The blockbuster sequels of the &r🐓squo;70s and ’80s were all about the numbers. The likes of The Godfather: Part II and Jaws 2 used basic arithmetic to differentiate themselves from their predecessors. Then, the rise of the colon ﷽initiated an era of lengthy sub-clauses, in which mouthfuls such as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life became commonplace.
Now, Hollywood has redefined the notion of going back to basics with its latest hot tactic for follow-ups: simply recycling the name of an earlier movie. While it’s acceptable for a remake, repeating yourself verbatim is not just embarrassingly unimaginative, it’s confusing too: “Are you talking about Scream, as in Wes Craven’s self-referential 1996 slasher? Or do you mean 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the fifth entry in the series, which reignited interest in the Ghostface saga earlier thisℱ year??”
Scream isn’t the only recent offender. The 2018 Halloween sequel/reboot that pretends the earlier Michael Myers follow-ups never happened is simply called 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halloween; 2011’s kinda-prequel to The Thing is also 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Thing; and – perhaps most confusingly of all – 2019’s Shaft is the third o♍ne to 🧸bear exactly that same one-word title. With several cast overlaps – all three feature Richard Roundtree as the original John Shaft – there’s no elegant way of differentiating the films in conversation. It’s also a pain when you’re doing a search on IMDb.
And apologies to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Predator and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Suicide Squad, but adding a meagre definite articl🌳e does not constitute a significant title change. At least when Aliens attached a lone ‘S’ to the title of Ridley Scott’s classic space horror, it was a reminder that the xenomorphs had gone plural in a big way.
Thanks to the long-running horror franchises of the ’80s, ever-increasing numerals still carry a certain stigma when attached to a title, but the later 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fast & Furious movies wear their eights and nines as a badge of honour. And surely the English language is rich enough that clever subtitles or even the slightly lame wordplay of Die Hard with a Vengeance are preferablꦗe to lazily regurgitating the name of an earlier entry. Or is it just me?
