Normally I would start one of these pieces with explaining something profound and interesting, possibly about what I grew up with or what is explained, given how this is based around that, it is better that we get straight to the point and explain what I mean. Over the Last couple of years, About 2018-2019, Movies, Television, and other media has begun to wind itself around the fact of recapturing people's youth instead of introducing interesting characters and stories and making new stories about said characters. Now, I am not saying that pandering sometimes to Nostalgia is bad, sometimes it can work to forward new and fresh ideas, like a passing of a torch from one generation to the next. No, what I mean is that when you have heroes that completely and defiantly look to the past generation and beg for help, you tie everything into the past and say that our generation is nothing compared to what came before.
We start with the original trio. The Three everyone thinks of when Star Wars is mentioned nowadays. Back during the release of the Force Awakens, I believed it was a mistake for them to kill Han Solo, that there was something more they could have done with him, but understood the decision, and it furthered Rey's determination to protect what she saw as her new family, seeing a father figure cut down with nothing else but a lost boy's malice. Little did I know that this would lead into the glorification of the original trio. In the Last Jedi, it is Luke Skywalker alone, not with anyone's help or desire, that stands against an entire invading force and stands against them, until revealing that he is not truly there, that he is just a projected image sent by Luke halfway across the Galaxy, using the force again after so long denying himself the use of the Jedi arts, denying himself the use because of his inexperience and guilt placed on his shoulders for losing his nephew to the dark side of the force. If the plan was to originally show Luke as this wasted Jedi, hidden away and mortifying Rey into becoming more and more like her own character, then this would have worked. However, the opposite effect was taken. Because the Last Jedi bombed and fell apart so quickly in the eyes of Fandom, the Fandom became Poe Dameron and his Coup. But this time, the Coup succeeded. The Rise of Skywalker is a complete mess of a movie to follow the Last Jedi, which while I admit I do not like as well, but for reasons of pacing problems and the complete butchering of Luke's character, be it however useful, to get us to this point. Sadly, before the movie's filming, Carrie Fisher passed away and was unable to do anything for the movie that would have been Leia's last hurrah. So, in order to have her appear, they intercut in herself as a sort of Hologram, using Force Awakens unused footage to splice in lines to work in a scene between Rey and Leia before her demise. Unlike Luke's and Han's demises before them, this final demise is seen as a huge deal in the eyes of the Rebellion, shaken to it's core, that they lost their leader, a Skywalker, although she had done everything to try and create new leaders in her wake.
This is the first test in explaining what I mean about Nostalgia. A Pattern, shown over time, of where we were headed. From Han's death and it's emotional impact on Rey as a character, to Glorifying Leia into the only leader the Rebellion could have. The overused "We've lost our leader, time to go home, we're in over our heads" trope used in today's media.
To explain it a bit better, let's go to our next Example. For years, there was always a definite line and feeling about the Ghostbusters franchise. Four guys, 2 Scientists, a Smoothtalker, and an Everyman, find out and subsequently put themselves on the line to protect New York from the forces of the Ghost worlds that leak out into New York and the rest of the world. Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston, putting New York ahead of themselves. A Team. Well, apparently, after the sad passing of Harold Ramis, we did not get the memo that actually there was supposed to be a main character in Ghostbusters.
Welcome to Ghostbusters Afterlife, the story in which explains how one man burned all his bridges with his friends, took all of his friends' things and research and went out to a small town in order to explore a possible gathering point for Gozer out in the middle of nowhere. Gone are the thoughts of it being a team dynamic for the franchise. Gone are the bonds Egon Spengler had. Apparently, he was just a mad scientist who after the ghosts started to fade away left his friends up a creek without a paddle to make new lives while he goes off with all of the tools of the trade. Even when considering the fact that Egon's Granddaughter is trying to get her new friends together to help it is a spit in the face to what came before, using Nostalgia to finally get the old men out of whatever they were doing to come and help when Gozer finally appears, in her own form, not that of the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, which there are living marshmallows as well that take the form of him to cause mischief, like a new Slimer. When put up against the original movie, it follows it beat by beat, only adding in destructive and tearing apart the bonds and friendships Egon made over the years just because of some wild goose chase that turned out to be true. Even having Gozer be the bad guy is just a copy paste from the original film, when the series has already had many types of ghosts and explanations for many different things within the Ghostbusters universe. When Ivo Shandor shows up in what was Ghostbusters 3 holding the skull of Gozer and stating that the power he wanted was more than just Gozer, you have moved in such the right direction, exploring more powerful things than him. Instead, Afterlife says that the "Buck stops with Gozer", nothing can be more powerful than them in their humanoid form, even ripping out and apart the Combined Proton Stream because we needed Egon's Granddaughter to save the day. This is the second part of Nostalgia overload. There's passing the torch. There's Glorifying the Past. Then there's rewriting and destroying the past in order to fit a new narrative amongst it's burnt crisps and ashes. Ghostbusters Afterlife is a movie that takes everything before it and tosses it out the window, and uses Nostalgia as a way to get butts in seats at the movie theater and on couches and that is it.
Finally, we get to our final showing of Nostalgia baiting. Overuse and Overshowing. Right now, as of writing, my good friend FreezingInferno is watching through the entire series of Quantum Leap as an escape. An escape from Nostalgia, of Glorifying the past and saying that nothing else can come close to the greatness we had so long ago. What finally drove him to this edge is of what has been happening within the realm of Doctor Who, and the reappearance of the Tenth Doctor.
Now I have not kept my hatred of the Tenth Doctor hidden. How i believe his hype to be overblown and that Tennant's entire performance can basically be described as a flicking of a light switch between two states, one that is kind and considerate and schoolboy, and Timelord Victorious, with no inbetween. However, for the show that he was written for, that type of Doctor was necessary, his time on the show is best described as "The Companion Show", where it was the companions who were the main star of the show and not the Doctor. It was explaining that sort of switch personality, that something dawned on me when writing that particular piece. Why people like his Doctor so much is they like more of his Companions, be them single story or series long, and explore his reactions through their eyes. Sadly, however, the BBC have not got the memo about how things most move forward. In 2006, George W. Bush was still President, I was 7 years old, and recently Doctor Who had just gone through it's first season with the actor wanting out due to disagreements. David Tennant was brought in to brighten up and change the show down the darker tone of the first series. However, now it is 2022. We are one year away from the 60th Anniversary, we have gone through Smith's, Capaldi's, and now almost Whittaker's times as the Timelord, and yet instead of exploring and celebrating all the Doctors in this time, everything revolves around that one Doctor from 2006. Big Finish, Comic Books, Other Media, all banging the drums about a universe spanning event that must be stopped, and instead of having all the Doctors have their time under the sun, they made their lead known. They picked their lead, as David Tennant, and tied the evolving show onto the Nostalgia train and cut the brakes. Even the very show itself is facing a new life with Tennant for it's 60th, Having Whittaker do what was once unthinkable in Doctor Who, a Retro-Regeneration, a process first described but never shown by the Curator just a decade previous. Everything must revolve around that one Doctor from 2006, because he is the most popular Doctor of Modern times. Not because he is deserving of the post, or because he is needing of more background, but because He is popular. So, the oversaturation of Tennant has begun, and through the 60th, with us focused on a Retro 10, and a Memory saved Donna Noble.
Nostalgia can be a great tool when used properly. When used in right doses you can tell the tale of a coming-of-age tale, or a passing of age story, or so many different stories about exploring new ideas and new ways of thinking. However, nowadays, people only want to relive the past. They want their childhoods back, they don't want to move forward, to see what this new generation can do. There is only one way this can go. One of these days, these heroes will be unable to return, either by death or just the inability to do what they can do. Unless the torch is passed, who will come to help the worlds they protect, since they never let the new generation put their feet into the hero's shoes.
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