[Moviegoing has unquestionably changed a great deal in recent years, but there is still a place for the summer blockbuster, and I believe there always will be. So for the unofficial kickoff of another summer season, I wanted to AmericanStudy a handful of recent such blockbusters!]
On a problem
and a possibility with our cultural moment of ubiquitous sequels.
A good bit
of the frame for today’s post is parallel to what I wrote in this prior
post about The Force Awakens
(2015), nostalgia, and multi-generational storytelling. So if you don’t mind
checking out that post and then coming back here, I’d appreciate it!
Welcome
back! I haven’t yet had a chance to see one of the biggest
blockbuster films of recent years, Top Gun: Maverick, and I don’t know that I will as I believe the
original Top Gun (1986) is one of the
worst blockbuster films ever made. That’s a personal opinion, of
course (although as that hyperlinked article reflects, I’m not alone in holding
it), but I do think it illustrates a larger problem with the genuinely ubiquitous
presence of sequels, prequels, reboots, and other uses of existing
intellectual properties in our current pop culture zeitgeist. The more this
kind of cultural product dominates the landscape, the more of these
existing/prior works filmmakers and creators will have to return to—and there
quite simply aren’t that many 1980s films (or works from any decade/moment)
that have enough going on to make a sequel or reboot worthwhile or meaningful. I
don’t think it’s my Star Wars fandom
alone that distinguishes that film franchise, and its truly imaginative
and culture-changing storytelling across so many decades and so many
different media (into all of which a sequel like The Force Awakens slotted thoughtfully, as I argued in that prior
post), from a simplistic and vapid individual blockbuster film like Top Gun.
So no, I
don’t think we needed another Top Gun
film. But from what I can tell (and again, haven’t seen it, so as always I
welcome responses and challenges in comments!), Maverick does do one really interesting thing that is a positive
possibility when it comes to these ubiquitous sequels (and that does link it to
Force Awakens and the entire recent Star Wars trilogy): it actively thinks
about time. That is, despite star Tom
Cruise’s seeming agelessness, he is of course three and a half decades
older than he was in the original film, and thus his character Pete “Maverick”
Mitchell is likewise. Much like the smash hit TV show Cobra Kai (which I
also haven’t seen, outside of clips here and there, but when does that stop an
AmericanStudier?!), Maverick is thus
able to not just continue the original story, but to reflect actively on the
passage of time, on themes of continuity and change, on the relationships
(limiting and enriching alike) between the past and the present. Maybe I’m
biased because those are the kinds of questions that define every part of my
work and career, but I believe we all can benefit from asking them, of our pop
culture stories and our own identities and everything in between. If even silly
blockbusters can help us do so, then count me in!
Next
blockbuster tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Summer blockbusters, recent or otherwise, you’d analyze?
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