Not in a ‘need to get super depressed at the exploitation of their IP and take a shotgun to the mouth’. That would be callous to those who legitimately decide to coat the wall with a fresh layer of cherry pie. I mean the ending-it-so-people-will-remember-you-at-your-creative-zenith kind of way. Stop things at their peak so people remember that and wonder at what directions you would have taken, rather than watch the franchise stretch it out and grow old, fat, wheezy, and star in its own VH1 special thirty years later.
I was initially thinking of this in the vein of books, but while digging for examples movies presented themselves as far more fitting examples (or targets, as I see them). Case in point: any of the Lethal Weapon series after the second, All the Die Hard movies after the first, and Saws III-VI. I am also lumping in all those “reimagingings” or attempts to revive IPs from my youth but in the form of summer blockbusters (Transformers II and GI Joe as the most recent examples). Let them stay in the golden light of nostalgia and times past, don’t try to repaint and package them and shove them out into studio environment where someone like Michael Bay can rape them like pedophile to a group of unsupervised minors.
As far as literary examples of this phenomena - I am more looking at when an author doesn’t end his work in a timely manner and blathers on so long that the story grows stale and dies (Robert Jordan) or when an author kicks the bucket and his progeny need some quick cash, so they root through the waste bin of their fathers/mothers and dig up their rejects to be published (Frank Herbert’s bastard).
In the case of Robert Jordan (May he rest in peace), I began reading his Wheel of Time series with exuberant wonder. It was a fresh, different world that was engrossing with its history and characters. However, as the series went on, it started becoming repetitive and boring…nothing was happening. Eventually, by the fifth book I realized ‘JESUS WE AREN’T EVEN HALFWAY DONE?!’ and promptly quit the series. Now I have recently found out by someone who kept up with the series that his ‘last book’ the one being published posthumously that Jordan promised would be in only one volume “Even if it has to be 750pages” is being printed in three volumes. The first one is easily 750 pages. What the fuck. The publishers aren’t fooling anyone, three volumes of one book published in three separate books is…three books.
I loved the original Dune, and it’s hard not to acknowledge it as one of the classics of Sci Fi literature, up there with Robert E Heinlein’s Starship Trooper and almost anything Isaac Asimov or Philip K Dick published. However, he should have left it at that. I should have left it at that. I knew there were more books, and none could possibly be as good as the first. And what did I get? Some relief in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, they were alright. Then what happened? I got a face full of giant purple space worm. That’s when I quit. While suspension of disbelief is necessary when reading or watching fiction, there is only so far it can be taken (or abused in some cases) before it breaks the fourth wall and the shows over.
There are exceptions to this rule. The redux of some new movies and TV shows have been very good, and there are some books that just couldn’t be done their justice if limited to only three-four novels. That last Star Trek movie and the Battlestar Galactica series stand in mind as movie examples. George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series is still going strong, and if cut short or limited would have been a great mistake.
There is a reason that this is a recent phenomenon. I think people in ages past had a little more sense than dragging out a good thing. What if there had been a Moby Dick II? Perhaps Mark Twain could have written a whole series of Huck Finn books where his friend Jim could spout with increasing frequency “I’m getting too old for this shit!!” I’m thinking there should have been a spinoff of the Divine Comedy where Virgil comes to earth and gets a tour all ‘Fear and Loathing’ style. I want to hear the descriptions of giant bats and machete-wielding Samoans written in Cantos.
So in summary. If you have a really awesome thing going on creatively, resist the urge to ride it out, find a good point and STOP. If necessary take a page from John Bonham’s play book and drink yourself to death while still part of Zeppelin.
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