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RE: Keyword of the Week: On the Train - Trains: Like Stories, Like Life
So... how is your back?
There are not many films with great follow ups. It sounds as if the writers became tired and were more into the money than writing a good story.
A train doesn't go from A to B it goes back to A so meaning nothing really changes unless you decide to jump off somewhere in the middle and not at a station where you can tell at forehand how the story ends.
Are you sure the train keeps moving?
Well, allow me to retort: I suppose you could argue that if time was a flat circle the B part in A to B might just be an A, but then I'd like to point out that B is only an arbitrary stand-in for a destination (which might as well could be A, like if B was B* and * was A). That said, if your train was going to break down between A and B, like A and a half, that would still be B because B is your destination. A bit like differentiating between the start and the finishing line during a race, even if you're going in a circle.
The problem with, the train always keeps moving, is the implication of there not being a final destination. That would imply there's really just A. I guess in turn that would indicate the journey being the destination. Pretending for a second that stillness is a weird kind of something, despite you supposedly doing nothing (like -not- picking up that call). Which seems illusionary anyhow, because of that whole transitory nature of existence type of deal and how everything seems to be in flux.
Regarding the apparant degradation of movie franchises: I think part of the issue is them being reduced to common dominators and becoming a caricature of themselves. Obviously they want to make money, but then if you're going to be a franchise there's an incentive to be recognized as such. Or I would assume so. So somewhere down the line most of the original creators are gone and you end up with a bunch of custodians sitting around a conference table making bullet points about brand recognition stuff.
Don't know if to call it commercialization or corporate fan fiction or whatever, but I think that's part of why a franchise like Die Hard might be reduced bad iterations of the same formula. Or rather, said brand that needs to be recognized and the only way of doing that is to adhere to franchise conventions. Like Star Wars needs space ships, light sabers, and storm troopers. In case of Die Hard I guess it's terrorists, gun fights, and the protagonist potentially wearing a bloody wife beater. Which might be an oversimplification, but still.
Thanks for asking about my back. I've been working out and I feel like it might be getting better, but at least it's not getting worse. Or not just yet.