It’s amazing to me how many long running IPs have squandered their cultural relevancy. For some it took them a while yet others ran through it so fast it would make your head spin. Or it should. A few years on the top where others were afraid to speak ill and warnings were shouted down as if they were some type of secular blasphemy.
The MCU was once practically a cultural touchstone. Every release or possible release generated buzz and excitement. Then through a series of low effort films and sticking to a formula that made you feel like you’d already seen whatever the movie was it can now only use random nostalgia to get people talking.
Just the whisper of a Star Wars project used to generate massive excitement and fan speculation but now? In the next two years we have two releases coming and social media and fans in general don’t seem to be really that interested.
Can’t leave out Star Trek. Did anybody really talk about the finale of Discovery when it happened? It was the final episode of the first new Star Trek show in over 20 years and greeted with deafening indifference. Did anybody remember it still existed?
How do you squander your cultural relevancy? Is it too much content? Partially but not entirely. People can take a lot of new material with properties retaining cultural relevancy. What harms cultural relevancy is becoming something you didn’t start out as well as telling everyone you still are what you once were. You cannot paint a car red and still call it green.
The MCU started out as epic superhero stories but devolved into a whole bunch of social politics. Star Wars was about galaxy spanning struggles of good versus evil with clear lines of right and wrong and good and bad. It has now too become politics with shades of moral gray where the Jedi who once represented ultimate good, even if they were flawed, can be as bad as the Sith that once represented ultimate evil.
Lord of the Rings as represented by The Rings of Power has similar issues as exemplified by making the orcs a misunderstood minority that has family and just wants to be loved. Orcs were originally disposable cannon fodder for the heroes to defeat in battle because nobody really caring about them. Plus they were created by dark magic and tormenting elves.
Then there’s Star Trek. Once a fictional universe about exploring the human condition amongst strange new worlds and new alien life. Now we have comedy shows like Lower Decks or shows streaming on YouTube. Or young adult content with Prodigy. Or campy shows like Strange New Worlds has become with the addition (and eventual subtraction) of young adult oriented content with Starfleet Academy.
Without an idea of what you will be or a vision for what you will become you end up trying to become all things to all people. That doesn’t make you special. That makes you generic. So many of these legacy properties have become generic.
You can say, and perhaps even make a good case for why it’s a good idea to have a broad appeal and that may help you in the short term but for the long term? Probably not. Do you want to watch a science-fiction or fantasy show or delve deeply into a fictional world that’s like so much else? Or do you want something unique and special? Do you want something different that you can’t quite get anywhere else?
Think about eating out. Sure, McDonald’s or Taco Bell may hit the spot when you’re hungry but that mom-and-pop pizza place that does things a little differently or the Chinese restaurant or even the Asian fusion place that’s special in some way are the ones you really think about and dream of going back to you again. Sure, Burger King may be convenient and may satisfy you, but it’s not unique.
By not being unique legacy properties waste their cultural legacy. That special nature is what gets people to talk about the next project. Without it, you can’t survive for very long.
Warren Watched A Movie 