A stream of consciousness regarding the state of film

The film industry today is filled with sequels, remakes and trilogies. Unless a movie elicits a franchise, studios don't seem to want to produce it, and once a flick (or even a theater performance) catches a fraction of the population's attention, it is reused, rehashed and remade in the form of sequels and spin-offs.

First, let's make the distinction between trilogies, franchises, and sequels. Usually, you can tell them apart as follows: trilogies are good, franchises get old, and sequels, to broadly generalize, suck.

Lord of the Rings and The Matrix are two trilogies that are out right now, and both are doing extremely well. I immensely enjoyed the first two installments of The Lord of the Rings and cannot wait for the final. I also cannot wait for the next two installments of The Matrix. Trilogies are exciting because they are essentially one movie cut into three sections, for convenience's sake. Most people would not like to sit down and watch a nine-hour movie, despite the fact that many dedicated fans may like the concept.

Then there's the Austin Powers "trilogy." Like Lethal Weapon, however, Austin Powers is a franchise, which began to get old with Goldmember, just as Lethal Weapon 4 looked as if it would be the end to the Gibson/Glover companionship.

The main difference between a franchise and a trilogy is that a franchise finds a formula that works (Mike Myers playing far too many characters), but unfortunately just rehashes that formula until people stop paying to watch it. When the formula works, like it does with Powers, the movies are enjoyable. I, myself, am an Austin Powers fan. However, franchises run the risk of spoiling the idea of the original movie. The original Austin Powers will be forever tainted by Myers' character Goldmember _ the Jar Jar Binks of the Austin Powers world.

Then there are sequels, which seem to only be made for movies that should stand alone. Recent sequels include Analyze That and Men in Black II. See my point? The Whole Ten Yards is also coming out soon. It's a sequel to The Whole Nine Yards, which was that movie with Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry that was pretty funny, but nothing special.

The first problem with sequels is that they are usually made for movies that should have none. If the plot is wrapped up and the characters cannot really be developed more and there is nothing left to the story... what's the point?

Of course there were some decent sequels out there, don't get me wrong. Rush Hour 2, Blade 2, to name... uh... two. My point is that money could be better spent on original material. (Go see Adaptation and any movie made by Paul Thomas Anderson.)

Then there are remakes. When a movie is remade, or a play converted into a movie, there needs to be a reason. There needs to be something the new film has that the original does not. Ocean's 11 is an example of a good remake. The original stared the rat pack as a bunch of ex-army buds who scheme up. But, while the rat pack (Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, etc.) were the very embodiment of slick coolness back when they were slick and cool, today they do not cut it. Director Soderbergh not only updates the elements of the heist but the elements of style as well.

The next remake, of sorts, is getting a lot of buzz. Everybody seems to love it, but I believe Chicago was essentially a movie version of the Broadway show. As a result it was entertaining and fun, but it failed to use the film medium to its full advantage. It almost seemed like there were cameramen on stage at Broadway. Rene Zellweger, Richard Gere and Catherine Zeta-Jones were all terrific, but they would have been just as good on stage. Perhaps their egos wouldn't fit in the theater. There is just something wrong with a film that can be described as stagy, when the subject matter was taken directly from the stage.

So I think I proved my point. Wait... what's that you say? I just rambled on convolutedly? Oh... and you disagreed with a lot of it? Well, what I'm saying is that I believe film makers should do a little more thinking before throwing millions of dollars into projects that lack purpose other than to get as much money out of the pockets of consumers. I think its time we were thought of as an audience to entertain, rather than consumers with cash.