Movie Sequels

Hollywood usually uses the same director across all the movies in a trilogy.  Maybe it’s time for a change.

Instead of continuing to do things that way, with a single look and feel to a series, each movie could be given a different vibe by employing a different director.  Having a different director for each movie could keep a franchise from becoming stale.  Each director could explore his own interpretation of character, relationship, and events.  This could help to flesh out characters, to offer a richer, more nuanced understanding of character and motivation.  Perhaps even directors who don’t normally work within a specific genre could be given a chance to give a movie their personal touch; to employ the hallmarks of a director’s own particular idiom.  How might that look?

Wes Anderson’s Godzilla.

An aging Godzilla, portrayed by Bill Murray, stands on the beach, staring wistfully out across the Pacific.  His impossibly long, striped scarf, banded in scarlet and gold, flutters wildly in the ocean breeze.  

Minilla, Godzilla’s son, played by Owen Wilson, stands beside his father.  He is barely half his father’s height.  He wears a matching scarf which is scaled to his size.  The two strike the same pose; Minilla’s silhouette that of his father’s, but in miniature. 

The camera pans around the two, moving from behind the pair to Godzilla’s left.  As it pans, the camera slowly changes angle so that it can come to rest with both of the beasts’ faces in profile. 

A lifetime of experience: of love and loss, of successes and failures, of joys and sadness can be seen etched in the lines on Godzilla’s face as his expression slowly changes from maudlin to a whimsical grin.  As he heaves a contented sigh, the opening strains of The Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” begin to play.

On second thought, is Neill Blomkamp available?