It has gotten to the point where I actually shudder when Hollywood returns to one of the movie universes I grew up with.

     

        

Are movies (and a TV show) that quite frankly I love.

And they’re making sequels to or re-tinkering them because:

 

Now statistically  at least one of these movies will probably be half-way decent and even if they’re all Batman and Robin Jr. , it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  (No, seriously, it wouldn’t be.)

However, the funny thing is that studios keep returning to these franchises because of the audience they are guaranteed to draw in.  An strong percentage of the human population will see a new Star Wars movie simply because the words “Star” and “Wars” are in the title.  At the same time, these “built-in” audiences resent the studios for bringing back and often ruining the characters and worlds they grew up with.  The reason why I dread a Zach Snyder Batman movie so much is because I love Batman, both in the comic books and on the big screen.  I wouldn’t care if Zach Snyder was making a Twilight movie (That, I actually might want to see…if I could see it for free.)

It’s even worse when they tinker with franchises from our early childhoods.   For example:

This was just insulting.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats and Duck Tales are sacred parts of my childhood that don’t need to be brought back.  They were AWSOME in the early 90’s and that is where they should stay.

The world does not need a gritty Darkwing Duck reboot.

But the thing that’s really funny is that I have started to get more excited about the franchises that, frankly, I don’t care about.

For example:

I felt about Avatar the same way I felt about Titanic.  It definitely wasn’t as good as its fans claimed, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it’s detractors said it was either.  Overall I’d give it a B….maybe B-.  Fun and cool special effects but not mind-blowing.

So why am I more excited about the new Avatar movies than I am about the new Star Wars movies?

Because if Episode IV if closer to Phantom than to Empire it’ll be yet ANOTHER low point on one of my favorite film franchises.  It’ll be another example of how a once great mythology was crumpled into crap just so a studio could make another billion dollars.

However, if the new Avatar movies are crud then, oh well, it’s another cruddy science fiction movie.  At the same time if they’re amazing, then I’ll be delightfully surprised.  What’s at stake is considerably lower.

I’ve noticed this same trend among my friends.

With the exception of X-Men (and to a lesser extent Spider-Man) I really didn’t grow up in the Marvel Universe.

So when:

came out, I really wasn’t that critical.  I just came away thinking of it as a fun/funny action movie.  However, I have plenty of friends who have been reading stories about these characters since they could read and had plenty of problems with the was Joss Whedon brought them to the big screen.

Same with the new James Bond movies.  I never really had anything for or against 007.  I’m completely fine with Daniel Craig just because for the most part they’ve been solid action movies.  However, I have friends and family who have seen ever single Bond movie and have plenty to say about things that Casino Royal and Skyfall get wrong.

So we have gotten to the point (honestly we probably got to this point decades ago)where movies based on franchises that we love tend to make us more upset that movies based on franchises we don’t really give a hoot about.  Hollywood is depending on the fan boys and girls to fill those seats when it’s really the non-fans who enjoy these movies the most.