{"id":984,"date":"2007-04-26T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-26T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/04\/summer-sequels-good-bad-and-good.html"},"modified":"2007-04-26T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-26T16:00:00","slug":"summer-sequels-good-bad-and-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/04\/summer-sequels-good-bad-and-good.html","title":{"rendered":"Summer Sequels: The Good, the Bad, and the Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

The summer movie season officially kicks off (are you ready for this?) a week from Friday! <\/span><\/p>\n

May 4th brings us Spider-Man 3\u2014the summer’s first movie release, the first anticipated blockbuster, and the first sequel. <\/span><\/p>\n

Movie sites such as <\/span>Moviephone<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Premiere<\/span><\/a> and papers led by <\/span>USA Today<\/span><\/a> seem to agree that this is the Summer of the Sequel. Since most movie-goers enjoy a certain kind of viewer-character relationship with the story’s players, audiences are glad to return to see an old friend, which I see as a Good-News-Bad-News-Good-News situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good News: Millions of us are genuinely curious to see what happens to Spidey, Shrek and his friends, Captain Jack and his crew, Danny Ocean’s Twelve and their foe-turned-friend\u2014number Thirteen, and Jason Bourne as Jason Bourne. Chris Tucker (Rush Hour 3) and Bruce Willis (Live Free or Die Hard) return as really-long-lost-friends, as its been awhile since their last reprise. Although It may sound goofy that we’d relate to a recorded image on the screen, it brings out the fact that we were created to be relational creatures, and while we may like watching things crash or lovers cry, it’s the return of specific characters that we come back to and enjoy. I like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bad News: Despite all of the buzz I hear about the independent film movement, it sure seems like sequels get the big budgets and backing. Since distribution is everything and risky themes don’t fare well in a cost-benefit analysis, the films with the potential to say a lot rarely do. I don’t like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good News: Serials and movie trilogies (or quadrilogies and quintilogies!) allow more characters to interact in more settings amidst more plot twists with more characters, allowing deeper spiritual themes to emerge if directors and writers are so inclined. This allows us to go deeper with characters we relate to, and I like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are the dates of the Summer Sequels; I hope there’s a whole lot in there for the reflective moviegoer on a spiritual journey:<\/span><\/p>\n