Episode 14: The Age of Nostalgia

"Take me back/back to the shack/back to the Strat with the lightning strap/kick in the door/more hardcore/rockin' out like it's '94/let's turn up the radio/turn off those stupid singing shows/I know where we need to go/back to the shack.'

                                          -Weezer, "Back to the Shack"

Life is weird.

    And with how weird life is, especially today with a pandemic and constant social unrest, many of us often find ourselves yearning for the past. Times when things were better. Or maybe things weren't necessarily better; we were just younger so we didn't know, or care, or it simply didn't affect us.

    Nevertheless, nostalgia is a commodity. Film and television studios these days milk out this commodity. And that's not entirely a bad thing - in fact, I will be using this blog to talk about how it's a good thing. In my very first blog, I discussed how cool I think fanservice is, and nostalgia is a major form of fanservice. I'm gonna go through several franchises that are utilizing nostalgia today.

The Karate Kid

  The Karate Kid was a series of three movies in the eighties, a horrible fourth one that's no longer canon, and a reboot with Jaden Smith that I am going to pretend does not exist.

   This franchise has been brought back in the form of a television series called Cobra Kai. The series is set in the modern day, with all of the same major actors returning, except for the late Pat Morita (rest in peace, Mr. Miyagi), playing the same characters, teaching karate to a new generation.

Ghostbusters (SPOILER ALERT)

   Another big franchise from the eighties that has come back recently. Besides an awful remake that I am going to pretend does not exist, the series came back true-to-form last year in the form of a movie called Ghostbusters: Afterlife. This movie centers around the grandchildren, more prominently the granddaughter, of Egon Spengler (rest in peace, Harold Ramis). Because of Ramis' having passed on, they killed off his character as well, which leads to a very nice scene in the ending where Venkman, Stantz, and Zeddemore get to team up with Spengler's ghost. Spengler gets to see and interact with his daughter and grandchildren in his ghost form. Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson, and Weaver return, as well as Ramis having a posthumous return using his likeness.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (SPOILERS)

    Coming out in December last year, so just a couple months ago at the writing of this blog, Spider-Man: No Way Home features the current Spider-Man (the MCU's Tom Holland) interacting with and fighting alongside alternate universe verisons of himself, which are Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man and Andrew Garfield's. Maguire of course portrayed the character in Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Spider-Man 3, and Andrew Garfield portrayed the character in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

   The three Spider-Men also face villains coming from each other's worlds. They have to fight Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Sandman from Maguire's Spider-Man's universe, as well as Electro and Lizard from Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man's universe.

   Maguire, Garfield, Dafoe, Molina, Church, Foxx, and Ifans all reprise their roles from their past movies. Charlie Cox also returns as Matt Murdock, reprising his role from the live-action Daredevil series that aired on Netflix (which is, in my opinion, the best superhero show of all time).

Star Wars

    Okay, I was hesitant about including this, because nothing about Star Wars ever really went away. But nonetheless, the Disney+ series The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, as well animated series The Bad Batch and more things planned to come are keeping the franchise very much alive and well.

Creed

   There have been two movies, with a third coming soon, centered around the son of Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies. Sylvester Stallone returns as Rocky Balboa, who trains Creed's son and serves a mentor role, similar to what happens on Cobra Kai.

Here's a picture of Pokémon Platinum because it's my favorite video game of all time and I'm super nostalgic for it, as I played it all the time as a kid.

See you next week!