There’s a subgenre of films in which actors have reprised their roles from decades earlier for what I’d call “victory laps”.  Some of these outings have been surpringly successful.  I’d say Rocky Balboa was a very good film, and I haven’t seen Creed but it got very good reviews.  I saw bits and pieces of Stallone’s Rambo and was never that sentimental about that character.  And I was actually more apologetic about Terminator Genisys than most reviewers, thanks to an upbeat fanservice sort of plot.

However, there’s also the case of directors doing victory laps by going back to the well.  George Lucas really got the ball rolling in a bad way with Episonde I and the other prequels.  Spielberg then tarnished his legacy with him with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.  Ridley Scott’s Prometheus was little more than a victory of production design and mood and I didn’t bother seeing the followup.  Wisely, Scott allowed someone else (Denis Villeneuve) to direct Blade Runner 2049, and the combination of new and old blood seemed to be beneficial.

Increasingly the big studios have taken old franchises and passed them into the hands of 2nd generation fanbois like JJ Abrams.  In theory this seems to be a safe bet but a dedicated fan is at risk of being nothing but an imitator.  You could say Seth MacFarlane is guilty of the same in The Orville, but perhaps just doing a better job of imitation than some of the others.

The open question for me then is whether you can ever really go home again, and if so, what it takes to move that mountain.

The chronic case of musical chairs in the Star Wars franchise has been a good case-study.  Bringing JJ BACK for the last of three post-OT sequels could be seen as a matter of hedging bets or just plain futility.  What’s more curious is bringing Ron Howard in as a “fixer” for Solo, given that Howard is effectively a generational peer of George Lucas.

At one time there were a lot of rumors that Spielberg would eventually direct a Star Wars movie.  It never happened.  Indeed no well-regarded peer of Lucas ever took the wheel of the Star Wars franchise, leading one to always wonder ‘what if’.  We’ve now seen how the younger generation handles the franchise, either through sheer imitation in the case of JJ, or by injecting more war-documentary grit with Gareth Edwards.  We’ve yet to see how it would be handled by one of the old guard.

I’ve been a modest fan of Ron Howard.  I didn’t like his one foray into geekdom (Willow) and I don’t like the cash-grab Da Vinci Code films.  Probably my favorite Ron Howard film is Apollo 13.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but it’s a case where everything seemed to flow well from start to finish as a survival story.  You could say The Martian is the natural (fictional) descendant of the real-life incident of Apollo 13.

Nevertheless, Howard seems to have a knack for character oriented storytelling, something that was in short supply in the Star Wars prequels.  Also, his background in sitcoms is a natural for the more upbeat Guardians of the Galaxy vibe one might expect from Solo.  I just find it a little unusual to have a gray-hair like Howard come in sideways like this into a peer’s franchise.

What I am seeing, however, in the internet peanut gallery, is a big heaping dose of cynicism that I think originates from franchise fatigue.  Ever since Disney bought Star Wars, fandom has begun to view the slate as nothing but a cash-machine devoid of artistic motivation.

I think the reason for the disconent has to do with that residual notion that Star Wars really did contain a kernel of mythic/philosophical relevance, a sort of talisman for Generation X.  The idea of Star Wars containing something sacred has been slammed by many as stupid childhood nostalgia.  The films always were corny glorified B-movies!  Get over it!  Grow up!  But I think even some of this bashing that goes on is a cover for the fact that those same people really WERE once believers and they miss their lost innocence.

The first Star Wars film was a scrappy production that could have served as a standalone if necessary.  The following two films, due to their analog nature, were painstakingly produced, flaws and all (in the case of ROTJ).  Each one took roughly three years of effort whereas today it’s possible to crank them out faster thanks to CGI.  Big budget movies have become somewhat of an assembly line process despite the costs and high risk involved.  It’s hard to maintain that same sense of wonder, of seeing things and not knowing how it was done, today.  We just take everything for granted.

Is it possible, knowing that there will be a steady stream of franchise “product” to ever sit down and really appreciate any single one of them?  Or is the most we can expect is to be modestly entertained and then forget about the experience the next day?

That’s what I think about now in regards to these dinosaur franchises roaming the earth.  There was a time when they were new and fresh and awe-inspiring.  I’d like to think bringing in someone like Ron Howard with his age, widom, and different perspective, might be a good thing.  I also think bringing in new blood can be good, albeit risky.  But the bottom line is you have to really work extra hard to produce something that doesn’t just continue to debase the universe through sheer over-abundance.

Rather than just asssume the worst and whine and complain as I normally do on this blog, I’m going to cross my fingers.

–othreviewer