I loved gen 1 pokemon as a kid in the 90s. But today I sometimes feel like our culture is locked in time. Walking into a toy store is somewhat depressing - everything looks exactly the same as it did when I was a kid! It’s been 30+ years, kids should have way cooler toys and IPs.
> But today I sometimes feel like our culture is locked in time.
People say this often and I agree that it does feel that way.
They particularly underline "they are constantly remaking old movies!" which is also true.
However, this is not a new phenomenon. As someone who loves movie trivia, IMDB is full of "this 1980s film was actually a remake of this other 1947 film". An older example: the Victorians (~1837 - ~1901) were obsessed with the ancient Romans. This was during a time when the telegraph was connecting the world and people could talk to humans, instantly, on the other side of the world.
The Wizard of Oz (the one you know of) was a remake.
The Thing (the one you know of—though the other had a longer title anyway) was a remake.
The version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland (so, the one with that meme-able image of him pointing toward the camera) was a remake.
(Franchises? There are some from like the 40s that had a dozen or so entries over the next couple decades)
Many remake examples from almost all periods of filmmaking.
There were tons of remakes of silent films after talkies came about, then another wave of remakes of jankier-effects stagier-acting-style movies from the ‘40s and ‘50s when effects got way better and naturalistic acting took over in the 70s (plus some of these were remaking black & white to color).
> The Wizard of Oz (the one you know of) was a remake.
I'm not sure it's quite fair to call the 1939 film a "remake". It was one in a line of adaptations of the book, and isn't otherwise really related to the other adaptations. It isn't the first, or the last, but it is the most famous.
The difference is between "I can tell this story better/more engaging/more entertaining/more realistic" vs "let's cash in on the success this movie had five years ago"
The Wizard of Oz was a new interpretation of Baum's original story. They put enormous effort into making the new film better than other interpretations, of which there were several. Which is why it's a successful, beloved classic!
The same really can't be said of this week's Marvel/DC remake of whatever they made a few years ago. It's just about being a cash grab and nothing else.
P.S. If you've never heard of the sequel 'Return to Oz', do yourself a favor and watch it without doing any research. Just go in straight blind, it really enhances the experience. If you drink, keep a bottle nearby, you'll need it.
>The Thing (the one you know of—though the other had a longer title anyway) was a remake.
I think it's more accurate to say they're both based off the same 1938 novella: "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. The 1951 movie "The Thing from Another World" is a very loose adaptation because it omits the most important plot point of the shapeshifting alien imitating people. The 1982 movie "The Thing" is a closer adaptation that includes it. This makes it a much better movie even if you ignore the improved special effects, because the drama of the characters not knowing who's really the Thing is a big part of the appeal.
Oh yeah one of those “memento mori” things for me is browsing shelves in flea markets with tons of 1890s-1930s popular fiction and appreciating how very many of the authors are now totally unknown. You can do something similar with bestseller lists by year on Wikipedia, go back far enough and even for someone with pretty deep recognition of historical authors it soon becomes a lot of “who? Who? Who?”
> I imagine there are probably also films that everyone saw back then but are unheard of today.
Even sticking to relatively critically-acclaimed stuff it’s pretty easy to land on films that probably fewer than 1% of people in the Anglosphere (assuming initial popularity in that market) have seen, in the silent era, without going far off the beaten path. Go slightly farther and it’s likely just you and a very small number of other extreme film nerds among the living who’ve ever watched it.
Take DW Griffith, a giant of a director. Got what, 20+ surviving feature films of 40ish made? How many people alive have seen more than three of them? It’s a small number. Hell, it’s not a large number that have watched even one.
"Block" games existed in the 90s, perhaps, but Minecraft is from 2009.
"Factorio" type puzzles may have existed, but nothing of that detail until 2016.
Part of the big advancements of the 80-90s was that the technology was advancing insanely quickly, which meant that things that were simply impossible a year ago were commonplace next year.
LEGO still exists, but the Lego of 2026 is not the Lego of the 90s (for good or ill).
Toy cars existed in the 80s, but the Cars franchise started in 2006.
Part of the problem is it's hard to see what will be huge in 20 years that already exists today.
You also have "sideways cannibalization" where something in one area never really expands to another: Harvest Moon never moved to PC/Mac and so there was an opening that Stardew Valley took advantage of, and now has moved way beyond. In a way it's "the same thing locked in time" in another it's not.
What do they say about there being only seven stories?
That's not the opening that Stardew took. It was only on PC because that's the platform that doesn't make you fill out an application to get dev hardware for.
The opening they took was Harvest Moon putting out increasingly uninnovative game after increasingly uninnovative game for years. Rune Factory innovated exactly once and then swore never to do so again (though they managed to produce RF4 so I do give them props for that. even if RF5 walked it so far back.)
Something about these games is very hard to pin down. See also: the millions of SDV clones, some even by huge players with lots of money, that don't make any kind of cultural dent.
Oh, a ton of other things went right for lightning to strike - but find a Harvest Moon or even Animal Crossing clone on PC before Stardew - there just wasn't much there.
Likely part of it was realizing that you could eschew the 3D realism craze that was high at the time, and still succeed.
I was just thinking too when there are new IPs, they are completely indistinct today. Take a character from any of the past 15 years of animated movies and they are interchangeable with each other. Everyone is afraid to establish a design language beyond looking kinda-sorta like a pixar character.
90s were so different with creative freedom with the media we were exposed to. All those shows had their own art style. Characters were distinct and unmistakable. Brands were cemented as a result.
Marketing executives have lost the hat. They are like those people from the Neutral Planet in Futurama. Somehow they reigned in everything that made them successful in the 80s and 90s.
I'm unfamiliar with anime, and I disagree. (Not that I'll be able to provide examples.) There's a generic anime look, but there are a lot of things that don't look like the generic anime look.
Just looked up some names I've heard people mention: The My Hero Academia character art is very visually distinct from OG Pokémon, which is very different to the Sun & Moon version of Ash Ketchum.
I walk past something resembling a claw machine arcade on my commute, and I've noticed that although every month the prizes in the window swap around, the anime woman figurine and the mascot plush always looks quite similar to the one from the last month.
I _think_ they're from different series, but aesthetically it's impossible for me to figure out one from the other. Trends are still changing, but I think our design sensibilities have definitely found a place to plateau.
I try to (relive my youth and) buy my kids action figures and they could care less. Injection molded plastic hunks can't compete with the dopamine hit of Roblox or Dogman books.
Eh, how long has looney tunes and Bugs Bunny been around? I was watching that with my silent generation grandfather into the 2000s, and my first video games were basically my Gen X dad's first video games on the 2600 and first Nintendo, Intellivision. I think the simplicity of those games and that IP is just universally approachable for people at a certain age. Before Pokemon cards, it was just sports cards for ages.
While there IS innovation and novelty in the toy industry, I can tell you from experience in the field that the people with the money are the parents. So the nostalgia play is a very strong tactic. Sell what the parents had because they will INSTANTLY want to give the same to their kids.
Can't speak to your age or location, but... probably a lot of things you grew up with were part of their childhood too. Disney, Looney Tunes, DC / Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Winnie the Pooh, Star Wars...
It’s not just video games but everything… movies, music, everything has basically barely evolved compared to the prior 30 years. Compare 1965 to 1995 and 1995 to present and it’s so clear we have become stagnant in so many ways. Way fewer choices in a lot of ways even if we have more convenient options.
I've come full circle to appreciating the current durability of culture.
Last summer, I played Pokémon with my neice's kid. I got to relive the pure joy of playing Pokémon with my neice, nephews, and own son. So now three generations are nerding out together. I love it.
