As time progresses, popular movies and franchises have been brought back into the light for newer generations. It has brought some nostalgia for older generations while also introducing it to younger generations. Though others find that remakes and adaptations take away the magic from the original material.
Barbie brought nostalgia to many audiences who grew up with the beloved doll, the movie had many callbacks to previous doll lines and moments while keeping Barbie’s charm. After its success, movie studios decided to develop other films based on popular Mattel toys such as Polly Pocket, UNO, Hot Wheels, and Barney.
While the premise is interesting, it feels like it is just being done because of how much success Barbie had. Barbie’s success was because of its themes of womanhood while bringing back childhood memories. It seems as if these movie studios are thinking of quantity over quality. It is quite common for studios to overload their material when it is not always needed.
“I think they’re cool, but they’re getting to be too overdone, like they’re trying too hard and it’s not fantastic sometimes” Said by CSHS student, Bailey Hanlon.
Ms. Taylor, who teaches AICE Psychology at CSHS was asked why people lean more towards stories from childhood “Probably because they have an emotional connection to those things and those are things that built their character and who they are, so as a child we start to build our personality and deciding the things we like and the things we don’t like, and… that’s like basis of who we are”.
She was also asked why people feel the need to adapt or change the stories we grew up with “I would say that the reason they do that is based on their environment like… the way the world changes, social media, it could be lots of reasons why we might change tradition and stick to things that are like, new or novel to us I guess, because of the world around us, like what problems we face at that current time.”
TMNT has been adapted through shows, games, and movies, its most recent one Mutant Mayhem comes with cool animation and a new version of the turtles we love. The turtles still have their lovable charms older audiences grew up with while also having humor and slang that newer generations can recognize and enjoy. It also brings back known characters from the franchise and references.
The Super Mario Bros movie also does something similar, bringing in references and callbacks to the games. We also got to learn more about who the characters are and see their families. The movie also showed origins of places and where the characters ended up.
I think it is cool that some movies are being made and adapted for newer generations who are not familiar with these stories and franchises. But I do not think they should be overmilked just because another movie was successful. It should be done because you have a story you want to tell.
It is good to bring something new to the table, adaptations give creators the opportunity to work with new things and add new scenes that they could not add before because it was not accessible for its time. It is okay to experiment with new things, but it is important to remember the story you’re working with.
