Why the Sequel Is Where Genres Mutate

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 13:00:00 +0000

The sequel has a terrible reputation and mostly deserves it. For every follow-up that earns its existence there are five that xerox the first film with the contrast turned up, and the word “sequel” has come to mean diminishing returns, a franchise squeezing a corpse for one more drop. That is the commercial reality. But it obscures a stranger truth that any patient watcher of genre cinema eventually notices: the sequel, precisely because it is a compromised commercial object, is where genres do their most interesting evolving. The original invents a set of rules. The sequel is contractually obliged to give you the same thing again, cannot, and in failing to repeat itself is forced to mutate. That failure is the engine of a great deal of genre history.

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Why the Sequel Is Where Genres Mutate