Blog Post 2: the sequel

Relating back to Donald Hudson's article, "Do Christians Need Art," I'd like to shortly talk about films in general. By adopting a more secular view of art have we lost some of our abilities as filmmakers in general? How often, now, do we see recent films (within the past couple years) that question us and shed a light on some sort of truth? Personally, I haven't seen such a film in a long time.

I'm not saying that there aren't good films and filmmakers out there, but as to what will be considered classic and watched in the future remains to be seen. Most of the movies that we watch now and think are good probably won't be remembered in the long run. As much as I enjoy superhero movies, how many do we watch today from ten years ago? I don't think that Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Gravity, and other movies that rely heavily on special effects will be watched 15 years (or probably less) down the road.

As we've mentioned in class on multiple occasions, Christian films generally are being made to be watched by Christians. We "preach to the choir" and make hardly any impact on the non-Christian community. If this is going to change, we have to do something about it. But maybe that's just it. Nobody wants it to change, because we're all so content in our own bubble.

 Over the past few years, I have noticed a big increase in movie remakes, reboots, knock-offs, and sequels. That's not to say that all sequels are bad, occasionally I find that the sequel is better than the original (eg- terminator, the dark knight, spider-man 2, star trek, etc.), however I see way too many movies today that, honestly, are just really poor quality, either visually, in plot, or both. What's been bugging me lately (que heated debate) is when a live-action remake of a cartoon is made. Some examples of this would be Cinderella, Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland, Attack on Titan, and The Last Airbender (but we don't speak of that film). I feel, sometimes, that remakes like these sometimes can take away from the original by making it so real. Other times they're just plain bad. But on occasion, they can actually be pulled off, because they do it from a different perspective than the original. (Who's excited for Pan?)

What do you think of sequels?

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