This is a comment I posted on Facebook that I’ll lazily paste here, rather than write an expansion.
I began by posting this to Twitter: “Building a franchise around Blade Runner is like building an amusement park around The Smithsonian.”
And then, here is what I followed up with on Facebook…
It’s what I’ve seen happen to Alien.
The franchise lessened the cultural significance and artistic legacy of the original and ended up *obscuring* it from the mainstream, in a sense. The “It gets more people to see it that otherwise wouldn’t have.” argument becomes meaningless at some point when the work is caused to be compared to what are essentially just derivative works that in no way reflect – let alone deepen – the artist’s original intent and therefore the original ends up a “see also” and gets buried under stale popcorn.
My ex-wife and I went to the theatrical re-release of Alien in ’03 and were stunned when we were two of only four people in the theater. Yet, the vapid comedy/action/horror/whatever no one remembers now was packed. I had an urge to go into the lobby, shouting “What the hell is WRONG with you people??!!!”. But, I already knew, even then, what the most common answer would be. Something like “Alien? Yeah, it’s ok. The fourth one was really cool! The first was tame compared to the rest, though.” The amusement park drew them in and they may have had fun, but amusement park crowds care little for much beyond “Yeah, that one part that had that naked chick that got impaled by that alien’s tail? Huh huh, yeah, that was cool.” And an artist who made the mistake of signing a contract many years ago ends up screaming “But you are missing my point!!” and a masterpiece of atmosphere, suspense and design only exists in popular mainstream consciousness because it’s part of a canon that you’ll find under “Action, horror, sci-fi”.
In this – as in so many other cases – it would be better off a forgotten classic that the uninitiated could then be introduced to with no pre-conceived (and ill-fitting) expectations.
…
Whoa. I think I’ve had a liiiittle too much coffee ;P
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