(Proposal draft)

Today’s film industry is going nuts over for sequels and turning away mingling with new titles. The remake of comic book heroes to fit into the big screen has become a phenomenon in the entertainment world. Old movies were remade, comic books were rewritten, old game titles were revived and followed with more downloadable content or expansion packs. The game plan are the product made not only made to sell to new generations but in the same time to the old that have a history with them. The entertainment industry today is manipulating fan’s nostalgia and loyalty to secure their franchise, their line of profit.

Are sequels always inferior to its prequel?  Is repetition necessarily bad?  

In my opinion, it depends on the effort and objective of the sequel. We cannot stop having sequels because they sell if they previous were good but neither can we stop people from making bad sequels for marketing purposes.

Why entertainment industry is using existing titles

Why Spiderman’s storyline is rewritten again, again and again? Also known as Retcon, (  )
Compared to starting a whole new title, entertainment industry found that consumer prefers a pleasant surprise instead of a complete new surprises. What audience wanted their product to be is familiarity but in the same time new. They know the story would be similar but different in a way which is what entertains them. When a familiar title is released, they know that a certain target audience will be attracted.

“Young Justice”,

Sometimes it is not about the stories but the characters they love to see, the audience just enjoys seeing the character in motion. Poor storyline are easy to be forgiven and they would spend time and money to see their favorite hero being developed.

Adventure of Ting Ting.

Of course, when recreating the old, there will always be critic saying the original is better, despite the new graphic CGI, acting and atmosphere design. Original are often in idealized form. Not able to satisfy everyone.

Whats make a bad sequel?

The controversial first person shooter game, Call of Duty, have a special place in quite a number fan’s heart. When the game style switched from historical World war 2 reenaction to a close to real fictional modern day combat with storyline, the game became center of attraction and the role model and inspiration of many shooting games today. However, the downfall begins where the franchise produces a sequel every consequent year which made the fan turning away from the title. The repitition of gameplay disappoint the fan’s even with great storyline.

The Sims series was one of its kind for simulation genre. What ruined the sims 3 is endless loop of repetition of game play and also its expansion packs and add-ons.

G.I Joe may be one of the worst sequel, the main purpose of the

Not all sequel, marketing and repetition is bad.

However there are a few exception of sequels or remakes that got pretty good.
Christopher Nolan was always well known for writing and directing great movies.

Nostalgia marketing weren’t always fell to the bad side. Pixar’s studio utilized the technique efficiently. Toy Story 3 were perfectly made, the story is carefully composed made it appealing to both generation who grew up on watching the first two episodes and those who born latter than don’t.  

Pokemon, popular until this day where its 5^th generation is coming out soon, this repetitive monster capturing and dueling game originally aimed for kids are still played by adults that grew up playing them. The reason its fan still playing them is because that the game is simple and progressive. The game supports and doesn’t change the nostalgic look until latter version, encourages collection which every human does, and communication between players for trade and dueling. One of the main feature of pokemon is that previous captured pokemon can be transferred from previous version to the latter version, apart from starting the game over from zero, encourages loyalty to the franchise. The game mechanism doesn’t bore the players but keep them coming back for more because they felt comfortable inside this world, different from Call of Duty and The Sims series, where theres only add on to each sequel, but game saves, achievement cannot be transferred to each version.

How Malaysian consume nostalgia product. Reflective nostalgia and refractive nostalgia.

How Malaysian react towards repetition towards the entertaining industry and titles. How they consume entertainment products.

Repeatition and origininality in advertising in Malaysia.

Nostalgia were meant to make one feels good, but it is repeatition that makes people get tired of it. When the sense of contuity is lost by repeating changes, the sense of belonging is lost.

There will always be looping.