Star Wars and Lord of The Rings already are. It will lead to flops, but that's also how it used to work. Die Hard and Terminator were surprise hits, studios have to be willing to throw things at the wall in the first place if they're going to get anything at all to stick
Personally, I think copyright should only last 75 years or so which would be 1948. I think that's long enough for a creative to make money.
@@RandomnessStudiozI'd go 25-35. This way the copyright holder gets to profit of the 20 year nostalgia wave but also people would be able to expand upon works that have been created during their lifetime.
The puns hurt... but do you know what hurts more? The truth.
Pun-ishing.
Too willing to change existing franchises.
Too risk adverse to create their own brand.
In other words, cowards and tourists.
At some point taking no risk creates new ones.
This goes really well with what I was going to say, because I don't think the problem is inherently in "franchisation", but rather in the approach and level of respect that is given to them.
The appeal (from the viewer perspective) is having new stories in a world that you already know/understand. Therefor you must have an understanding & respect of the pre-existing canon. A lot of people (most of Hollywood included it seems) think of writing for a pre-existing character/world as "easier", but I would argue that it is harder; because on top of having to keep track of what has come before you (or at least having an understanding of "the heart" of the character(s)/world, if you're doing a re-imagining), you also have to write a good story that serves some sort of "point" that the audience will believe as justification for it's existence.
It's a very similar problem that adaptations had back in the day, when they would just slap the name of a book/comic/etc onto any old screenplay just for the name recognition.
Or also how a lot of direct to vhs/dvd sequels were as well.
and of course, as always with these kinds of arguments, in an ideal world that had a goal other than "make the most money" we would have both new stories that stand on their own and stories that build off of each other to make a bigger world.
It's like going to a South East Asia country and buying a burger from McDonalds over there. Like what was even the point of going over there?
Halway through this, up pops an ad, the script of which read;
"Ah Age of Empires, the game of my childhood.
Its back, Age of Empires Mobile is here"
With no appreciation of irony.
So you know, not just a Hollywood problem.
Fair, a wider cultural issue.
"Maybe Hollywood needs to get put of this Hobbit."
CUT TO: Gandalf banging his head against the ceiling.
This is some beautiful editing.
Great work from Omar!
When Hollywood discovers Discworld it's gonna be pandemonium
Don't give them ideas.....
There's already plenty of terrible and so-so Discworld films, and a TV series called The Watch.
The BBC have already fucked it up and gotten burnt, I pray the vultures at Hollywood never defile his work
Oh crap! God knows what they'd do to Granny!
They already tried. Several scripts were tried and Disney attempted to buy the rights to the stories and characters, in perpetuity, which prompted two middle fingers from Sir Terry.
"What can be done?"
The industry collapses under its own weight and they have no choice but to start over.
You mean like how we're going back to the days of cable tv? yaaaayyyyyyy... 🙃🙃
An interesting factor for Middle Earth specifically is that there are still stories to be told and source material to plunder. For better or worse, the most substantial remaining material is locked away. Studios are now picking at the edges of the books they do have the rights to, which makes this endeavour all the more desperate.
And thank the gods for that small mercy.
Star Wars called it wants its being driven into the ground back.
Say what you will about any of the individual projects, I think the most devaluing thing Disney has done to Star Wars is the sheer onslaught of it. That cow was marched right into the milking machine.
Yeah tbh I can't believe they'd try to do more with Rey after Rise of Skywalker. People gave The Last Jedi shit but people only even talked about it so much because there was actually some good in that, some great scenes, some directorial intent. No one talks about Rise of Skywalker except to quote its worst line because there's nothing to say. It's not a trash fire, it's a pile of biohazard waste. Though yeah, its biggest sin is probably just the onslaught of crap. I feel like the Mandalorian was kind of a poison pill in that it was a fun little spinoff that got *really* popular and convinced them they should just shotgun out star wars crap until people got sick of it. Which... they have.
A fundamental truth of the world is that integrity alone does not earn you money.
Talent earns you money and talent minus integrity earns you even more.
But talent plus integrity earns you the love of the fans.
If all you love or need is money, then integrity is an easy sacrifice.
The key to this equation of course being that you need to have talent. Unfortunately most Hollywood types seem to have left their talent at home if they had any to begin with.
So that leaves you with integrity.
So when you toss that you have nothing except a pissed off fanbase who don't want to give you money anymore for the expensive big name franchise you purchased.
Funny that James Bond(bodil) joke is in here. The fact that THAT franchise’s masters seems to be more concerned about maintaining prestige compared to everyone else around them is fascinating.
It helps that it's basically a 50-year-old family business. That doesn't mean the Broccolis don't make mistakes--far from it. But it means they often work from motives other than just profit.
@@digitaljanus If only some of these companies were more concerned about straight profit instead of infinite growth and quarterly stock value.
It's kind of like having a beautifully manicured lawn; you can only retread that ground so many times before the view is stale and the grass is dead, no matter how much people marveled the first time seeing it.
LOL "the lord of the rings movies will continue until morale improves"
I quite liked that line.
Things can and should end.
Yep. Endings give meaning.
This video solidified my resolve against watching the rings of power and most of the other franchise content soup.
I wanted to like that show. I found the first season passable, but by the third episode of the second season, I found I just didn’t care about a single character.
As for content soup, yeah. I’ve watched every live action Star Wars movie and TV show and most of it is mediocre at best. What’s annoying is it’s still capable of making some excellent entertainment (Andor, for instance) when somebody with an actual vision (in this case, Tony Gilroy) makes the decisions.
But otherwise, I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m not enjoying something and letting it go rather than worrying about FOMO. Most recently, it was the new Pixies album. They’re my favorite band, but their best years are long behind them and I accepted that I’m just not into the new one. I’m not going to waste my time and money on the lackluster stuff when there’s still an archive of much better material to enjoy. If they somehow improve again, I’ll be there.
"Faramir 100 dollars" man I love your script. Subscribed
Stories should end, but it's audiences that keep them going long after they should have stopped.
I've watched a grand total of zero pieces of LotR media outside of the trilogy. It's nice to not have to see beloved characters run into the ground by hacks chasing a buck, or well-intentioned creatives who don't know when to stop. I invite everyone to do the same.
Because instead of marketing original works better or maintaining their star system of actors and directors whose reputations might encourage skeptical audiences to take a chance on something they'd otherwise pass on, they're all following the Disney model of dropping hints about established franchises and letting fandom speculation dominate the algorithms, giving them effectively free marketing. Which definitely worked for a while. But now, even leaving aside the obvious reactionary culture war tourists, the fandom chatter online is far more obsessed with minutia and fidelity to the lore that only they care about. And maybe that's fine for a comic that sells tens of thousands of copies, but when you're making a film or TV series for $150+ million dollars, you need to appeal to a lot of people who could not care less about any of that.
Agreed. I think the reason I still love the original two alien movies is because I have forgotten the third and haven’t seen anything else.
I could only get through a couple episodes of "The Rings of Power." Same with "Star Trek: Picard."
I'm starting to suspect that any IP licensed by Amazon is going to be hot garbage.
LotR needs to take a more “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” approach to their other projects.
Have characters that showed up for a scene or two in the original trilogy, and give them a completely unrelated story. These characters have a whole separate life unrelated to Rings of Sauron. They just happened to, for example, be in the Prancing Pony the night when a group of weirdos stabbed some pillows. And then these characters go about their lives, oblivious to Frodos struggle.
Of course, it would still need to be a good story, with a good script, and good actors, good direction, etc.
But trying to make everything about the Rings will invite comparison to the original, better story about the rings.
The puns will continue until morale improves.
Pun-ative measures will be taken.
Entendres will be doubled!
I’ve been hearing Darren describe the “Bombadil, Tom Bombadil” scene on a couple of podcasts and my impression was that it was absolutely terrible and cringeworthy. Now, seeing the actual footage, I realize that I was way off. Even in my worst estimates I wasn’t even close to imagine its terribleness.
You can't continue a story if you're constantly re-telling it.
"Darren, nobody needed this."
I did. I laughed hard.
Too bad, because you’re all getting it!
The Bondbadil sequence was excellent
Shoutout to Omar for making it work.
@@Darren_Mooneyplease clip it! Would love to link it to my friends.
As usual we have scumbag lawyers to blame - those who took corporations' money and fought tooth and nail to extend the copyright length from 2 years to decades. They too viewed Smaug as an aspirational figure and the entirety of the human race suffered for it.
I mean, it's not just Hollywood. Marvel and DC still use a lot of their original characters - just in various alternate universes, iterations, adaptations, reboots...
The idea of having franchises end and create new ones is something you find more in eastern media with Anime and Manga. But even they are not immune to reboots from time to time.
I lost my last ounce of faith when the Devil Wears Prada sequel was announced, despite everyone in the original cast having said it doesn't need one
9:00 That is the funniest, bad joke, you've ever made, Darren.
I may have pitched it, but Omar and Jesse *made* it.
I genuinely worry across the board what we expect this youngest generation to attach to as their own identity. Growing up I didnt hook on to ninja turtles, dc or marvel comics, star wars, planet of the apes. They were the things my uncles or parents liked. I had power rangers, pokemon, disney Renaissance and all of those new films mentioned in 2001. Now with everything being remade or crossed over I cant think of a new franchise that isnt drenched in other crossovers that wouldnt put off a younger me.
At the same time we get shows like The Penguin or Andor that take the world of a franchise and tell creative stories within it. The key is what story the writers want to tell and how well that meshes with the established lore.
Hollywood studios don't want to make film or television, they want to make content. But, it's a handshake agreement with the audience. If Star Wars spinoff number 19 it's another one didn't gross a billion dollars, after a while they'd stop and we'd get more new interesting stories. Can't have one without the other. We get sequels, prequels, live action adaptations, sidequels, animated versions, alternative universes, metaverses, etc. because they, to some extent, require minimal effort and pay off.
So people who are exhausted by this are kind of held hostage by everyone else who thinks we need another round of Marvel movies and TV shows or Jurassic Park Infinity.
"Bad sequels and spin offs don't diminish the original work in any meaningful way."
I think it depends. These stories don't exist in a vacuum once new stories are created, they're subject to redefinition in the context of other stories unless the viewer can compartmentalize themselves back to the world where the spin offs and sequels didn't exist. Just like how critics and reviewers reflect on a discourse prior to the discussion of an analysis of a piece of media, viewers are drawn to connect with a story within the context of its interconnected stories.
I would suggest creators know this when they decide to get involved in the creation of stories they'd otherwise like to remain self contained (like Wachowski), to minimise the harm (or maximise the benefit) a new story brings in connecting to an old one.
I left the series after the trilogy its what i wanted out of the franchise. It wasnt perfect but then again how do you make a perfect adaptation that appeals to all fans. It was simply adequat in my eyes. So i agree not everything needs to be milked dry. I also recommend anyone not familiar with Ralph Bakshis interpretation of the books to give it a look. It is a curiosity if nothing else. Not necessarily good but i cant deny that Bakshi didnt have ambition.
Hot take the Hobbit book is a better read than the LOTR trilogy because of its pacing. Stretching it into three movies was the worst idea.
Even Peter Jackson didn't want to make three movies for The Hobbit. They *claimed* at the time it was because they just had SO MUCH GREAT MATERIAL that two movies was not enough, but I'm pretty sure he admitted later on that it was because they felt they DESPERATELY needed more time to plan out the climax, and that adding more scenes to the parts of the story they had already filmed to make it into three movies rather than two was easier than having to plot out and film the entire Battle of the Five Armies in a few months.
...I mean considering that even in the finished product the Battle of the Five Armies was a mess I can very much buy that explanation. The extended cut helped somewhat, but mostly just in the sense that... at least the extended cut felt *finished,* whereas the theatrical cut flat-out forgot to resolve its plot and had a central action set piece that was horrendously disjointed and overly cheesy. It was still overly cheesy in the extended cut, but at least scenes felt like they flowed together much better.
We need a re-edited cut of the hobbit. I really feel that it could be cut down into one long, solid movie that would feel far more aligned with the LotR trilogy.
@@Queldonus Fan edits exist, but they are naturally somewhat tied down by the existing material, like, say, Smaug randomly being covered in molten gold when he breaks out of the mountain. At least one edit tried to paint that out but it still was like, he's clearly covered in *something* that he shakes off as he flies into the sky.
I might be fine with billionaires if they had to keep all their wealth in some giant hoard of gold and jewels and anyone that can successfully steal part of their vault gets to keep it.
"This is the lockpickinglawyer, and what I have for you today is a rich person's vault containing their hoard of billions."
My god those puns, love em !!
This series is is so great it deserves more views
I would argue that low quality content pumped out to wring an IP of cash actually DOES diminish the originals. I haven't seen any Nightmare on Elm Street films because there's so much of it, I don't know which one's are crap, and I have enough on my watchlist to not bother doing the leg work. That will be the future for all these IPs. I stopped watching Star Wars and Marvel stuff years ago, because I just can't keep up with all the homework you have to do, watching endless spin off series' etc. Imagine trying to come in as a newbie.
I agree and disagree. If you are a newcomer to any of these old, tired, drawn-out franchises, then yes, you are screwed. But, if you were there in the first place, i.e., above the age of 40 and knew Star Trek, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, LOTR, etc. when they first came out, then you already know what is good and you can always come back to them whenever you like. Moreover, if a newcomer has an interest but doesn't know where to start, you can give them valuable guidance. I, for one, am very happy to be over the age of 40 and take great comfort in my old, original stories; they were there for me as a kid and they will always be there for me as an adult.
@thereadersvoice yeah, this is probably the most balanced take, it's just a shame that from now on, newcomers are going to be faced with this, isn't it.
Joker 2 has a great trailer but is indeed a movie that hates its own existence lol
The solution for me is quite simple. I don’t watch the endless franchises anymore. I hang onto my friends that I can play D&D and other tabletop role-playing games with, and we write our own stories.
I’m not claiming what we make is as good as Lord of the rings. It never will be. But it’s our story, and it has our heart and passion in it. And that makes it better than most of the soulless mass produced things that Hollywood is releasing right now.
Just read instead. Authors are generally passion over greed which is why literature has much better stories to offer and (generally) don't go on forever just because it makes a quick buck.
It wasn't just Hollywood that was sucked up in the combination of franchise seeking and LOTR. Games Workshop - wargame creators of Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy - used to have a great deal in their shops where you could earn points with each purchase. Yet once they got the license to make a LOTR tabletop wargame, this was shoveled out of the door because of said license. And the reputation of the LOTR game is mixed, since it's far more difficult to build an army entirely your own when confined within a clearly defined story.
I hope you Aragorn’t stop making more Pippuns.
Talking about long-running franchise fatigue is always a weird topic for me considering I love the Godzilla films. But I think Toho deserves credit for constantly reinventing the character and allowing directors to make their own versions of him, rather than maintaining one continuity to build endless prequels, spin-offs and more to.
Ooo! Mother's Basement has an excellent video dissecting this subject from a cultural standpoint of specifically U.S./Hollywood unwillingness (but also the wider general audience) to let go of favorite characters/franchises called "Let Goku Die."
It's REALLY good, y'all should go watch it next if you haven't seen it yet.
Keaton saying "Lets get nuts" in Flash and you can see his soul unalive in his eyes. That line was og improv in '89. And to say it in the movie is just pure nostalgia bait. Pointless ref for the nerds & fangirls (like me).
You can see the kitchen remodelling in his eyes.
I used to say that The Lord of the Rings was my Star Wars, since these where the movies that defined my childhood (and I didn't watch Star Wars until I was an adult). Looking at the current state of things, The Lord of the Rings has become more like Star Wars than I could ever imagine.
It’s like Dark Souls. The franchises are immortal but have lost their souls/humanity
There's a difference. Dark souls 3 was self aware that it was running itself into the ground, in fact the entire game is thematically based around it.
@@technoboop1890 Exactly.
How long you been sitting on those lotr puns Darren?🤣 Also how the hell is despicable me 4 higher than dune : part Deux?!
do you know that chapter of the old Powerpuff girls? when an old companion of the profesor stoles the chemical X to make "knock-off" superheroines
each time charging more money for the malform girls and each generation being worst
I am waiting for the big industries to have the same ending of that episode
Really good video.
Youll always have my attention with videos on the culture oroboros.
Ive talked a lot on questioning if later generations have an culture of their own. My friend is beyond excited that he can connect with his kids because they love the stuff he grew up with. Lego, pokemon, star waes. Something that crossed my mind is maybe theres some sort of inevitable culture terminus. We're culturally older than we've ever been, theres more ability for things to persist than ever before. Maybe we're living through an plateau moment that we've never been able to see before but this is just how things go. But on the other hand, this might less be a terminal culture point and more end stage capitalism as cultural monopolies are financially driven to continually rely on safe and guaranteed or proven streams. I see this with other nerd hobbies like collectibles as the timeline went their creation for a generation, that generation grew up, the product aging with them, and the companies increase focus on appeasing that audience and extracting value. Looking at you magic the gathering. But marvel and comics went through a similiar moment before the MCU as they became increasingly focused on an aging demographic and the MCU refreshed the audience. I think. Debatable if that was a change or a continuation. Star Wars is struggling with that identity now
Is that Jesse doubling as Tom Bondbadil?
It is!
I'm curious how the James Bond Franchise will go with this moving forward. No Time to die really felt like the franchise was still trying to carve it's own path while still being more smart with it's past references than even Spectre. On the other hand, Sam Mendes (Director of Skyfall and Spectre) had recently said that the Bond Studio want directors who can be controlled which feels like they want more of the same. Fingers crossed they don't plan on remakes and keep to developing new stories.
Honestly? Gaming is in the exact same pickle, just speedran.
Everyones so laser focused on the old, that no one wants to make anything new. Halo is getting a sequel, or is it a remake, Gears is getting a prequel, Borderlands keeps chugging long after interest has died, there will never be a FINAL Fantasy, etcetera.
Everyone is so focused on the golden eggs that they dont notice the goose is too old to lay them.
Just ignore AAA gaming, problem mostly solved. Sadly, if you care about the cinema experience, the comparison doesn't hold up there...
The problem lies with the creators. For movies, TV and gaming, (excluding indies) they are made by large corporations who value safe profits over passion. Safe profits means doing something that has worked in the past because its therefore likely to work again. Creative works made by a single person or a small group of people with a cohesive vision will always produce the best results because they actually give a shit about what they're making.
It feels like the solution might be something the games industry has started to glom onto: the "spiritual successor". Where the original "authors" do a technically unrelated but similar work that builds on what they learned from their original hit.
Take a page from Star Wars and the garbage they turned it into.
Well, quite: don't sell your IP to a giant, shameless corporation, and you can avoid all that.
People like to blame Disney, but they only got their hands on Star Wars because Lucas sold them the rights to it. He didn't need to, but he did it anyway.
@@peterclarke7240 The tradition of pumping out tons of VERY varying quality Star Wars products was alive and well for years before Disney got the license. They only turned it up.
When the intro doesn't play until 3 minutes in, you KNOW Darren is cookin'
I think a lot of cashing in on LotR is the corporation that owns the right to the works (which AFAIK is not Tolkien's family) wants to cash in as much as they can before the copyright expires in like 20 years. Ring out every drop of money they can, no matter the quality or legacy.
based on 30 seconds of research, lotr seems to be entering the public domain in 2044, which isn't that far away, though it does incentivize the current rights holders to aggressively license that shit while they still have it
Straight Fan Service. Predators and Alien: Covenant were both "Remember all the great set piece scenes you loved in those first two movies you really liked? Well here they are again, nearly unchanged but for cast."
how can people not see franchise exhaustion? its right in front of them as people get tired from the same thing over and over again
I'm just convinced this video was simply made to get all those puns out. Goddamnit.
Things can exist for multiple reasons.
It's not even that other movies aren't being made, it's just that they aren't being given the opportunity. Marketing and theatre screens are costly and limited. The triple-A movie industry is the same as the triple-A game industry, where production has gotten so expensive that there is no room for a middle class anymore. You need to go out and look for interesting new media on your own, because advertising will only show you what the executives think you want to see.
I may be missing something here, but I think the point about the public domain brings it back to the real solution. If being public domain puts it in the hands of people with artistic integrity who want to make a good work, that brings it back to the actual solution: creative integrity.
So why do we have a system where creative integrity isn't valued/seen as important?
Rewatch the matrix. Near the beginning Morpheus explains how civilization peaked in the late 90s. 2000 was the end of history. We are just experiencing its echo.
I used to be a big star wars fan.
used to. Disney has ruined my interest into that IP, completely, utterly and likely irreversibly. How has it done that? By spamming me with it and making a lot of that spam not worth watching.
I would definitely sign up for a LotR marathon. I had to settle for the films being shown on back to back to back days. In a sold out theater that had been upsized from what it had been originally scheduled to play in. And they added a second run of the trilogy the following weekend.
It's definitely gonna take some time before the public domain can reclaim these works. Between trademark law and not wanting to face the ire of companies like Disney, I imagine it'll be years after entering the public domain that any large production will take a chance on them. Like Tolkien's works are already public domain in New Zealand, but there's hardly any talk about that yet.
"Every follow-up has to be a prequel". I disagree - so much lore is available in franchises such as LOTR that there never needs to be mention of Sauron, the Ring, Gondor, Hobbits, or dragons. Sequels could include the demise of Dwarves, the power vacuum left by the elves and the Easterlings. Prequels could cover the demise of the Dúnedain, Númenor, or the Blue Wizards. If you wanted to expand on known characters, Saruman has a rich untapped history, Arathorn was clearly in an unstable position before Aragorn was sent to Rivendell, Elrond obviously has past mistrusts with mortals... there's so much. But the Rings of Power cuts too close to already an well ended idea.
The problem is not an oversaturation, but a lack of care. People who want to make a name for themselves see a popular IP and want to do their spin on it, which changes it from why is was popular in the first place.
The Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy is an example of people who loved and respected the source materiel and the author. Some book fans don't like all the changes from Tolkien's work, but the heart and soul shows up on film.
Contrasted with the Rings of Power where the writers and showrunner's openly admit they don't know the source material. They see the popular thing and want to do their take on it; missing the point completely and putting more effort into aping the Jackson movie's than respecting the original source. If they truly loved the professor's work, they'd be handlining their massive money sink with a lot more care.
We saw this with Star Wars and Star Trek, people with a passing cursory knowledge at best and to be popular, so they take popular thing and produce a much worse version because they don't understand why the IP was popular.
You're the master of puns, don't let anyone tell you different!
The fix (if you can call it that) is to watch new movies that take on new directions, even if they are flawed, and to avoid franchises, even if people say that they are good. There will always be a lazy crowd that flocks to known franchises anyway, but the will of the audience has bombed franchise and spin-off films before. If we are persistent, maybe the studios will eventually learn; they do only ever listen to money.
Studios spending ungodly amounts of cash on projects means they want them to succeed - and what do they think people like? More of the same thing they already know. Why risk millions on an unknown IP when LOTR fans will watch a series set in the world.
As long as someone with money thinks they can use an ip to make more money, they will make more content for it. The only way it stops is if the franchise has been run into the ground so hard that nobody thinks they can make money from it anymore.
The silver lining is they need to make some good shit to even get to that point, so at least we get that.
I just wish the LOTR films could get a real restoration and release because the 4k versions we have are obviously just poorly upscaled version of the BluRay.
Despite there way to bring in the doe franchises do have limits in the end. Though James Bond may be the exception to this but at least it is an argument for original stuff. Nice video Daren
Its not really Hollywoods fault that streaming and internet became a thing and DVDs became...not a thing.
"Leave audiences sauron them going forward" was *_right there!_*
They're squeezing every last bit of juice out of their IP. One might call it the Wring of Power.
There is something you can do: stop watching the milked-out franchises. And by and large, that's what people do. The Sequel trilogy of Star Wars had severe diminishing returns, The Marvels was one of the biggest flops in movie history, The Flash was an complete embarrassment no matter how you look at it, and yes, even Rings of Power seems to be on the back foot. Amazon does have it a little bit easier hiding the fact that the show is not really hitting a chord with the general audience because streaming numbers are kept quiet, but they are having to square the circle of the show not bringing in the kind of viewership a show that expensive absolutely needs to sustain it.
*_Til you're ninetyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy_*
Interesting how it's basically the same problem with videogames - short-term money-grabs.
11:14 good line, also Matrix Resurrections was amazing and if you don't get it, it's likely you don't really get Matrix 99.
Coulda gone with "going to leave audiences Sour On..."
Great vid as always. It's crazy that no one sees the problem for themselves in 10-20 years. Kids don't go to Disneyland anymore because there's almost no Disney movies to grow up on. It's eating your foot for food when you need to go hunting later.
You can literally read The Hobbit quicker than you can watch it - and have more fun.
When are we ever going to get a proper upload of the music for the Backdrop intro and outro?
"Bad sequels and spin-offs don't really diminish the original work in any meaningful way" - I agree, however you then argue that "these gems do get drowned in a sea of endless content soup" - this I don't agree with and to me these statements contradict each other, if the gems can't get diminished in a meaningful way, then they can't drown in the content soup either.
Personally, I'd even disagree that "Bad sequels and spin-offs don't really diminish the original work in any meaningful way."
They don't diminish the *achievement* of the original on an abstract level, but if an IP has been polluted by an ocean of slop, I personally feel less inclined to watch even the originals that made the series great. That's the thing about fandom--it's deeply personal and emotional, and fans can feel betrayed by an IP that is endlessly exploited for profit.
The problem with these "prequels" for LotR is that they weren't prequels, LotR was a sequel and the stories that came before are the reason that The Hobbit and LotR exist at all. However, Hollywood wont let these stand on their own and neither do they have the competence to execute them well.
Reminder as well that LotR is first and foremost a book, that is untouched by all of these clowns, including Peter Jackson.
Any LOTR content that wasn't written by Tolkien is fanfiction, and grounds for me to ignore it entirely tbh
When the writers aren't striking, entertainment still sucks
This all comes down to the grand kids. Shitty licensed games and movies. Christopher died and the grandchildren have no respect for Tolkien work.
Someone let the people behind One Piece see this.
everything is content now
Annoying thing is, I'm not inherently against more Tolkien adaptations. The ones that came before Jackson were very different from his take and did arguably certain things better, so it would be cool see new interesting filmmakers do their takes.
What I don't want are cash-ins, which treat Jackson's trilogy as the definitive take by either heavily emulating them or being set in the same continuity.
Well, as presented, the issue is sequels and prequels. New adaptations, with a new vision, can be a great thing. Dune is a good example of that.
Darren, you're really digging yourself into a (hobbit) hole with all these cold opening puns. They are too precious to through away though, so embrace your inner Gollum and keep them coming.
What do you mean they can't milk the same franchises in perpetuity?
Maybe you could also choose Star Wars as the lead subject and make the same argument and draw the exact same conclusions.
I am all in for dad bod Nightmare on Elm Street
Im feeling the same way regarding Dune... I kinda dont need the bene geserit history
That was a lot of them, Darren. Great commentary though, as always.
Maaan, this close to giving us “Sour Rhun Man”
He could have said he'd Sauron it
@@Henez89Oh. I used that in our last “Rings of Power” video.
@@Darren_Mooney 😂 of course