A Lament for the Loss of Originality

A refreshing take on an old classic, from the studio that brought you Saunderisms.

Image by James Saunders

Hello, loyal subscribers (and disloyal lurkers).

Sick of the Sports Laundry? Disappointed with Dutch ruminations? Fed up with food writing? Well, I’ve got just the thing for you: another bout of countercultural flailing at something that sort of annoys me, but isn’t quite annoying enough to do anything meaningful about. Novel, I know.

Look, I’m well aware there’s a risk of this entire blog turning into a series of rants at my growing disillusionment with the world. It won’t always be this way, I promise, but discontent breeds passion, and passion breeds (what I hope are) more interesting reads. As writer and reader, it’s in both our interests for me to hold a broad set of grievances with culture at large.

Anyway.

I’ve got a question for you.

Why are sequels (or, for that matter, prequels, spin-offs, origin stories, reboots, extended universe tie-ins, remixes, etc., etc., etc.) so… charmless?

It’s a sentiment I’ve held for a while, yet one I dared not explore in writing. That is, until Sunday night, where I found myself trying to articulate my thoughts on former Pink Floyd bassist-cum-lyricist Roger Waters’ Dark Side of the Moon redux to a beleaguered friend.

The thoughts that eventually managed to escape my lips were: “it’s just a bit… crap”. Yes, yes, very nuanced. Actually, I don’t think it’s crap; it lacks the magic of the original, and suffers from the same problems which plague both post-Floyd Waters’ and post-Waters Floyd’s music, but… I’ll stop there. This could (and probably will) be a whole post in and of itself.

I’m equally despondent about House of the Dragon. Yes, it’s high-calibre television. Yes, I’m still reeled in by Ramin Djawadi’s leitmotif-heavy score. The intrigue is alright. The dragons look cool. But it feels incomplete. The special something which made Game of Thrones a cultural behemoth feels annoyingly out of reach. Succession, tied to House of the Dragon both thematically and atop HBO’s selection of premium entertainment, does have the spark - and I think I know why. More on that later.

Now, I know some of you - particularly my sister - will be rolling your eyes at this point. I’ve tried to keep the chat about my two audio-visual obsessions to a bare, bare minimum - but ask anyone I know, and they’d tell you it would be frightfully off-brand for me to omit them. Besides, I need to lead with a couple of examples about which I actually hold strong convictions; I’ve got to have some fun writing this, like, come on!

Right, back to the topic at hand. It’s not just the quality of all these follow-ups, but the quantity. I’m now going to prove my credentials as a diligent and meticulous researcher, and cite a Reddit post to back myself up. Seriously though, look at this. Yes, it’s from 2019, but as long-term trend graphs go, that’s insane.

Reams upon reams of safe bets, unoriginal IP and fatigue-inducing franchise properties do not make for pleasant reading - unless you’re a smarmy studio exec looking at your income statement, that is. Bafflingly, audiences are willing to part with their cash to watch the latest Rise of the Dawn of the Return of the [INSERT POPULAR FILM BRAND]: Origins: Beginnings: Reloaded: Part 2. I just don’t get it. Well, actually, I sort of do.

The fact that millions are queueing up (or staying in) to watch samey, repetitive films is less of an indictment of your average movie-going schmuck (like me), and more of a desired outcome from these studios. Beloved characters plus new situations equals easy money; that’s how brand loyalty works. It’s the same for music: once a winning formula’s discovered, you stick to it, lest you dare upset your record label.

The problem, for me, is that these reboots - or sequels, or continuations, or whatever - just don’t scratch the itch. All too often, pieces are missing; pieces that made their original form so successful - and, of course, worthy of sequels in the first place. It’s like visiting your old school many years later, just to discover that only the second-tier staff are still teaching; the skeleton remains, yet the soul does not.

Why the school analogy, you ask?

Well, I think the answer’s pretty simple: childhood - or, at least, a time or a place, now unreachable, for which you harbour a sense of longing or nostalgia. The Welsh call this hiraeth; the Portuguese, saudade. I’d wager both feel it about Euro 2016. Yet this emotion isn’t nationally limited, by any means.

I got a whiff of it when I decided (and you’d better not judge me for this) to watch all five Pirates of the Caribbean films back-to-back. The original trilogy greeted me in its warm embrace, no differently than when I - not yet blessed with the luxuries of a developed prefrontal cortex - had enjoyed it as a seven-year-old. The latter two, shameless money-grabs that they are… didn’t. Yes, they’re kids’ films, but the new ones are simply joyless husks of their former selves.

I worry I’ll have the same reaction to the trio of Doctor Who specials this November. Anyone who had the displeasure of being in my year 2 classroom when I brought in - and forced poor Mrs Terry to play - an official soundtrack CD can attest to my past obsession with that show. Now that sixteen years have got behind me? I’m not so sure. That feels like hiraeth or saudade to me, but maybe the writing has just got worse.

Perhaps it is simply a writing issue; I don’t think I’m particularly attached to my nineteen-year-old self, yet I (and most others, might I add) felt horribly let down by Game of Thrones’ final season. Maybe, when the scripts are so catastrophically mediocre, they make you feel hiraeth - not for a time you personally cherished, but for a time when they weren’t… bad.

Maybe it’s not even hiraeth or saudade at all; maybe it’s just growing up, and realising the rose-tinted spectacles worn in childhood are pretty good at blinding you to sloppily-produced media. I’m sure viewers of any generation have lamented apparent drop-offs in quality from ‘the good old days’, and I’m just the latest in a long line of complainers.

But still, the aforementioned numbers (thanks again, Reddit) don’t lie - actual, measurable originality is sort of going out the window. Studios, production firms, you name it, want to nurture nostalgia, but - for me at least - they’re only managing to squeeze out saudade.

I want to ask them why it’s apparently so hard to capture the essence of what made an original great, but I fear the clue’s in the word. Originality. After enough reboots and retries, there’s simply none left. Look at The Simpsons. I think it’s safe to say the majority of reasonable consumers are over them now; I’m not sure we’re quite there with the superhero genre, but we’ll see. One can only hope.

Look, I don’t want to fear-monger about the sorry state of the media landscape; avert your gaze from the sequels, because there’s plenty of originality to go round. The rebooted tripe might still dominate the popular psyche, but look! Succession! I promised I’d get back to it! Four short bursts of brilliance, unburdened by cheap appeals to past… success - and it’s one of the best programmes I think I’ll ever see.

I’m not a film buff, I’ll admit. As such, I’ve missed out a load of higher-brow examples, but still: the writing is there - you just have to seek it out.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious.

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