The Problem With Franchises

TL;DR: it’s character development.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Alien: Covenant (a movie I very much was excited for) came out and after seeing it, I couldn’t help but think of another blockbuster film that came out within the last six months: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Now, on the surface, these films have absolutely nothing in common. The Alien movies are sci-fi/horror films aimed at an adult audience while the Harry Potter films are fantasy stories (mostly) targeted toward children and families. However, I think they both play an essential role in explaining Hollywood’s state-of-mind. And that is the mindset of the franchise, and as stated earlier, these films specifically give insight into my trepidation about those movies.

Everything is a franchise. Look at the top grossing movies of the each year from the past 10 years (data from boxofficemojo.com): Captain America: Civil War (2016), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Frozen (2013), Marvel’s The Avengers (2012), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 2 (2011), Toy Story 3 (2010), Avatar (2009), The Dark Knight (2008), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007),  and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006). 

Now only two of these movies were not part of an already established franchise: Frozen and Avatar, but have sequels that have been planned/that are in production (Avatar director James Cameron reportedly has 5 sequels planned to film back-to-back). However general discussion about turning everything into a franchise is seen as a new Hollywood epidemic (the one of the franchise), if we go back far enough (1989) to when Boxofficemojo began tracking this data only three pictures are not franchise films (or wound up becoming franchises): Armageddon (1998), Titanic (1997), and Ghost (1990).

So Hollywood has always milked the franchise. And will continue to do so because that’s what we as consumers largely want. And I’m mostly okay with it. This isn’t going to be the normal hit piece of “I hate that we have so many reboots and sequels and comic-book movies!” Because I’m one of the people who lines up for all of them. I love Star Wars. I love Harry Potter. I love superheroes. Those are things that I have always enjoyed and probably always will enjoy. And for a large part I’ve enjoyed other franchises like Alien, Lord of the Rings, and Jurassic Park.

What I’m finding to become the problem though, is that studios and writers are getting confused. They think we love the universes that these stories take place in. But I don’t think that’s the case. While I think that a good universe and lore are essential to a thriving franchise, what makes a story special is inherently one thing: it’s characters. Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars without Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and now Rey, Kylo Ren, and Finn. Engaging and interesting characters that face obstacles and have to grow in order to confront those obstacles are, to me, essentially in creating a story I will care about more than once.

When I was watching Alien: Covenant I was struck by how much I didn’t care for the peril of the protagonists. They had no stakes in the film, and in fact, the film only has one interesting character (although it verges on having a couple). Yet, he is static the whole time with no major internal changes, and accomplishes his goals with little struggle. That isn’t a big pay off for the audience. The reason the first Alien is so terrifying is because we aren’t sure if Rippley (our lead) is strong enough to survive on her own, and her crewmates are slowly being picked off one by one. It is a bloodbath, but one that you still see the progression of someone who you can relate with. This makes the ending feel satisfying and relieving, and is what keeps tension throughout the majority of the film. At first she is indecisive and quiet. And by the end she has to rely on her skills and wit without error.

You see this growth in her and her confidence in facing the xenomorph. In Alien: Covenant there isn’t that relatable arc to carry us through the film. Just interest in continuing the lore. Even the previous entry of the series, Prometheus, has a more memorable lead in Dr. Elizabeth Shaw than anyone from Covenant. None of the protagonists in Covenant are emotionally invigorating. While the film is good, the lack of development from our lead hinders the film from being truly tense. She’s strong and capable to start in her fight against the xenomorphs, so her survival never feels at risk. We know she has to make it to a point further down the film, and while the movie hopes to create suspension with a twist, the twist is generic and given away entirely too soon, again, not giving the audience a reason to feel anything at all for the mortality of our lead character.

This is what got me thinking of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and really anything JK Rowling has done with the Harry Potter franchise after finishing the original 7 books. The reason people love those stories isn’t because of the history of the Wizarding World (though admittedly, some of that stuff is cool). What’s special about those books is the characters and their relationships with each other. I think of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and how their friendship carries them through a war. About Dumbledore and Harry’s relationship, where Dumbledore has to struggle with his knowledge of Harry’s fate, but needs him to carry it out to save everyone (the classic do you push one man in front of a train to save 3 psychological exercise comes to mind). Snape and his struggle with love and loyalty. Voldemort and his lust for power and his fear of death, and the (eventual) foil to Harry who embraces love and death. These are such engaging and powerful arcs, and they are the reason we love the world.

Fantastic Beasts focuses so much on building the lore of the universe, it completely disregards the fact that it has a character that I think could be on that level of engagement in Newt. He’s charming and quirky, yet has a dark and hauntingly sad past. But we learn nothing of him in the movie. And the whole time he is competent and able to quickly figure out his problems without facing many setbacks or having much growth. The film completely derails itself so it can set up lore building for the universe, and not even to the level of excitement that Covenant does. Again because of all these things, the film has no payoff.

And this brings me to the problem with franchises: if you don’t have characters to engage you, then no one will care about your universe in the long term.

When franchise sequels bomb or bust, people are always confused as to why. And I think the answer lies within characters. I don’t think Fantastic Beasts will lead to a booming franchise like the original Harry Potters. Alien: Covenant has received mixed reception and had a poor opening at the box office. But more character driven spin-offs like Guardians of the Galaxy, Logan, or Rogue One received both critical and financial success. And I think you can point to those films and see what they got right, they gave us characters to care about.

Even spin-offs of franchises have to rely on character arcs within their stories to drive interest. The Star Wars Expanded Universe books/movies/comics wouldn’t be interesting if it weren’t for Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, Nom Anor, and other characters that made those mediums engaging to be in. Perhaps the only example of pure lore that held in as high regard as the original stories is The Silmarillion from the Lord of the Rings universe, however, I would contend that the only care about the lore of that world is because characters like Bilbo, Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn got me invested.

Perhaps I’m a bit too old school in my thinking, but I believe the by-product of a good story involves some sort of character development. Not every book/movie/story has to be a character analysis, but at some point, I need be invested in what is happening to the people I’m being told about. Tension and conflict are only captivating if there’s something at stake, and in the instance of Fantastic Beasts and Alien: Covenant, I never get that feeling. I don’t even think Alien: Covenant is a bad movie. I believe it is a pretty solid and entertaining couple of hours. But when I ask myself, “do I only care about this movie because it says Alien in the title?” The answer becomes clear: yes.

But it could be more, and it should be more. The film forgets why I love Alien, not because xenomorphs are scary and cool (they are) but because Ripply was engaging. Dr. Shaw and David had an interesting dynamic in Prometheus. Those characters got me to engage in the movies, therefore I became invested in the universe behind them. But these things are forgone in the latest film, and it seems to only justify its existence by having the name Alien in the title. And I don’t want that. I expect better from the stories I love. That’s why I love them in the first place.

“Genre film essentially asks the audience, ‘Do you still want to believe this?’ Popularity is the audience answering, “Yes.” Change in genre occurs when the audience says, “That’s too infantile a form of what we believe. Show us something more complicated.'” – Leo Braudy.