Superhero Sequels and Reboots

The Story So Far......

Last time, I wrote about the way movie sequels nowadays are increasingly given a subtitle or name (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) rather than a number (Pirates of the Caribbean 4). My suggestion was that this is mostly a marketing ploy to convince us, the audience, that the film we’re about to see is good enough to stand on its own merits, and to avoid the malaise that is often associated with going to see movies with numbers after the title. For instance, would you rather see ‘Casino Royale’ or ‘James Bond 21’?

One thing I didn’t get around to exploring last time was the way this applies to Superhero films, and – in turn – what this tells us about how stories work over a number of sequels.

"Superhero films down the ages"

In the 1980s the Superman films were simply called Superman, Superman II, Superman III and Superman IV (although this last one had the subtitle the Quest for Peace).

Batman set a new precedent in the 1990s with its sequels called, respectively, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin. Admittedly we did recently have Spidermans I, II and III. But I think those are more of an exception in today’s movie world. There is now yet another new Spiderman film – this one called The Amazing Spiderman, and the new Batman film (Batman III) is called The Dark Knight Rises.

I’d suggest that the naming of today’s Superhero movies owes a lot to the fact they’re all reboots of previously-established franchises. After all, what could they have called Batman Begins: Batman Zero? The new Spiderman movie effectively ignores the previous franchise, so could hardly have been called either ‘Spiderman’ (again), or ‘Spiderman IV’. I wonder if the film-makers considered calling it Spiderman Begins? I suspect they avoided it because they don’t want cinema-goers to think ‘Oh, they’re doing a ‘Batman Begins’ to Spiderman now are they? Typical! Anything to breathe new life into an old dog’

Erm... Spidey. You forgot to wear your hat thing....

Shake that Rebooty!

In some ways I think rebooting is a rather creative way of continuing a franchise. At least it avoids the tortuous explanations required in some sequels for a) continuing a story that was all wrapped up in the previous film, and b) resurrecting a character who was written out or killed off (the previously referred-to character played by Sean Connery in Highlander II). It basically frees you up from, for instance, having to find a way to bring the Joker back to life when he’s been dead for ten years, or from being restricted by any of the developments in the previous film.

As an aside here, I think even these situations can bring out the best in some writers. I love the way Arthur Conan Doyle made a virtue out of necessity, and brought Sherlock Holmes back from the dead, explaining his long absence by the fact he was working undercover to flush out Moriarty’s remaining criminal network.

Reboots seem to work so well, precisely because the cinema-goer is aware of the previous versions. I’m thinking of the character of Bond in Casino Royale and the enjoyment that’s to be had watching the emergence of a character that is destined to become the James Bond we already know. There’s good writing material to be had in, for instance, a scene where he orders Martini without his trademark ‘shaken not stirred’. Or when he’s been poisoned and his heart has stopped beating (what! James Bond can’t surely die on his first mission!). Or when he hands in his resignation to the Secret Service near the end of Casino Royale (What! He hasn’t even met Blofeld yet, and he’s already given up being a secret agent!)

…Or watching Hannibal Rising and knowing that this young man is destined to become Dr Lecter

…Or watching the cast of Star Trek assemble for the first time, knowing that the rancorous relationship between Kirk and Spock is destined to become a close and warm one.

… and so on.

Lovely view ... and notice those foot holds near the top of the picture

Reboots v Prequels

I mention these ‘origins’ films together, but actually they are slightly different beasts to what we are discussing. I think there’s a subtle difference between Prequels (The Phantom Menace, Hannibal Rising) and reboots (Casino Royale, Batman Begins, The Amazing Spiderman). Prequels work with our knowledge about later unalterable events (eg the character of 'Magneto' in X-Men: First Class, who is destined to go to the bad); whereas reboots work with our knowledge about earlier versions of the same story or character. With reboots, there’s a sense that things can still work out differently (indeed, in the re-booted Star Trek film, the storyline opens up an alternative reality, and therefore makes possible an entirely new timeline for subsequent Start Trek films).

  

For instance, Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise is interesting in the way it deliberately avoids the perennially dark Gotham City favoured by Tim Burton’s films, and by computer games such as Arkham Asylum. The bat cave is hardly a dark cave – it’s a well-lit functional and spacious basement. The batmobile is more functional and practical compared to the stylish and gothic vehicle of the Burton films.  In Nolan’s films, Bruce Wayne is a spoilt playboy, rather than the reclusive and tortured Bruce Wayne as played by Michael Keaton. And much of the action in The Dark Knight actually takes place in broad daylight. What I suppose I’m saying here, is that when we watch the new Batman films, we’re still conscious of the previous versions – rather like watching someone new play Hamlet or Dr Who, and automatically comparing it to previous portrayals.

David Tennant: Hamlet and Dr Who. Two in One combined. What value!

Creating a Modern Myth?

Let’s make no bones about it. Studios create reboots and sequels for guaranteed box office, and because they are generally not willing to take financial risks with new stories. But this results in an interesting phenomenon. When you cast different actors in the same role (Connery, Lazenby, Craig for Bond; Jack Nicholson /Heath Ledger as the Joker; Michael Keaton /Christian Bale for Batman), you inadvertently create something bigger than just the one version – you create a myth (in inverted commas).

I’d argue that the Bond films – the most successful of the franchises we’ve been discussing – has survived precisely because of its casting of different actors and its willful ignoring of any sense of chronology or ageing. The James Bond in the books is of a particular place and time, rather like George Smiley in Tinker Tailor. But the James Bond of the movie franchise is as much at home in the Cold War as he is on Twitter. And the funny thing is – we, the audience, simply take that for granted. Casino Royale should really have been set in the 1950s or 1960s with Daniel Craig. Instead they had James Bond begin his career in the 2000s when all the subsequent missions we'd seen previously took place during the Cold War and its aftermath!

All these different movies simply become versions of an ‘uber’ story. Batman isn’t just Nolan’s interpretation. It’s Burton’s as well (and Heaven help us, the 1960s camp version). I’m reluctant to use the word ‘myth’ here, but maybe that’s closer to what we’re talking about. Maybe Superman, Spiderman and Batman are an attempt to create a ‘modern myth’, although I’d argue they are not necessarily resonant in the same way that, for instance, Lord of the Rings is (the novel, not the film).

Mr George Smiley, pondering what to put on his Twitter update

And now for the Science ...

A parallel in literature would be, for instance, the Arthurian legend stories.  There are different versions of which knights do, or don’t win the Holy Grail. There are numerous stories of all the quests undertaken by different knights, many of whom appear in each other’s stories – but there’s no attempt to organize these into a strictly chronological order. The proliferation of Arthurian stories by different authors all those centuries ago wasn’t by design, but ended up creating numerous versions of similar or identical events. The point isn't to pick and choose which versions you prefer and ignore the rest; it's that all the versions exist happily side by side, even when they depict utterly contradictory events.

  

If one was getting carried away, one could also cite Greek Tragedy as another example – many Tragedians wrote different plays about the same characters and events like the Trojan War.

And finally ....

I think nowadays we like reboots and what I call ‘origin stories’ because they are reassuring to us. Like hearing the same bedtime story for the umpteenth time. We like the story because we know what’s about to happen.

In fact, it’s no different to what happens in many stories. Although we might not know it, we have an inbuilt template for how stories work. When we watch The Artist, we instinctively know it will all work out for our hero in the end. When we watch Tinker, Tailor, we know that George Smiley will be successful in finding the mole in the Circus.

‘Origin’ stories take this one step further. It’s not just that we sense things will work out in the end; we know they will, because we know that the hero survives this battle for the many future adventures we have already enjoyed.