Sequels and series
Apr. 28th, 2013 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI was reading an actor interview thing and he was making noises about not doing another sequel to his really popular thing. "How many sequels can you really do and make them fun?" he asked, or something like that.
My first thought was, that is a movie actor. That is really not a television guy.
How many stories can you do? Aim for a minimum of 100.
Which is a bit of an old rule by now, changing tech and industry context, you don't need 100 to make it immortal any more, but still: television aims for longevity. And not just TV, collaborative storytelling in other media has managed it too.
We've got 50 years of Doctor Who, and while it stopped being on television for a long while in the middle, it never stopped generating stories. Books, comics, audio adventures, there's been stories every month for most of that time, maybe every week for a lot of it if you count each episode in a CD separate or count the spin offs. Star Trek has hundreds of episodes, books, comics, and movies. And superhero comics have been going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and they reinvent themselves every couple of decades at least but the iconic components persist, more or less.
So there's this guy in a superhero movie wondering how many sequels you can really do.
... does he read comics? Because they don't really run out. I mean, even if you only do the most famous story arcs, are we running out yet?
... seriously, I don't read Marvel, I have no idea...
Movies take months to make hours. The rule for writing a movie is that this, right here, is the most important day of the protagonist's life. So there's a limit to how often you can sell that something is Most Important... goes one theory. Balls, say I. Do you really want to think that the day after the movie there's never going to be anything that important happen to him again? With superhero movies in particular we don't think that. Movies keep doing the origin story, and everything we've ever read about the guy, except maybe that one page of flashback, was set After.
But, at that point, it has turned into a TV series: this is just another day in the protagonists lives.
Superhero movie trilogies sort of split the origin story into beginning, middle, end.
...spoilers to get specific, Iron Man, Spiderman, Fantastic Four:
IM, Tony puts on the suit. IM2, learns how to survive that decision. IM3, learns how to survive without it, while still kicking arse.
There's also a psychological arc about fathers - reject the false father, find the true father, then with the all the kids hanging around looking up to him learn how to be in that adult guidance kind of role. There was a reason aside from it being a summer kid movie. If it's me writing then the parent role is all about AI, but I know why they don't do it that way in a blockbuster, there's only one acceptable approach to AI in big summer movies and that's the Pinocchio schtick, whereas I'm more interested in a guy who can raise kids who think different and are maybe a teeny special needs. But that's my angle. The mainstream one is the one they did, have a smart kid around, ordinary human but smart in that way that wants to grow up to be Iron Man, show how Tony can interact with them. Arcs about fathers play well with the kind of psych that gets taught in film classes, however much I :eyeroll: at that stuff.
The Iron Man series also makes IM2 Rhodey's origin story and IM3 Pepper's. They're still supporting characters, because their Reason is all prompted by Tony, we don't get their family backstory or their emotions or most of what happens to them when Tony isn't in the room. But we get them each having their day when they step up and get powerful. Actually, Pepper gets three sorts, she gets things to do in each movie, but that's why I like them better than most.
Spider Man, the version with 3 films, that had him put on the suit, live with the repercussions, go right up to the edge and reject going any further. Also it was all fallout in the same relationships, best friend and girlfriend. They hang together as a trilogy, but I still don't know why they stopped there.
Fantastic Four doesn't fit because they only did two, but there was gain powers, learn to live with powers while still holding on to ordinary life.
There's a pattern. I'm not insisting on it. But they're holding on to the origin as The Most Important Day and then playing with the fallout.
I'd like to ban movies touching origin stories again. I mean, we've done that, over and over and over. That's the easy one. The beginning is not the most important. Every day is most important!
... which is why I'm a TV person and really not a movie person.
I mean, I have story ideas I'm unsatisfied with because I only really have one bit plot, and I think of it as a pilot episode, not a movie. What's the point of making a whole world to play in and then stopping after one movie?
Comics keep on happening, month after month, describing a day in the life of a superhero. They do the power / depowered / repowered cycle a lot. A lot. They have a whole bunch of bad guys, and some of the iconic ones are specifically mirrors of the superhero that usually fights them, and some of them sort of get shared around. It takes about 4 months to do one episode worth of story, and even then it feels like skimming, which is why I've gone off comics. Well, that and the way they treat women. And people of color. But if that were the problem I'd seek out different comics in the hopes they'd do better, but I don't. Anyway, point is, comics: not big on The Most Important, more about showing how every night is important.
... until they're stuck doing mega xover events and wrecking their whole 'verse trying to be more uber and *sigh*
Books take a long time to write (long long long) and even a prolific series gets released two books per year. Not many places are doing the monthly instalments thing any more, but they do exist; they still don't get more words out, just more smoothly. Books tend to rely on the effort of a single author though, and there's only so many hours in the day.
Television can do as much as a couple dozen stories a year, aiming for five years, sometimes managing more. Even a half season in the USA can be 13 stories. There's book series that I feel go on halfway to forever and they aren't up to 13 yet. Television can just tell more stories faster, and it's awesome. And it does this by getting a whole lot of different people together, which is never going to be cheap. So there's kind of a high bar to reach just to get started.
I've seen fanfic virtual seasons manage the same thing, but I've seen a lot more virtual seasons fall apart than finish.
Television is hard. But just by virtue of series length and preference for continuation it says something very different about the nature of Important. Every week is important. All your life is important. Your daily grind is our weekly viewing. And how many of that story can stay fun?
Aim for at least 100. Sometimes hit half a century.
My first thought was, that is a movie actor. That is really not a television guy.
How many stories can you do? Aim for a minimum of 100.
Which is a bit of an old rule by now, changing tech and industry context, you don't need 100 to make it immortal any more, but still: television aims for longevity. And not just TV, collaborative storytelling in other media has managed it too.
We've got 50 years of Doctor Who, and while it stopped being on television for a long while in the middle, it never stopped generating stories. Books, comics, audio adventures, there's been stories every month for most of that time, maybe every week for a lot of it if you count each episode in a CD separate or count the spin offs. Star Trek has hundreds of episodes, books, comics, and movies. And superhero comics have been going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and they reinvent themselves every couple of decades at least but the iconic components persist, more or less.
So there's this guy in a superhero movie wondering how many sequels you can really do.
... does he read comics? Because they don't really run out. I mean, even if you only do the most famous story arcs, are we running out yet?
... seriously, I don't read Marvel, I have no idea...
Movies take months to make hours. The rule for writing a movie is that this, right here, is the most important day of the protagonist's life. So there's a limit to how often you can sell that something is Most Important... goes one theory. Balls, say I. Do you really want to think that the day after the movie there's never going to be anything that important happen to him again? With superhero movies in particular we don't think that. Movies keep doing the origin story, and everything we've ever read about the guy, except maybe that one page of flashback, was set After.
But, at that point, it has turned into a TV series: this is just another day in the protagonists lives.
Superhero movie trilogies sort of split the origin story into beginning, middle, end.
...spoilers to get specific, Iron Man, Spiderman, Fantastic Four:
IM, Tony puts on the suit. IM2, learns how to survive that decision. IM3, learns how to survive without it, while still kicking arse.
There's also a psychological arc about fathers - reject the false father, find the true father, then with the all the kids hanging around looking up to him learn how to be in that adult guidance kind of role. There was a reason aside from it being a summer kid movie. If it's me writing then the parent role is all about AI, but I know why they don't do it that way in a blockbuster, there's only one acceptable approach to AI in big summer movies and that's the Pinocchio schtick, whereas I'm more interested in a guy who can raise kids who think different and are maybe a teeny special needs. But that's my angle. The mainstream one is the one they did, have a smart kid around, ordinary human but smart in that way that wants to grow up to be Iron Man, show how Tony can interact with them. Arcs about fathers play well with the kind of psych that gets taught in film classes, however much I :eyeroll: at that stuff.
The Iron Man series also makes IM2 Rhodey's origin story and IM3 Pepper's. They're still supporting characters, because their Reason is all prompted by Tony, we don't get their family backstory or their emotions or most of what happens to them when Tony isn't in the room. But we get them each having their day when they step up and get powerful. Actually, Pepper gets three sorts, she gets things to do in each movie, but that's why I like them better than most.
Spider Man, the version with 3 films, that had him put on the suit, live with the repercussions, go right up to the edge and reject going any further. Also it was all fallout in the same relationships, best friend and girlfriend. They hang together as a trilogy, but I still don't know why they stopped there.
Fantastic Four doesn't fit because they only did two, but there was gain powers, learn to live with powers while still holding on to ordinary life.
There's a pattern. I'm not insisting on it. But they're holding on to the origin as The Most Important Day and then playing with the fallout.
I'd like to ban movies touching origin stories again. I mean, we've done that, over and over and over. That's the easy one. The beginning is not the most important. Every day is most important!
... which is why I'm a TV person and really not a movie person.
I mean, I have story ideas I'm unsatisfied with because I only really have one bit plot, and I think of it as a pilot episode, not a movie. What's the point of making a whole world to play in and then stopping after one movie?
Comics keep on happening, month after month, describing a day in the life of a superhero. They do the power / depowered / repowered cycle a lot. A lot. They have a whole bunch of bad guys, and some of the iconic ones are specifically mirrors of the superhero that usually fights them, and some of them sort of get shared around. It takes about 4 months to do one episode worth of story, and even then it feels like skimming, which is why I've gone off comics. Well, that and the way they treat women. And people of color. But if that were the problem I'd seek out different comics in the hopes they'd do better, but I don't. Anyway, point is, comics: not big on The Most Important, more about showing how every night is important.
... until they're stuck doing mega xover events and wrecking their whole 'verse trying to be more uber and *sigh*
Books take a long time to write (long long long) and even a prolific series gets released two books per year. Not many places are doing the monthly instalments thing any more, but they do exist; they still don't get more words out, just more smoothly. Books tend to rely on the effort of a single author though, and there's only so many hours in the day.
Television can do as much as a couple dozen stories a year, aiming for five years, sometimes managing more. Even a half season in the USA can be 13 stories. There's book series that I feel go on halfway to forever and they aren't up to 13 yet. Television can just tell more stories faster, and it's awesome. And it does this by getting a whole lot of different people together, which is never going to be cheap. So there's kind of a high bar to reach just to get started.
I've seen fanfic virtual seasons manage the same thing, but I've seen a lot more virtual seasons fall apart than finish.
Television is hard. But just by virtue of series length and preference for continuation it says something very different about the nature of Important. Every week is important. All your life is important. Your daily grind is our weekly viewing. And how many of that story can stay fun?
Aim for at least 100. Sometimes hit half a century.