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I've been watching a good many videos about Indiana Jones 5. Morbid curiosity I suppose. I haven't actually had any desire to see it. Most of the videos have been very negative, though a few people who've seen the movie thought it was okay, if short of really good.
Watching these videos did remind me of something I should have remembered from childhood. The more sequels a really popular movie gets the less interesting they get. Take a movie like the 1931 version of Frankenstein. How many sequels and rip offs did that get by the time I was old enough to watch them? Dozens surely, a variety of actors playing the monster from the chilling Boris Karloff to the overweight Lon Chaney Jr. and the less than chilling Glenn Strange (who people would remember as Sam the bartender on Gunsmoke, if at all). I knew as a kid that sooner or later a franchise was going to devolve into dreck. When I was a teenager, the Dracula movies got a new nadir in Billy the Kid vs Dracula.
But, when I was not much older I forgot the facts about repeated sequels. I came out of the first Star Wars and the first Indiana Jones, thinking I'd really like to see another, and I had hopes for the Christopher Reeve Superman (Okay, I did fully expect Rocky and Rambo movies to get progressively worse, but I was never enthused about the originals in those series.) Superman crapped out fairly quickly, but Star Wars and Indiana Jones each managed three decent movies. Star Trek movies actually improved after the first one. But nothing lasts forever. Bringing back Star Wars with the prequel series (to put it mildly) wasn't what one would hope for. The later Indiana Jones IV was bad, embarrassingly so in places. The Star Trek Next Gen movies which I saw, all missed the mark, and Star Trek the Reboot was so far from sci-fi that I thought the characters should have been renamed and it should have been called something else besides Star Trek.
The studios seem to have forgotten that the old trashy sequels made money by being cheaply made. The recent rehashes have all had big budgets. I liked Rogue One, and thought The Force Awakens wasn't horrible. But knowing a few spoilers I've not wanted to see either of the final two in the recent Star Wars trilogy. Everything I've heard about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Disappointment leads me to believe that Disney no longer has a clue about its audience these days. Indiana Jones V might be a decent film, but it's not what Indiana Jones fans want to see. Disney has been losing money on all its releases this year, so if they lose money on Dial of Desperation it's not surprising. Maybe it's partially that the desire to see movies in theaters faded when that wasn't possible during COVID. The studios can only hope that isn't permanent.
Surely, movie goers may be fed up with high-budget, zombified retreads of old material, that have no respect for their source. Perhaps movie makers should try something original, like something original.
Watching these videos did remind me of something I should have remembered from childhood. The more sequels a really popular movie gets the less interesting they get. Take a movie like the 1931 version of Frankenstein. How many sequels and rip offs did that get by the time I was old enough to watch them? Dozens surely, a variety of actors playing the monster from the chilling Boris Karloff to the overweight Lon Chaney Jr. and the less than chilling Glenn Strange (who people would remember as Sam the bartender on Gunsmoke, if at all). I knew as a kid that sooner or later a franchise was going to devolve into dreck. When I was a teenager, the Dracula movies got a new nadir in Billy the Kid vs Dracula.
But, when I was not much older I forgot the facts about repeated sequels. I came out of the first Star Wars and the first Indiana Jones, thinking I'd really like to see another, and I had hopes for the Christopher Reeve Superman (Okay, I did fully expect Rocky and Rambo movies to get progressively worse, but I was never enthused about the originals in those series.) Superman crapped out fairly quickly, but Star Wars and Indiana Jones each managed three decent movies. Star Trek movies actually improved after the first one. But nothing lasts forever. Bringing back Star Wars with the prequel series (to put it mildly) wasn't what one would hope for. The later Indiana Jones IV was bad, embarrassingly so in places. The Star Trek Next Gen movies which I saw, all missed the mark, and Star Trek the Reboot was so far from sci-fi that I thought the characters should have been renamed and it should have been called something else besides Star Trek.
The studios seem to have forgotten that the old trashy sequels made money by being cheaply made. The recent rehashes have all had big budgets. I liked Rogue One, and thought The Force Awakens wasn't horrible. But knowing a few spoilers I've not wanted to see either of the final two in the recent Star Wars trilogy. Everything I've heard about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Disappointment leads me to believe that Disney no longer has a clue about its audience these days. Indiana Jones V might be a decent film, but it's not what Indiana Jones fans want to see. Disney has been losing money on all its releases this year, so if they lose money on Dial of Desperation it's not surprising. Maybe it's partially that the desire to see movies in theaters faded when that wasn't possible during COVID. The studios can only hope that isn't permanent.
Surely, movie goers may be fed up with high-budget, zombified retreads of old material, that have no respect for their source. Perhaps movie makers should try something original, like something original.