I'm not so sure honestly. I mean it keeps happening again and again. Do I think there's an order that comes down from the top brass that specifically demands Indy, or Han, or Luke get torn down to help prop up the new characters? No BUT, I do think there is an order that the new characters are made to unequivocally shine in the spotlight and many of these filmmakers seem to think the best way (or perhaps easiest way) to do that is to regress our original heroes to a decrepit state thereby facilitating the opportunity for the new heroes to "step up" and pick up their slack. One might say that's simply incompetent, lazy film-making rather than deliberate character assassination but the result is the same. A lack of reverence as opposed to outright disrespect is still an insult.
I don't think it's anything to do with that. I think it's much more that the people making the films believe that there's just no credible way to make these old guys the ass-kickers they once were. Even in a cinematic world where we can kinda sorta cheat and act as if the limits of reality and aging don't apply to characters, audiences will still know. It'll come across as unbelievable.
But they
reeeeeeeaaaalllly wanna cash in on that franchise one...more....time, so they end up recognizing that they have to address the elephant in the room, and that, in turn, leads them to showing these characters in their decline.
It's not like "Ha! This'll really piss off those whiny internet fans!" It's probably more like "We cannot seriously try to make this 80-year-old guy into an action hero without at least acknowledging that he's much older." Certainly they can't
ignore the whole thing and pretend like it isn't there. You touch on this yourself later in your post (I'll note it then as well).
As for an agenda-driven plan to have female heroes tear down the manly ones, I'll say this without getting bogged down into any kind of political discussion...It seems like for every new project tied to a legacy IP, there's always a quote from an actor or writer or producer that makes mention of some sociopolitical cause inspiring some aspect of that new project. It's only fair that if people make statements, others will take those statements seriously and respond. I'd rather not wish to believe in the "conspiratorial" but man, they really love to throw fuel on that fire. I do agree a lot of it is PR and execs trying to appease representation quotas. It's all exhausting.
Eh, the world's changing and people want a seat at the table. I think Hollywood recognizes this, and so they sell to it. Some people involved in the creative process also genuinely believe it. But mostly I just think it's part of the zeitgeist. The entertainment industry is always something like 10 years ahead of the bulk of society, and the law is something like 10 years behind (or more). I see this sort of thing as just part of that. Representation matters and means a lot for people who haven't been represented and are starting to be. It impacts them in real, meaningful ways.
All that said, it doesn't sound like including a character like Helena is meant to serve an "agenda." It's more just meant to create an interesting character. (Although, whether that worked, I cannot say since I haven't seen the film.)
Absolutely. Harrison's body is doing much of the acting. Any stuntman you deepfake for him is going to stand out as an 'imposter'. Then there's the issue of Harrison himself. He moves and sounds like an older man now and that comes through as well. Reminds me of Deniro in the Irishman when he's kicking the guy in the street. They have him deepfaked to look like he's in his 30's but he's still moving like a guy in his 70's and it's comical as hell.
EXACTLY.
THIS is a huge part of the problem with your legacy sequels bringing back actors who originated roles something like 40-ish years ago. You can CGI the hell out of things, but either (A) people will
know it's just a stuntman/body double who's been deepfaked, or (B) they'll
know it's some geriatric guy with a bad back and a knee replacement pretending to kick the crap out of another character. Either way, they're well on their way to a vacation in the Uncanny Valley.
In a way, I think a lot of fans are also kind of having trouble coming to grips with the cognitive dissonance produced by having watched and re-watched and re-re-re-re-re-re......etc....-watched their cinematic heroes over the years...and then along comes withered old [character], looking older, sounding older, but still trying to shuffle along and be that same hero they were some 20-40 years ago...and it just isn't landing.
It doesn't
feel like the old days, because the filmmakers feel forced to really address the character's age and structure some elegiacal story around that. Or it's just not believable when they try to take the old guy and make them a badass, or de-age him and make him his old badass self. Either way you go, any way you slice it, it just feels...off.
Folks say "Well, there's gotta be a way to do this so it doesn't make a mockery of the character," while filmmakers simply don't believe that (rightly so, I think) and think the only way to make a film with these old guys is to tackle them being old head-on and in an "Oh, no, he's old, and now that's kind of sad, so let's deal with that" way.
Honestly, the more this happens -- and it does seem to keep happening -- it reinforces for me one simple truth: you can't go home again, so
maybe we should stop trying so damn hard. Instead of repeatedly trying to force these older characters and actors into unbelievable situations, or to make out-of-character films that lampshade their age, maybe...we should just move on. Tell new stories with new characters about new things. You don't want to watch your favorite character as a decrepit old man? You don't want to see your childhood hero die? Then maybe they should stop making movies where the only interesting thing left to do is deal with all of that.
Remember, kids: more is not always better.
Anyway, sorry for the drawn out post. I was getting caught up and wanted respond to all the interesting observations so I pulled a Solo4114 and did it all in one shot
Eh, you did ok. If you
really wanna go for it, it needs to be another 30-40% longer, and you need to reply to somewhere between 2 and 5 more people at once.
