Sometimes Things Need To End

Marandah Mangra-Dutcher, Editor-in-Chief

It annoys me when things are drawn out longer than needed, specifically when movies and book universes are over used.

The first thing that comes to mind is the Star Wars universe. I have never been a fan and have not really watched the movies or read the books but I think that my dislike stems from the sheer amount of content that has been created. There are so many movies, books, cartoons and games related to Star Wars that have made the series lose its appeal.

Star Wars seems to be too complex from an outsider. There are too many ways to watch the movies and the story line is hard to follow because of the amount of movies. The producers were trying too hard to add things to the saga to make more money, they hurt the legacy the original movies created.

The same could be argued for Harry Potter, however that series is easier to follow with only the eight original movies and seven base books. I do think that they are trying too hard to expand the universe with the Fantastic Beasts addition and the other additions that have been recently announced. I, however, have always been a fan of Harry Potter when I first began reading the books. The storyline of Harry Potter is easy to understand and someone can watch anyone of the movies and still understand the overarching story rather than sitting in confusion.

If the producers and authors are truly trying to make an astounding universe they need to understand that sometimes too long is too much. If they are in it for the money then they need to understand that if they stretch it out too much the profit will begin to decrease and people will begin to lose interest.

I once read a few books in a series called the House of Night. I made my way through the first five books and had started on the sixth when I started to lose interest because it was becoming hard to remember which character was where and with whom. There were still four more books in the series with more still being made. It was too much.

I wonder if these stretched series were to follow the phase idea that Marvel does, if they would be more interesting. Marvel has an overarching story that connects many storylines to one main idea but each movie tells its own original story and they call this technique phasing. The company has been able to maintain a stable audience and attention as they create even more movies for this universe.

The same idea could work for authors as well. For example, Rick Riordan the author of Percy Jackson, has made many stories in the same universe but they are categorized as their own series with some connections to the original. The organization or the series I think is why the audience is still as large as it is. One does not have to read Percy Jackson in order to understand the Hero of Olympus series or the Magnus Chase series. All these series have their own story but are still connected to the original series.

I do not think that creates should ruin the storyline and legacy of amazing series just to make more of a profit off of it. I understand that is a common Hollywood mindset but I just wish that producers and creators though from the minds of their fans to understand truly what the story needs.