One of my grandfather’s favorite anecdotes has always been a little story about how as a three-year old boy I would incessantly watch the Lion King on VHS and without fail, cry a bucket load of tears every time I saw King Mufasa fall to his death and his son, Simba weep over his lifeless body.
Fast forward more than twenty years and once again, I eagerly stood in the theater queue to watch the remake.
…
I was disappointed.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I awaited the 2019 film with the enthusiasm of a child taking his first steps. I may not have enjoyed the movie, but I still sang along, quite terribly, to the old songs from the original. It got me thinking. At the time, the Lion King was simply the latest in a string of live action remakes Disney had been releasing over the past few years. Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Aladdin to name only a few.
So, one of the world’s largest entertainment companies was generating funds by taking out select films from its catalog and updating them for 21st century audiences. What’s important to note, however, is that while this trend certainly seemed to find its peak in the 2018-present timeline, this is by no means a new concept.
One of the earliest instances of this phenomenon actually happened not long after the first Lion King made its mark of this little boy’s heart. I’m talking of course of 101 Dalmatians. Originally released all the way back in 1961, a live action remake was released in November 1996. Starring Glenn Close, the film made over $300 million against its $75 million budget. This is not to say the original was unsuccessful, its gross nearly matches the remake with several successful re-releases and home media being a thing in those days.
Following our precious little puppies was an almost 15 year gap until celebrated director, Tim Burton was brought on hand to create the next of Disney’s live action remakes, Alice in Wonderland. The rest is history.
The scant amount of thought I put into this phenomenon was enough to send me teetering down the road of an almost obsessive amount of research, something my high school teachers no doubt lament was not evident in my school work. I found to my surprise that the use of nostalgia was not limited to Walt Disney Studios, it was not exclusive to the film industry at all! We see the practice of trends, classics and an entire host of pop culture from yesteryear being brought into the present over and over again until the point that the Oxford Dictionary may well change the definition of innovation to a rehash of older concepts from a previous era.
Let’s look at what is arguably the most profitable entertainment industry of all, music. For the layman, the practice of using an existing piece of music, be it melody, vocal or arrangement is one of the most commonly used techniques called “sampling”. Let’s look at some of the best known examples, in 1995, at the peak of her career, pop singer Mariah Carey had a massive hit with her song Fantasy. The tune made history by being only the second song to make its debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, sales are estimated at around 1.5 million copies in the US for 1995 alone. What few people know is that one Carey’s biggest hits contains a sample of another old classic, Genius of Love, a track made famous by the Tom Tom Club.
This isn’t a move exclusive to the divas though, let’s have a listen on the other end of the music spectrum, rap. Considered among the most pioneering hip hop artists, Eminem also had a major hit based around a sample. The song, No Love, heavily revolves around a snippet of Haddaway’s old hit, What is Love. I could go on, but I think the point is made here.
Now, as a young heterosexual man still stuck on the ideals of toxic masculinity, I would be outright lying if I claimed to know anything about fashion, but I have watched shows such as Project Runway on occassion and one thing I always notice is the designer’s saying something like, “I was going for a 19X’s vibe.” See what I mean? Fashion seems to moves through more phases than the moon.
Now let’s move on to the sector that I personally have the most expertise. Video games! This is the one I’ve truly wanted to talk about! April 2020 brought one of the most exciting moments in my young life, the release of the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Any JRPG gamer will know the long and perilous, 23 year journey from the original 1997 release to this masterpiece. For the non-RPG gamers, the Remake was first announced in the mid 2010’s and upon the announcement of its release, the parent company, Square Enix recorded its highest stock figures in years! I’m not precisely sure what that means but it sounds impressive. Something I do understand is that the game has sold 5 million copies worldwide despite only being released a few months ago, 3.5 million of those were within the first three days! These figures are made all the more impressive because the game was released during the height of the global COVID-19 crisis.
Final Fantasy isn’t the only franchise that has had success on its catalog. Any kid who grew up in the 90’s can tell you about the PSOne classics, Spyro the Dragon or even Crash Bandicoot. Both of these titles have had HD remaster editions released exclusively for the PS4. The list grows longer and longer, but I wont bore any readers with any more details, let’s move on.
Cars, that’s right, cars! It’s hard not to suppress a gap of awe and longing every time one catches sight of that vintage Beetle ambling it’s way down the road sounding like a rocket being launched into space or perhaps grinning in delight as that mint green Chevy runs down the highway. Yes, I want one, no I can’t afford one, why? Don’t cars depreciate? My Accounting teacher lied to me! Something so old costs more than a clean 5 year old Toyota, this is the state of our lives.
With a bit more digging, there is no doubt in my mind that I could uncover countless more examples, but at this stage I think my point has been sufficiently substantiated. The conclusion, nostalgia is a seller.
The human mind has an obsession with times past, and an innate resistance to change. This is the reason that women constantly return to their cheating exes, or why men hold on to the old soccer T-shirt that has enough holes to make swiss cheese jealous, and why multi-billion conglomerates are able to prey on all of our insatiable need to revisit the past.
I realize that I might have framed this as a bad thing, but truthfully I like it! Nothing makes me quite as happy as complaining, and constantly being given material to unfavorably compare to the original brings me joy like no other! In this time of global uncertainty it’s good to know that I will be able to tell the future simply by looking over my shoulder.
Mechatronic Burst Gaming 