Nostalgia is powerful. Harnessed correctly, it can blind us to what we are truly experiencing. And major film studios are more than keen to our proclivity to remembering our favorite movie or tv show.
Warner Brothers is notorious for weaponizing nostalgia in movies like “The LEGO Movie,” “Ready Player One” and most recently “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” To varying degrees of success, these movies rely solely on the audience remembering iconic imagery from the past, masking any flaws the art itself has with an Easter egg hunt for the most obscure movie reference in the background of a climactic battle.
The film industry has long been defined by remembering the past. Hell, the most iconic movies of the 1980s — “Back to the Future” and “Indiana Jones” —reminisce on films from decades prior.
What’s happening now is not reminding audiences of general feelings of 1950s Americana and 1930s movie serials but overwhelming audiences with recognizable imagery with no substance. In the age of the internet and YouTube easter egg videos, an entire industry has cropped up solely to capitalize on nostalgia.
When “Ready Player One” and “Space Jam: A New Legacy” show us the Iron Giant, it isn’t to remind us of what it felt like watching the Brad Bird original but to solely capitalize on the imagery without any of the substance that made the original great.
The Iron Giant is a particularly powerful example of the dubious nature of nostalgia that Warner Brothers and the rest of Hollywood increasingly employ.
The 1999 original was about the dangers of weapons and the titular character’s fear of becoming one. “Ready Player One” ignores this and makes the Giant an instrument of war in an intellectual property filled final battle. All reverence behind specific imagery is lost when the original message is flat out ignored.
That brings us to Warner’s latest — and most egregious — nostalgia filled nightmare: “Space Jam: A New Legacy.”
Aside from having the generic sequel title in all of cinematic history, “A New Legacy” goes one step further and directly inserts LeBron James and the Loony Tunes into classics like “The Matrix” and “Casablanca.” Do you think Humphrey Bogart would’ve liked Yosemite Sam playing the piano in the 1942 classic?
By the end of “A New Legacy,” the movie devolves into a Where’s Waldo of Warner-owned properties. The Mask, three different versions of the Joker and the Penguin, the Droogs from “A Clockwork Orange” and even “Rick and Morty” all make appearances as nothing more than advertisements for properties you can conveniently watch on HBO Max along with “A New Legacy.”
Movies like these aren’t celebrating these characters with these cameos: it’s using them as weapons to target that part of our brain that lights up every time we see something we recognize from the past.
You’re meant to get more enjoyment about seeing “The Flintstones” in a crowd than watching LeBron James win a basketball game.
Nostalgia, however, is not entirely bad when utilized right. If given a purpose, nostalgia and ham-fisted references to old movies and shows can be quite charming.
Warner’s own “The LEGO Movie” is about a child playing with various LEGO properties like “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings.” The movie, like the toy line it is based on, is built around a child’s imagination and its ability to make fantastic stories. It gives it a narrative reason for cameos from Superman and The Wicked Witch of the West.
Other studios like Disney are no stranger to this nostalgia-based storytelling. Movies like “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Avengers: Endgame” are all about legacy so it makes sense to use imagery that would remind you of the past.
It’s not an attempt to trick the audience like “A New Legacy” but to do what movies like “Indiana Jones” and “Back to the Future” used to do: emulate a feeling.
Movies like “A New Legacy” don’t make you feel anything. They’re soulless, written by committee — six different writers to be specific — to formulate the most “oh I remember that” reactions from an audience desperate to remember the past.
Nostalgia is not a bad thing. Far from it. Sometimes remembering the past is the best way to move forward. Where nostalgia becomes dangerous is when it is not used for the right purpose.
When nostalgia is nothing more than a weapon to remind people of better things and offer no substance is when it becomes nefarious.
Domenic Purdy is a 20-year-old journalism junior from Prairieville.
Opinion: Hollow nostalgia of ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy,’ has little value
July 22, 2021