March 29, 2016

I apologize in advance, because what I am about to say will probably upset almost everyone: DJ Tanner and her troop of relatives should have stayed in the 90s.

When “Fuller House” debuted on Netflix in February, it seemed like the entire world exploded. Everyone was so excited to rewatch the same hijinks and corny humor that was original over a decade ago. As much as I loved the original sitcom, I was in no way anticipating the revival because it feeds into the brainless and monotonous trend that has become television and film: to be successful, you have to come from some kind of pre-existing media.

Out of the top five grossing films of 2015, “Inside Out” was the only original idea to come from the year that was dominated by “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Jurassic World,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Furious 7.”

It seems like Hollywood has found the metaphoric goldmine at the end of the consumer-based rainbow: take an old story that people still love, plop some A-list celebrities in the credits, make something explode and badda-bing, badda-boom, you have a blockbuster on your hands.

I’m not going to say that I hate all sequels and reboots, because I don’t. If I refused to watch them, I would probably have only three movies to choose from all year, and one-third of those options would have to be an M. Night Shyamalan movie, so no thank you.

Superhero movies, love stories based on young adult novels and car-chasing thrillers are all great, but at what point do we tip the film cash cow and make something great that nobody has seen before?

Not only do sequels prevent new ideas from flourishing, but they sometimes take away what was great about the first installment. Yes, “Full House” was a great show, but it is pretty sad when you think that those actors have really done nothing better with their careers in the last decade, and people are only excited to see them do the same stuff they were doing when *NSYNC was still on tour. Sorry John Stamos, but those Greek Yogurt commercials have nothing on your “have mercy” crying yesteryear.

They say if you love something, let it go. So for the love of all that is good, let go the Fast and Furious movies and don’t even think about trying to make “Air Bud,” or any of his athletically-inclined puppies, play another sport on the big screen. Redoing the same thing too many times cheapens value and transforms cinematic gold to the start to a tacky franchising nightmare. If you see something good that you haven’t heard of before, give it a shot. You don’t need the Hollywood franchise tag to tell you what is worth seeing or not.