Can we talk about? - Fan service getting out of control.
By Martyn Conterio [Total Film magazine, October 2024 issue]
‘Get away from her, you bitch.’ Great line. Actually, it’s iconic. But when it’s uttered towards the end of Alien: Romulus, you won’t believe your ears. Same goes for the other memorable bits cribbed directly from Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens. Because it’s not just dialogue: there are shots replicated, moments revisited from the series (and video game Alien: Isolation) and one familiar actor from the franchise is brought back from the dead with VFX.
In such instances, does fan service start to feel like a snake eating its own tail? Say what you like about the various merits (or lack thereof) of anything after Aliens, but each film had a distinct identity. Alien movies should aspire to be more than fan fiction.
Audiences have always gotten a kick out of movies referencing other movies (they were doing it as far back as the silent era). But fan service is a relatively new phenomenon linked to properties such as the MCU, the DCEU and Star Wars. A savvy, geek-literate audience now demands Easter eggs and callbacks in every film, every show, and acts vocally disappointed when those treats fail to materialise to their satisfaction.
‘A SAVVY, GEEK-LITERATE AUDIENCE NOW DEMANDS CALLBACKS IN EVERY FILM, EVERY SHOW’ f0026-03 Fury Road: fan service done right (ALAMY) Still, fan service can be creative. George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road provided a laundry list of nods to the original Mad Max trilogy: it just didn’t shout about it. And the nostalgia factor worked too - primarily because it was Miller’s own creation, not somebody else’s.
The recent Deadpool & Wolverine is another film stuffed to the gills with scenes designed to cause whooping, hollering, and ‘amagawd’ reactions in the auditorium. Meanwhile, 2023’s The Flash is a comic-book spectacle that delivered fan service up the wazoo. Did we really need Michael Keaton returning as Batman? Or a CGI Nicolas Cage as Superman (in reference to Tim Burton’s abandoned 1990s project)?
How can a blockbuster film stand any chance of becoming a potentially beloved classic on its own terms? A line must be drawn between heartfelt homage and unnecessary (and lazy) nostalgia.
We all love these characters, these franchises, but it’s how they’re served creatively that matters the most.
Yeah, lazily reusing quotes and references to prior movies is getting really out of hand. Good to see the author made the distinction between good and bad uses as well, as there are some examples where the reference is both plot relevant and well executed.
Terminator 2 uses “I’ll be back” for comedic effect, and it is well timed. But the one that is the best example of using a callback to directly benefit the movie as a whole was “Come with me if you want to live”. In The Terminator Kyle Reese said the line to Sarah Conner. In T2 the T-800 (Arnold) said it to Sarah Conner to let her know he was on her side.
Then the later entries keep reusing those line, making it worse and worse each instance.
Yeah, T2 was the only one that did it right. It was also the best of the sequels.