The Era of Nostalgia-Baiting: How Hollywood is Tricking You
If you grew up in the 2000s, things like Silly Bandz, Windows XP and Club Penguin might make you nostalgic. That is because all things from our childhood bring back fond memories. Nostalgia can be a great feeling, leaving one to be reminiscent of their past. However, in the last seven years, Hollywood is using nostalgia to trick its viewers into believing a movie is good. This is called nostalgia-baiting, whereby a movie company remakes a classic movie with the same characters and storyline, to draw you in.
Movies like “Jurassic World”(2015) “Ghostbusters” (2016) and “Robocop” (2014) are all popular remakes of classic movies from the past. However, these remakes have had mixed to bad reviews. Surprisingly though, some remakes have crushed it in the box-office, even making more than the original movie they were based on. For example, the original 1991 Disney classic “Beauty and the Beast” made $440.1 million worldwide. This highly regarded film that kickstarted the Disney renaissance of the 90s was remade in 2017. How much money do you think that remake made? $500 million? $800 million? Nope. The “Beauty and the Beast” remake raked in a whopping $1.3 billion in its box- office run worldwide. In fact, the “Aladdin,” “Lion King,” “Cinderella” and “Dumbo” remakes all made more money than their original movies. Why does this matter?
The thing is, these movies are mediocre which leaves one to wonder why people are flooding in to watch these movies. The answer is nostalgia. When one goes to watch the live-action “Mulan” movie, their reason isn’t “because the story seems interesting” or “because the acting seems great.” Their reason is, “I loved that movie as a kid!” Similarly, people will go watch the new “Space Jam” movie because they recognize the original as a classic. This creates a weird movie experience where the movie’s merit is almost completely based on its predecessor. It becomes clear why this is a problem.
Hollywood is not focused on making good movies. Disney and other moviemakers’ focus is on the profit they will generate, and granted, that profit is a lot. So much so that it would be even stranger if they were not making these movies. To Hollywood, it’s a simple formula. Take a classic movie that we know everyone already loves, update some of its jokes and references for a modern audience, and remake it in live-action. Just like that, Hollywood steals from its devoted fans.
The sad part is that it works and it doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. With the phenomenal success of 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2019’s “Lion King,” Disney, for example, is more than ready to limit its creativity to making more reboots. Currently, Disney has more than 15 new live-action projects. Some movies are even sequels of already rebooted franchises. Although you still get your occasional excellent original Disney movies like “Zootopia” or “Frozen”, it seems like Disney’s primary goal right now is to induce as much nostalgia as it can in people, convincing them to buy movie tickets.
So, is the future of big corporate movies doomed? Not necessarily. There is still hope in the gloomy wasteland of remakes, reboots and sequels. A great example of how to take inspiration from classic stories to make a new movie is Disney’s 2021 “Cruella.” This movie stands alone from the rest of the reboots for one reason. It is an original story. While the movie has its own problems and is by no means perfect, the fact that it is original in its plot makes it miles better than any other Disney reboot thus far. What “Cruella” did was take a classic beloved film and create a brand new exciting story from it. Sure the movie takes characters and story cues from the original “101 Dalmatians” movie, but it is not a retelling of the classic film. Instead, it puts those characters into new situations, showing you their backstory and fleshing them out more. This creates a more interesting and engaging viewing experience that isn’t necessarily altered by whatever movies came before it. So far, the movie has made $226 million worldwide. Hopefully “Cruella’s” critical and financial success will at least signal to Disney that its fans still care about good storytelling.
At the end of the day, the purpose of a movie should be to tell an exciting story that entertains its public, whether that’s a romantic comedy or a serious thriller. What this new wave of nostalgia-baiting is showing us is that Hollywood is getting lazy with its storytelling with no real consequences. Movies like “Cruella” and “Maleficent” show us a glimpse of hope for the future of big-budget movies. But by the looks of Disney’s upcoming movie slate, this trend of nostalgia-baiting is far from over.
