4 ms·

I'm not nearly as convinced that 'franchises' are a bad thing. Certainly, there's some serious cash cows there, and some of the franchise movies are mediocre mo

I'm not nearly as convinced that 'franchises' are a bad thing. Certainly, there's some serious cash cows there, and some of the franchise movies are mediocre movies. But they're no more or less mediocre than the all-original movies that filled the production slots before them. There's about a hundred movies released by the major studios a year; How many can you name from any given year? Five? Ten? What franchises represent, to me, is the new search for continuity. The world is changing faster, relationships are getting more tenuous. Moving around, finding new friends, new places to hang out and eat and drink and be merry; All these things have been enabled by the internet and the sharing economy. I moved to a new town about 3 months ago, I eat out every night and I've eaten at precisely two places twice: A korean joint I like because it's named for Psy's masterpiece, and an indian place a former coworker recommended. The rest of the time, I've been trying new things, searching for the 'perfect' meal, never satisfied. In this search for novelty, something has been lost. There's a reason why you see so many tumblr handles of the form 'harrypotterlover21' and 'twilightfan32'. People identify with these stories and universes, and find their sense of connection and emotional stability with them. It's no longer specific people that you have a connection with, but a grouping based on a shared interest; perhaps one that belies a mindset? It ties into, as well, the current trend of TV shows to be long-form entertainment. We want to see characters grow and establish themselves. 1 1/2 hours isn't long enough. 3 hours rarely is. Franchises allow stories to be told iteratively. That's a good thing for movies and art. There's nothing special about the traditional runtime for a film that makes it more artistic; that's just how long humans are willing to sit down and focus on one thing at a time.

danielweber 12y ago
There was an interview with George RR Martin at least 15 years ago (that I couldn't find in 5 seconds of Googling) where he made a similar point. Some people were complaining that too many books were parts of series, but that's what people wanted: an ongoing connection to a universe.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  Martin and Jordan and Goodkind ... they never shine. Their serial work is mediocre at best - the best Martin book is Tuff (sci fi short stories). Trilogy seems to be the optimal size for a big story to be told. Above that is hard. And even Zelazny was not able to pull off amber properly. The prolific multi genre author - the one that could create a full universe for a short story and throw it away is rare beast. So in a sense what happens to hollywood is something that for us geeks has happened before in two beloved medias - books and games. The only thing that prevented the game industry to die creatively was the tremendously low cost of entry into the PC market where the interesting stuff was happening after the 2009 [1]. [1] Owned and played on PS2, PS3, Xbox and xbox 360 next to my gaming PC.
cousin_it 12y ago
I agree that continuity is very pleasant, both for artists and for audiences. In the past few months I've noticed that online entertainment is groping toward a new kind of business model where the artist just keeps working on a single property and never stops, escalating the ambitions and production values as the audience grows. An example of what I'm talking about is the webcomic Homestuck, which started as some simple panels with text and now evolved to thousands of pages with intricate animations, musical pieces and even videogames spliced into one big narrative. From being written by a single person (who still has full creative control), the comic has gradually grown to have a dedicated art team, music team and gamedev studio. An almost-example is the videogame Nuclear Throne. It's currently being developed by a two-person studio, and the creators make a point of releasing new updates every single week and interacting with the audience constantly, talking to Redditors and building good relationships with Youtubers. By now it's had 50+ weekly updates and just keeps going. A big part of me wants the game to never be "finished" but just stay in development forever, like a webcomic, becoming more ambitious as money permits. The game's universe is certainly interesting enough to allow that kind of development, you could imagine all kinds of stories set inside the game, etc. The awesome thing about this model is that you can start very small. Homestuck started with one guy, Nuclear Throne started with two guys. If you can keep growing the audience at every step, who's to say that you can't end up with a billion dollar movie franchise, or even crazier things?
- another 12y ago
  (cf. Dwarf Fortress)
  - cousin_it 12y ago
    Good example! Many MMOs also follow this kind of model. Though it still feels a bit incomplete in my mind, I guess I'd prefer the updates to be more regular and "story-like". We're probably still missing some important pieces of the puzzle to make this model work really well.

danielweber 12y ago

There was an interview with George RR Martin at least 15 years ago (that I couldn't find in 5 seconds of Googling) where he made a similar point. Some people were complaining that too many books were parts of series, but that's what people wanted: an ongoing connection to a universe.

venomsnake 12y ago
Martin and Jordan and Goodkind ... they never shine. Their serial work is mediocre at best - the best Martin book is Tuff (sci fi short stories). Trilogy seems to be the optimal size for a big story to be told. Above that is hard. And even Zelazny was not able to pull off amber properly. The prolific multi genre author - the one that could create a full universe for a short story and throw it away is rare beast. So in a sense what happens to hollywood is something that for us geeks has happened before in two beloved medias - books and games. The only thing that prevented the game industry to die creatively was the tremendously low cost of entry into the PC market where the interesting stuff was happening after the 2009 [1]. [1] Owned and played on PS2, PS3, Xbox and xbox 360 next to my gaming PC.

cousin_it 12y ago

I agree that continuity is very pleasant, both for artists and for audiences. In the past few months I've noticed that online entertainment is groping toward a new kind of business model where the artist just keeps working on a single property and never stops, escalating the ambitions and production values as the audience grows. An example of what I'm talking about is the webcomic Homestuck, which started as some simple panels with text and now evolved to thousands of pages with intricate animations, musical pieces and even videogames spliced into one big narrative. From being written by a single person (who still has full creative control), the comic has gradually grown to have a dedicated art team, music team and gamedev studio. An almost-example is the videogame Nuclear Throne. It's currently being developed by a two-person studio, and the creators make a point of releasing new updates every single week and interacting with the audience constantly, talking to Redditors and building good relationships with Youtubers. By now it's had 50+ weekly updates and just keeps going. A big part of me wants the game to never be "finished" but just stay in development forever, like a webcomic, becoming more ambitious as money permits. The game's universe is certainly interesting enough to allow that kind of development, you could imagine all kinds of stories set inside the game, etc. The awesome thing about this model is that you can start very small. Homestuck started with one guy, Nuclear Throne started with two guys. If you can keep growing the audience at every step, who's to say that you can't end up with a billion dollar movie franchise, or even crazier things?

another 12y ago
(cf. Dwarf Fortress)
- cousin_it 12y ago
  Good example! Many MMOs also follow this kind of model. Though it still feels a bit incomplete in my mind, I guess I'd prefer the updates to be more regular and "story-like". We're probably still missing some important pieces of the puzzle to make this model work really well.