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Midweek Mouth-off: Milking it

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It probably started with Harry Potter and The Twilight Saga. Then we saw The Hobbit stretched out into three movies. Now Shailene Woodley’s small role as Mary-Jane Watson has been chopped from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 so that the character can instead be introduced in a planned third and fourth film in that particular franchise.

Today then we want to know what you think about this trend of retroactively turning a standalone film into a multi-parter? Are you accepting of it (yay, more story and time spent with the characters)? Do you view it as exploitative of cinemagoers and prone to wrecking the narrative by stretching it out too much? Do you simply take it case by case? Let us know how you feel.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: June 26, 2013

7 Comments

  1. James Francis

    June 26, 2013 at 11:14

    Good question. I was a bit riled that The Hobbit was turned into 3 movies, mostly because the original trilogy felt too damn long already. But I was very surprised by the leaner, smarter film Jackson delivered and I am keen to see the rest.

    In a sense, I think this trend is a good thing, Sure, certain franchises will be milked to death. But others require those extra levels. The only big risk imo is that the makers of these movies and series stay too faithful and don’t adapt the content to work better with the relevant medium. Game Of Thrones, for example, needs a serious intervention, else we’ll get stuck with another eventless season (bar a few exploitative and lazy twists ).

    What I do not like is how a franchise is dropped the second it goes bad. Take as an example The Punisher – none of those three films were great, but none are exactly candidates for Worst Movies lists either. If only they would stick to it a bit longer instead of turning tail the second those millions stop pouring in.

    Reply

    • Skyblue

      June 26, 2013 at 11:31

      I also got miffed about the Hobbit being drawn out and like yourself, I actually rather enjoyed the first film.
      With regards to Game of Thrones, I also found the current season very drawn out but I have read the novels and they are also very long winded. I’m all for developing characters and GoT has many of them but some of the current seasons episodes were just very boring.
      I agree about dropping franchises too fast but I’d rather see them dropped than watch Terminator 4(5) or Aliens 5. Great franchises once.

      Reply

      • James Francis

        June 26, 2013 at 12:13

        That is true. Then again, I can always choose to not watch the new Terminator. If endless spin-offs meant we got T2, I’m happy with the arrangement.

        Reply

  2. Lourens Corleone

    June 26, 2013 at 11:24

    The problem is, films are trying to do what many series already do better. Trilogies are awesome, but don’t try and turn a film-scale story into a series or a miniseries. Make another movie if you are passionate about continuing the story.

    Reply

    • James Francis

      June 26, 2013 at 12:12

      Budget might be a concern, though. Also, some stuff works better on TV – just look at Dune.

      Reply

  3. Wayne Bossenger

    June 26, 2013 at 13:22

    Some films work, some are just blatant cash ins by the companies that make them. Take the Bond films, they’ve gone on for years, have similar themes, and some are better than others, but each film is almost always very entertaining, with the latest one being quite a gem!

    Then there’s the spiderman films made by sony… they’re busy shooting the 5th spiderman tale in roughly 12 years (first one was 2002, ASM2 set for release in 2014). A spiderman film every 2-3 years where there have been two different spider-men is just ridiculous…they could at least have a very different spiderman in miles morales or something. However, the newest series is fantastic (and arguably better than Tobey’s take on the character) and worthy of being filmed, I’m just concerned it is so soon after the last trilogy. The newest fantastic four seems like a great idea, almost a decade since the first one, that’s perhaps enough time to make a fresh new film on a franchise we know.

    Adapting books to film can also be tricky… some things just don’t translate well from book narrative to film, like the Hunger Games for example. The book was fantastic, and I felt it showed how strong/fragile/intelligent Katniss is, but the first film only captures some of that. Again, not saying the film was bad (Quite enjoyed it actually), just that it could have been better. Breaking the Hobbit into 3 films is a great idea to ensure that elements from the book have screen time, but I was very annoyed with the first (roughly) 45mins of the film… for those that have seen it should know what I’m alluding to. Other than that, the rest of the film was fantastic and I’m looking forward to the other 2 films!

    Reply

    • James Francis

      June 26, 2013 at 14:03

      I was starting to worry the entire film would take place in Bilbo’s shack.

      Reply

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