The lost art of moving on

Henry Jobe, Contributing Writer

Humans have always been drawn to sequels, a second opportunity. It is part of our human curiosity to want to know what happens next. Most of William Shakespeare’s plays directly precede or follow each other narratively and there are more film trilogies than I could ever count. 

Despite that, these stories were eventually resolved and audiences naturally moved on. They still owned box sets and hardcovers, but there was an understanding that the story was over.

In recent years, I began to notice an unhealthy shift in the way people engage with stories. This isn’t specific to Gen Z, I believe it is true for previous generations as well. There is a rising animosity toward the idea of a truly conclusive ending — one that I find concerning. 

Truthfully, I’m not immune to it either. I still happily immerse myself in the spin-offs and reboots of stories I have a deep emotional connection with. I believe the problem stems from this emotional attachment. The experiences we had with these works have attached us to these franchises and it is incredibly challenging to let go.

The growth of the internet corresponded with the growth of fan culture, nearly every series or franchise has a presence on websites like Tumblr, Reddit or Discord. If you interface with a story and want to learn more about it, chances are you’ll quickly find people who know every single thing about it — recounting behind-the-scenes, stories, their interpretations of the themes and even writing fanfiction. 

These aren’t too revolutionary, but one more recent change has affected this severely — studios and publishers have begun to appeal to this audience.

Now there is a glut of officially released tie-in media for nearly every intellectual property, guidebooks for television shows which concluded over a decade ago and direct sequels or reboots of films that were released in the 1980s. Popular characters, fictional or otherwise, are revived for commercials, comic books and website write-ups. 

We have reached the point where companies are working on remakes of films they have already made, as opposed to original content. When original content is released, it is buried beneath the sea of recognizable iconography.

Companies banking on this isn’t unexpected, but what has surprised me is how audiences receive these shallow resurrections. Remade films gross billions and paltry mentions trend on social media. We have happily gobbled up every fresh drop of our favorite worlds. We would rather rewatch our favorite movies, replay our favorite games and reread our favorite books than try something new. We happily sacrifice the meaning of these stories in exchange for one more adventure within them.

Moving on is frightening. There is nothing scarier than loving something and realizing there are only two episodes, one level or 25 pages left before it ends. That’s why mods, fanfiction and fan films exist. They are an excellent way for people to find new ways to interact with these finished stories. Their most valuable aspect however, is that they often serve as a creator’s inciting incident, directing them to go on to write their own original stories and create new worlds.

I don’t feel ashamed for loving something that deeply affected me. It is human nature to feel linked to the stories that changed us. I have just one suggestion: Next time you’re about to rewatch your comfort movie, or open up your favorite book, consider trying something new. 

Watch that movie at the bottom of the menu or that book that’s still sitting on your shelf untouched. Open yourself up to something solely unfamiliar and you may discover something wonderful.