Corban Skillånder

This article contains spoiler-free discussion about 28 Years Later and Andor, and minor spoilers for Alien: Romulus.

Every person and their dog has complained about the current zeitgeist hellscape of infinite sequels, reboots and reimaginings. I absolutely refuse to enter any discourse around Star Wars, but just go ask your local nerd what they think of it. And bring some water: all the steam coming out of their ears will dehydrate them. The ‘manosphere’ (eugh) has practically entered a state of self-parody when discussing things like Ghostbusters, Doctor Who and, bizarrely, the Alien films. I feel I should make it clear right now that this article isn’t about any of those talking points; there are good reasons to dislike things, and then there is that crowd. I am reminded of finishing The Last of Us: Part 2 after that came out, not liking it very much, and then being absolutely horrified to find the vast majority of people in the same boat.

“In order to cure, you must first understand…” 28 Days Later (2002)

So, yes. Disappointing sequels – reboots that miss the mark, sometimes even the point of the source material. The reason I’m writing this is because a couple of days ago I got around to watching 28 Years Later. At risk of this straying too far into ‘review’ territory, I didn’t like it very much. I felt that it was almost two hours of setting up Part Two without having enough self-contained bite (hey, that’s the name of the mag!) to justify its own existence. The story felt… fine? It evoked very little emotional response from me, despite its efforts; it wasn’t particularly full of thrills, and the plotlines sort of meander around and have no real effect on one another. What I did appreciate is the departure from tropes introduced in 28 Weeks Later – there is no real mention of immunity, no special genes: it is mostly a bleak, doomed world with barely a hint of an end to the situation at hand, and I think this was a great way to return to the world introduced in 28 Days Later. This extends, somewhat, to the cinematography also; a decent portion of this movie was filmed with an iPhone 15 as the primary camera, harkening back to 28 Days Later’s use of a Canon XL1 filming in standard definition to give it that grittier look. It’s the type of camera that most people will see footage from in their lives, and I guess this is meant to make it land a bit closer to home. It’s subtle, but it really works.

I can’t help but feel, though, that the movie itself is a bring-it-back-home attempt gone awry. The film is full of these Matrix-esque frozen-moment panning shots every time a zombie is killed. I thought this was genuinely cool. It really puts a mark on the moment, and reminds you that you’re watching a movie (in a good way). There are a few shots in 28 Days that do this, most notably the posterised shot of the flower field meant to evoke Van Gogh, and I really appreciate what Boyle is trying to do here; it gives you some lovely breathing room. The first time one of those Matrix shots happened, it really sparked my interest. And then it happened again. And again. And again. It just felt to me like they were trying to do something a little off the beaten path in an attempt to recapture that feeling of watching Days for the first time and being impressed by it, instead of doing something new and letting that stand by itself. This is all exemplified by the very end of the movie, where they play the same portion of ‘Godspeed You! Black Emperor’’s f# a# ∞ that plays in Days. To a lot of people, I think that’s probably a cool little callback. To me, it felt like a desperate (and tragic) cry from Boyle and Garland:  “Look! We’re back! This is going to be good again, we promise!”

“You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you?” Alien (1979)

I genuinely think that this is where most modern sequels or reboots fall apart. Instead of a little knowing smirk at Ian Holm’s face or the “Get away from her, you bitch!” in Alien: Romulus, I found myself rolling my eyes and tutting. Holm would have been a great little easter egg had it not been overused, and the “get away” line was drastically out of character and just plain nonsensical. Why is this character quoting another character from the same series that they don’t even know exists? 

They weren’t there to make a good movie; they were there as a nod and a smile to the audience, begging for praise and recognition – screw making sense. Screw respect, we want nostalgia.

Yet, to some degree, I do get it. Everybody knows that whenever an artist changes things up and does something new, they are met with large crowds who fear change. People want their artists to be one thing, which, you know, does kind of make sense. It’s comforting to be able to think, “I want to watch an [insert director here] movie” and get exactly what you came for. I like that. It must get so stale for the creator, though. As an artist you want to change things up and explore new avenues in your work – the problem lies in the fear that people won’t accept it.

I think that’s what it comes down to, really. There’s a very thin line between respecting your audience and fearing them. Changing things up too much can alienate people, but constant reminders that you’re still the same artist and this is still the same series indicate a lack of respect. They make everything feel like the film is just riding the coattails of its former glory. 28 Years Later could be an excellent movie without the constant need to try and recapture the excellence of Days. Alien: Romulus has an exceptional first half until it starts the callbacks. At risk of reaching my annual ‘talk about Star Wars’ limit, I believe a huge part of the success of Andor is its point blank refusal to include Jedi, The Force or a ‘chosen one’ plotline. My only real criticism of this is that it therefore doesn’t technically need to be a Star Wars property, but I also think that the benefits of this – mostly that the worldbuilding is already there – far outweigh the cost.

“Do you think anybody is listening?” Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

I don’t think any one person in the artists’ chain of command is to blame here, honestly. I doubt that any creator wants to see their vision bastardised and skewed by publishers or boards of directors, and I don’t think the latter actually want to make a worse product. I think that collectively along that line, people are caring too much about how things will be perceived as part of a property over whether they stand tall enough on their own. This almost always leads to awfully tone-deaf misinterpretations of source material, chasing the unattainable highs of the past and a feeling for the audience of being patronised.
It’s hard to say whether that will change any time soon. There is, after all, so much money to be made in the comfort of familiar intellectual property and self-referential stylistic choices. What we can learn, though, from such recent box office failures such as Tron: Ares, for example, is that a lot of people are getting pretty sick of the endless slew. Maybe, just maybe, some executives will notice. Perhaps they’ll even care.