Deja view

This feature was published in BULL's seventh edition for 2012.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Three simple words which environmental conservationists and the big, bad empires of the entertainment industry share as their common creed. Who’da thunk it?

Perhaps the phrase requires some moderation. “Reunite, remake, rerelease” seem to be the order of the day in the entertainment world. Try to hate it though we might, what journalist Natalie Craig describes as our “postmodern penchant for cultural recycling” is difficult to deny.

Usually more so than new offerings, revivals pull on our heartstrings, taking advantage of the potency of nostalgia. Absence so frequently (though not always) makes the heart grow fonder. This existing attachment works both ways, however. Often disappointing re-interpretations of once-mighty favourites induce overly-defensive, protectionist attacks. We see the contemporary updates as stains on our memories of a beloved original.

Old faithfuls, when not tampered with too much, can undergo facelifts that benefit both purveyor and audience. Disney has recently demonstrated this by capitalising on 3D technology. The Lion King 3D, released in cinemas last year, grossed almost $95 million according to Box Office Mojo. Not bad, considering the relatively small investment. Following this success, Disney’s biggest cash cows (or ‘family favourites’, as they’ll surely call them in the promos) will be undergoing similar treatments. Beauty and the Beast and now Finding Nemo have already had 3D cinematic releases, with this rollout to be succeeded by Monsters, Inc. and The Little Mermaid next year.

New is not necessarily better, however. The surviving members of iconic rock band Queen have teamed up with high-profile vocalists to aid them since the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991.  The band participated in the Olympic Closing Ceremony, with Mercury making an interactive appearance at the beginning of the sequence. However, although Jessie J took on ‘We Will Rock You’ with confidence and skill, Freddie’s raw charisma was conspicuous in its absence, casting a shadow over the performance. Journalist David Jays described the revival of the “glossy remnants” of the band, articulating the clear lack of what many continue to see as its core element.

2010's Progress: is new always better?

Fellow Olympic performers Take That serve as a case study in how to pull off a perfect, sustained reboot. When the boy-band split in 1996, soon after Robbie Williams flew the nest to become a solo star, no one expected they’d register so much as a blip on the pop charts again. Almost a decade later, however, the band (still sans Robbie) released a greatest hits package, fostering the nostalgia of mum-groupies across Britain and inspiring rumblings of more to come. The three albums they’ve released subsequently have sold almost eight million copies combined, eclipsing the band’s original sales figures. According to cultural commentator Tom Ewing, the crafting of the reunion as “a new chapter, not an unnecessary sequel” ensured the ongoing success of the group in its second manifestation. The return of Robbie on 2010’s Progress saw the group complete their seamless transformation from boy band to man-band.

Album reissuing is another phenomenon that has become mysteriously abundant in recent years. Every festive season seems to bring a slew of Greatest Hits, Number Ones, Best Ofs and Ultimate Collections from a variety of stars from the pop music hall of fame, with the addition of re-mastered, remixed or rediscovered “gems” – usually lukewarm leftovers or ‘b-sides’ – aimed at sealing the deal. These rather desperate measures might be attributed to the rapidly declining rate of CD sales that have marred the music industry since the general population discovered how to use the internet. In fact, it’s not out of the ordinary for an album to be relaunched after only a couple of months on the charts. This practice is seemingly justified by the addition of two or three new tracks aimed at inducing repeat purchase for only the most rabid of fans.

While we might expect such shameless profiteering from the music business, the tamer world of publishing is no innocent bystander either and is just as accustomed to producing questionable reworkings of cult classics to make a quick buck or two. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is but one title in a series of zombie-fied classics that have purists reaching for their muskets. Presumably, Jane Austen’s estate approved Seth Grahame-Smith’s gory reinterpretation at some stage since Madame Austen is listed as a co-author.

The biggest change in Seth Grahame-Smith’s version of the classic is in diegesis. In his version, Darcy courts Elizabeth in an alternate universe in which the English countryside is plagued not by foxes, but the undead. Maybe the series represents an attempt to reconcile the prim and proper readers of Austen with fang-baring Twihards, that is, diehard fans of the Twilight series. In any case, this questionable repositioning seems to have paid off with a movie rumoured to be in the works. (As if we didn’t have enough versions of Pride and Prejudice already.)The pulsing activity of film franchises represents another means of cashing in on a long-existing narrative. Rather than pay for the rights to entirely new screenplays, why not just rip off and appropriate existing ones?

The continuation of many series is in some ways admirable. Twenty-two James Bond films have been released to date, with a new instalment on the immediate horizon. It’s clear that efforts have been made to update and reinvigorate the core narrative for a modern audience.  It’s also interesting to note that most long-running franchises revolve around (and are primarily targeted at) men. But, that’s a different discussion to be had in a different article.

While it’s easy to rattle off a list of franchises whose sequels and prequels dominate all-time box office lists, more often than not the law of diminishing returns applies. When a studio produces a successful movie, it’ll probably continue to release subsequent instalments until the box office numbers prompt the franchise to end with a whimper.

American Pie was released in 1999, with a sequel proving even more successful two years later. This year’s American Reunion, however – the fourth in the series – grossed $1 million less than the original, despite thirteen years of inflation. Familiarity here has apparently bred not only contempt, but also ignorance. Dragging a franchise out over any period of time is problematic. The original audience will likely grow and change, but if the franchise does so as well it is liable to accusations of ‘selling out’ or ‘not knowing its strengths’.

Of course, there’s a fine line between knowing your audience and going through the motions. Earlier this year, posters plastered across Eastern Avenue heralded the glorious reunion of S Club 7, the early-noughties juggernaut credited with chart-toppers like Don’t Stop Movin’ and Bring It All Back. The reality didn’t quite live up to this promise, and more closely resembled an RSL club tribute act than a true S Club Party. Nobody really wanted to see Bradley swing, and Rachel neither made an appearance nor did her thing. In fact, only three sevenths of the band made it to the Sunrise set, where they were joined by four dancers to make up the numbers. There’s something both tragic and cathartic about seeing the stars of yore squeezed into a costume 3 sizes too small, trying to hype a semi-invested audience into enjoying something they don’t remember all that well.

In order for yearning rather than yawning to be fostered, an appropriate period of absence should be enforced for franchises. Ewing told the Guardian that the prompts for a product’s initial demise “take time to heal”. Having rested Spiderman for a not-so-whopping five years, Marvel Entertainment this year brought the series back to the big screen. Prior to the release of The Amazing Spiderman, director Marc Webb assured fans and critics that his subject was ready for review. He told Empire magazine that there’s “something iconic about that character, but there is something also incredibly flexible that can withstand and benefit from different interpretations”. Audiences voted with their feet, however. Despite grossing a healthy $735 million, The Amazing Spiderman currently stands as the lowest-grossing Spiderman movie to date.

At the other end of the spectrum is Puberty Blues. The seminal Australian novel, released in 1979 and adapted into a cult film in 1981, lay dormant for about thirty years before finally being resurrected as a TV miniseries by Channel Ten this year. When given a wide berth, cross-media adaptations can be fascinating. Channel Ten’s series received rave reviews for the refreshing retrospective it provided on the now-denigrated Shire and its values. 

Over-saturation in any given time period, though, can be tiresome. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has been subject to two popular spin-offs series in recent years. The BBC’s television production has co-existed with a film franchise starring Robert Downey Jr. The two take quite different approaches in casting, setting and tone, but both play upon the same classic tales.

There’s no hard-and-fast rule regarding what should be left to the misty blur of memory, and what’s suitable to be wheeled out once again. The criteria tend to vary from one person to the next; it largely depends on whether you like your revivals to be tragic or triumphant. What you consider each category to constitute, and whether they’re mutually exclusive, is also important.

In any case, it looks as if we’re set to be privy to a whole lot more revivals. According to Ewing, bands, texts and films are increasingly undergoing a “revolving-door afterlife”. Fellow journalist Elvis Mitchell has gone so far as to claim, rather worryingly, that “nothing will go away ever again”. Bring on The Fast and the Furious 12: Hover Car Handover.