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By Meabh Aine Broderick In every aspect of culture, trends come and go. In the early noughties, the velour tracksuit took the fashion world by storm while blonde frosted tips seemed to be sprouting from men’s hair everywhere. Thankfully these trends were short lived and have since been long forgotten. However, in the world of film, some trends are not so easy to say goodbye to and one particularly stubborn trend is that of nostalgia. The use of nostalgia manifests itself in several different ways. It may be a remake of a decade’s old film or a long-awaited sequel released a dozen years after the original films release. It could come in the form of an adaptation of a beloved comic book or novel from your childhood or simply possess countless references to fond memories of the past littered throughout. No matter how it is used, there is no denying that audiences, young and old, seem to respond. Of the top ten grossing films worldwide of 2018, it can be argued that each of them benefitted from nostalgia in one way or another. Whether they are frontrunners in the age of comic book adaptations like Avengers Infinity War or Black Panther, a call back to the glory days of historic music legends like Bohemian Rhapsody, or additions to beloved childhood franchises such as Fantastic Beasts, The Crimes of Grindelwald, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and The Incredibles 2, they all managed to climb their way to the top by tapping into that longing for the past that resides inside all of us. However, as is to be expected when dealing with something so near and dear to our hearts, the slightest misstep can spark a wave of hate and outrage. To explore this, I am going to discuss the initial reactions to the trailer for the upcoming remake of beloved Disney classic The Lion King. In 2017, Disney announced all the upcoming remakes and reboots they had planned to release in the coming years. While the whole list seemed to inspire both excitement and fear, the one that seemed to spark the most discussion was The Lion King. Since the initial release of that list, anticipation only grew, until finally, Disney eased the pain that accompanied the agonising wait for its release by giving us a taste of what to expect with a teaser trailer for The Lion King in November 2018. Admittedly, after one watch of this trailer I could hear my inner child scream with excitement and I have to say that, for a moment, I was sold. However, when my anticipation came to be too much and I craved another viewing, something seemed to change. There was something all too familiar about what I was watching. Maybe it was simply the sound of the frequently referenced cry that opens the Circle of Life or the iconic image of the lion cub lifted up to the heavens. Or maybe it was linked to the voice of the Mufasa we all know and love from the original making a reappearance. Whatever it was that was sparking this feeling, I decided to take a look back at the trailer for the original The Lion King from 1994. It was there where I found my answers. The reason it felt so familiar was because I had seen it before. The trailer for The Lion King (2019) is really nothing more than a shot for shot remake of the original. Of course the animation style was vastly different as this newer version was made to replicate a ‘live-action’ remake of the original. However, apart from this, the trailer offered nothing new to excite me about the film. The whole point in remaking beloved classics is to add to what we already loved and offer new and interesting developments to aspects that may have been absent from the original. This is why the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book proved to be such a success. The original version was made in 1967 and only had a runtime of 78 minutes. This meant that for a modern audience, who had become accustomed to a runtime above 90 minutes, a lot was left to be desired, calling for a modern reincarnation of the classic. This is where I take issue with the decision to remake The Lion King. The 1994 version is arguably Disney’s greatest animated film to date. I was not born until years after its release, yet the love for the film remained as strong as ever and was passed onto me in my early years. It continues to garner praise and appreciation from both the public and critics today. Therefore, no matter how well-made the remake is, it will always be held in the shadow of the original. Despite my scepticism, I was shocked to find, the very evening following the trailers release, an outpouring of love surfaced online as audience members could not contain their excitement. It appears as if nobody cared that they had seen it all before. In fact that is what excited them the most. They rejoiced at the idea of reliving their childhood and likely did not want to see anything new. While the trailer alone is certainly not enough to truly judge the film, Disney appears to be intentionally building it in the exact same image as the original to incite this very reaction. With nostalgia as its driving force, I have no doubt that audiences will come out in their droves on the film’s opening weekend and no matter what their response is, the film will likely be a huge financial success. Therein lies our answer for why studios seem to be relying more and more on nostalgia to promote their films. Money, which comes as no big surprise, is the driving force behind all of this. As long as audiences keep showing up and nostalgia remains as successful in its production of profits, studios will continue to pump out this content until there is nothing left to remake.
But why exactly do modern audiences relentlessly crave this warm feeling of nostalgia? While it has been around for decades in films such as Big (1988) and Stand by Me (1986), which remind adult viewers of their young carefree days, in the last decade, nostalgia seems to have dominated Hollywood to the point where it is has become difficult to find fully original content. It is easy to criticise the trend and say its existence is due to Hollywood's loss of ideas but if this were the true reason, audiences would likely not respond so positively. There is no real way of knowing the exact reasoning, but it is possible that the growing demand for such content suggests that the desire may not lie in the longing for the past but the disdain for the present. The current political climate is filled with negativity as the future is filled with uncertainties. While America is under the power of a heavily criticised leader, Europe sits in fear of what Brexit may mean for the future. Meanwhile, global warming is threatening our future while war endangers the lives of millions. In a world filled with uncertainty, the only thing that remains unchanged and certain is our past. Therefore, the increasing demand for nostalgic content may stem from this. Frequently, the memories retained from the past are positive, either because the subject was too young to have been aware of the problems or has chosen to forget them. Either way, the desire to reflect on the past does not indicate that the present is in a worse state than the years prior to it. It simply suggests that audiences seek to escape the uncertainty of the future by reflecting on the unchanging, fond memories of the past.
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