If being raised during the age of Celebrity Culture has taught me anything, it's that you ride the popularity wave, and release the sequel while people still remember your name. Not right away, of course, but the longer you wait, the more people's expectations will grow.
As it turns out, I probably waited way too long to write this post. That first paragraph has sat in 'drafts' for around 3 months, and by now, I feel it needs a little explanation.
I get distracted.
Was that too little of an explanation? Fine. (Oooh, the F-word) You want the longer version? Well, here it is anyway.
I started this post because my 'Let's find some silver linings!' post was the first one I dropped after the COMmunity (honestly, Awesome Amir, I love this play on words) started receiving OCD support, and it earned more than all my other posts from this account put together. Naturally, I thought it would be funny to do a follow up post that treated 'Silver Linings' like a blockbuster movie.
Many of you may notice that the title is stolen repurposed from a line in 'Spaceballs: The Movie'. If you're not a nerd over the age of 35, you may not be familiar with this particular piece of film art. It's a parody of space movies, mostly the 'Star Wars' franchise, and the line is during a goodbye scene, where the Yoda character Yoghurt is bidding the main character farewell, and says 'Hopefully we'll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Quest for More Money'.
A little movie humor for a movie related humor post. C'mon, that's fucking genius.
Of course, time moves faster on the internet, and even faster during (is this still) the Pandemic Age, so this whole idea would have been a lot MORE genius if I'd finished this post a month or two ago. At the very least, I should have finished it before writing a different sequel post. It probably would have been better yet to post it before a bunch of other posts earned even more than 'Silver Linings'.
Anyway, all that is in the past now, so why bring it in into the present?
Because I have some compulsive behaviors, and I can't just delete a post from the drafts. It drives me nuts not to finish this thing. Alright, I don't have to drive to go nuts, I can usually walk there pretty quickly from wherever I am. Why am I like this?
Who knows? Who cares? I don't worry about it, because it doesn't really interfere with my day to day life. I'd much rather lose sleep over this unfinished post than just about anything else, and it's a certainty that I'll be losing sleep anyway.
Before I go any deeper into the self analysis rabbit hole, let's see if I can steer this barge back to the topic...
Sequels
I think sequels can save the world. No, they won't cure disease, or make people better people, but I think it can fix the increasing political polarization we've been seeing around the world.
Does that sound like a crazy idea? I'm no stranger to crazy ideas, like this one I posted a year ago. That's like 30 years in internet-Pandemic time.
The reason I think sequels can save the world is that they're also a very polarizing issue, like politics, but without any real consequences, like thinking about things instead of doing them.
If you don't think sequels are a polarizing issue, walk into any bar and ask people which was the best 'Rocky' movie, or 'Star Wars' movie, or 'Lethal Weapon' movie... you get the idea. I know people that have quit talking to each other for a while over some of these arguments, but they've never come to blows. They certainly didn't buy a rifle (everybody I know already has one, but would happily buy another) and shoot someplace up. If we could all just go back to being upset about movie sequels, and stop being upset about political ideologies, maybe things will calm back down for a moment.
On the other hand, maybe it's people that have changed, and not just the conversation. Maybe, if someone makes another set of movies worth arguing over, we'll just devolve into civil war over it.
Maybe that's why there hasn't been a 'Boondocks Saints 3: The Saints Go To War'.
Maybe that's why they never made a sequel to 'Hancock'.
Crazy ideas, I know, but once upon a time, airlplanes were a crazy idea. Now, they're so common that we've managed to lose a few. New ideas are always crazy, until they're common or forgotten.
My favorite thing about crazy ideas is that they often sound funny, even when they're not meant to be. I'm sure the first few people who proposed building boats out of metal were laughed out of the room.
Be assured that I will keep dropping crazy ideas, and sequels, even if they don't make the world a better place. For now, they make my world a better place, and if that's all I can manage, at least I'm managing something!
Appropriate to sequels, that is a photo of the black pussy willow from the first 'Silver Linings' post, after the flowers have dropped, the leaves have sprouted, and the gypsy moths have started to eat the leaves.