May the 4th

[author_by_night]

I was inspired by a Facebook post I wrote a few years ago, expressing confusion over all the May the 4th jokes. I then realized that I'd been doing the same thing to people as a huge Harry Potter fan - they would mention they'd read the books, and I'd start going on about something that wasn't immediately clear to more casual fans, leaving them confused.

I still haven't seen past the first Star Wars sequel. I really need to amend that.

Questions for YOU guys:

1. Is there anything you like only casually, only to mislead people into excitement when you mention it?

2. Have you ever confused a casual fan with ALL the love and knowledge?

3. What is your stance on the Star Wars sequels? Do you consider them canon? (If your comment contains spoilers, please mark it. I originally asked that this be spoiler free, but that's not fair to anyone who really wants to get into it! It IS Star Wars Day, after all.)

4. What is a book, movie, or series you WOULD like to see a sequel or prequel to? Or, if it's already had one of those, do you think it could be done better?

Comments

[pedanther]

I'm really ambivalent about the prospect of a Knives Out sequel, because I definitely want Rian Johnson to do another movie like that, but I think what I really mean by that is "the same sort of thing but with an unrelated plot and completely new characters that it makes me love as much as Knives Out made me love its characters", because Knives Out is a carefully designed device and I don't think you can just take some of the pieces out and build a new device around them and have it work as well.

I'm particularly unenthused about the idea of another detective mystery story starring Benoit Blanc, because I think a lot of the things that make Knives Out work so well as a mystery story are specific to the story of Marta and the Thrombeys (like the fact that Harlan Thrombey is a mystery writer himself, and the way that influences how various characters react to things; or the way that Marta and Blanc spend most of the movie figuring out where they stand with each other). And if Johnson reuses those elements in a sequel, people will say he's repeating himself, and they'll be right.

I like the idea of switching up the genre and Doing Courtroom Drama the way the first movie Does Murder Mystery; that follows from the plot, as you say, and it opens up a way to bring in different elements. But obviously "the sequel is a completely different genre" is not something studios tend to go for.

[sathari]

Oooh, hi, fellow Knives Out fan!

I could cosign your entire comment--- I keep trying to pull out one piece to respond to, but mostly I just keep nodding along, like, yes, this.

I'm particularly unenthused about the idea of another detective mystery story starring Benoit Blanc, because I think a lot of the things that make Knives Out work so well as a mystery story are specific to the story of Marta and the Thrombeys....

COSIGNED! I can't hack Blanc's accent, as I ranted previously, so it occurs to me that instead of having him somewhere that he's not supposed to be from (Johnson said he wanted Blanc, like Poirot, to have an accent that didn't fit with the other characters') throw him into a rich family in the Deep South, who will recognize that something's off about him and maybe give us a nugget of his background, like they did in this one when Blanc mentions that Harlan had known his father.

Hmmm... if Johnson wants to go full Agatha Christie, he could make Marta is new Miss Marple and have her get caught up on her own in solving a crime. ("Marta and Blanc continue to team up to solve his cases" is a fairly common fanfic trope even in Marta/Ransom fics, I've found.)

But obviously "the sequel is a completely different genre" is not something studios tend to go for.

Yeah, the only one I can think of that did that was Chronicles of Riddick and that... did not go well. Though there might be a way to weave another murder mystery into the courtroom-drama process--- someone trying to kill one of the Cabreras or the Thrombeys, or one of them being suspected of murder.

[pedanther]

I think I'd much prefer "Marta gets caught up in another mystery" to "Benoit Blanc solves another mystery"; I'd like to see more of her, and she's much more interesting when she's in over her head than Blanc is when he's swanning around being confident he's going to get to the bottom of everything.

Part of me is saying "Marta has a lot on her plate already, she deserves a break", but I can't decide whether that's an argument for or against the idea.

[sathari]

Cosigned to all of this. Marta >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Blanc. Even if I hate the idea of whumping her like that. Though maybe the movie could be set as, "Her mom's just got her green card, everything with the Thrombeys is now resolved... and then here's a new thing!"

[eleanorjane]

But obviously "the sequel is a completely different genre" is not something studios tend to go for.

Yeah, the only one I can think of that did that was Chronicles of Riddick and that... did not go well.

Alien to Aliens? That one went pretty well.

Of course, the other immediate example I can think of is The Matrix/The Matrix Reloaded (action movies) leading into The Matrix Revolutions (war movie) and that went about as well as Chronicles of Riddick, so. :)

[sathari]

I didn't know that about the Alien franchise--- cool! And I stopped following the Matrix franchise after the first one.