Recently the fires went out. The blood drained from the sky. The nasties withdrew back into their caverns and the air tasted not of acid, but of sweet honey, for the briefest of moments. The clouds broke and heaven rays of gold cut through like steel curtains, basking warm life on a cold field. The wearer paused, their hardships and toil forgotten, and greedily they drunk of this moment, this innocence, this bask-worthy light. For in that moment all the world might know that the beast was slain. That the evil had dissipated. That Velma had been cancelled. And then the light ceased. The curtain drew. Colour drained the world again and that the last of the warmth dried up and withered. That was when we all knew the horrid truth. Somehow- Velma had returned.
To be truthful the 'cancellation' was an ill-sourced jump of the gun spurred on by a bizarre post from an artist of the show who basically just lied and later called it a mistake. This artist has no idea if the show will get another season, and thus the hope for all those that love uninspired commentary on 'modern society' poorly slathered on a half-assed mystery show parading around with a bad Scooby Doo cosplay- can be happy. The show is probably coming back. But the reason I even mention all of this is actually rather pointed beyond Velma itself- because to be honest- I actually like the show. Not it's quality, god no. I like laughing at it, and I was actually a little sad for that brief moment when it was cancelled in the hearts of us all. It's not harmful to art- or at least, not specifically. What it represents however- yeah, that actually is harmful.
Because what is Velma, if we're honest with ourselves. A Scooby Doo show? No. Not even nearly. It borrows none of the charm, formula, characters or occasional wit of the show. (Very occasional- I will never forgive 'Get a clue'.) What Velma actually is- is a generic adult animated comedy that someone, probably looking through the graveyard of similar uninspired adult animated crap that never make it past their second season; figured would have a better chance of making it if they tied it to the Scooby Doo franchise. They essentially hijacked a popular franchise to better shore up the profitability of a dull idea. And it's not the only recent entertainment product to do this. Just look at the Halo show, which spent it's entire first season stubbornly trying to not be Halo in ever conceivable way, but kowtowing where needed to suit marketing. Or Netflix's Witcher- especially where 'Blood Origin' was concerned!
Now from the cold mind of a corporate marketer there is absolutely nothing wrong with this whatsoever. In fact, being able to recycle franchises that have run their course with the uninspired talents of mediocre writers incapable of conceiving new content of a comparable quality is cost effective work! Just as The Rings of Power team, they owe their careers to this kind of finagling! But what is the cost on the art of entertainment? Well now it's becoming even more impossible for new ideas to break through into Hollywood. Old franchises are being squeezed dry to the point where they're no longer appealing. (Star Wars Outlaw's underperformance demonstrates that. As does 'The Acolyte's failure.)
We were witness to a legendary example of this very thing with the recent Borderlands movie- a practise in 'how bad can we possibly make our adaptation' fielded by a team who had literally no care for the source material aided by a team who lost their connection with the source material. Whatever corny action sci-fi snorefest of a plot they originally had on their desk was stuffed with random characters across the Borderlands franchise that barely resembles the original cast dragging a weak concept down into abject parody. It was a mess, to say the least. And it shouldn't have happened. There was no talent, no passion, no purpose. That's the worst part- no purpose to the thing! Every piece of art needs a purpose.
Maybe that's what has bred this age of cynicism where I can no longer trust the franchises I love to resemble the kinds of stories and experiences that they used to- because it's all to easy to commandeer them and then ride off the total change in everything that matters as "a change in direction!". "What are you, stuck in the past?" All the while the try to bamboozle the world with blatant smothering of an old brand over unrelated work. No care put into to recognising the original, building upon it's strengths, improving that earlier work with a worthy successor- it's all about making the most amount of money by jumping on a profitable brand.
And perhaps that it why I'm so suspicious of everything that the new Dragon Age game presents. Nothing I've seen has been offensively bad, even that original trailer was just wildly off-base instead of objectively awful- but similarly I've not seen anything that speaks to the Dragon Age I know. The in-depth world building, the iconic yet grounded characters, the evolved tactical gameplay- I don't recognise the brand I grew up with. And with how long it's been since Bioware last put out a good game, and how many changes to staff they've undergone in that time, it kind of feels like a totally new team coming in with their own ideas to make a game that is being squeezed under the Dragon Age new for profit's sakes.
Thankfully, unlike Hollywood the Game's Industry isn't nearly as cooked with this stuff. Sure, we still get our fair share of remakes and sequels and the like- that's just the way of things- but there are plenty of brand new strike-outs that score too. Wukong has been a smash hit that made back it's investment and is shooting straight into profit after month one, Metaphor Refantazio has been ATLUS' fastest selling game of all time (helped in no small part thanks to that demo) and one sequel that did actually do it's original vast justice, Space Marine 2, has soared to such a surge in the hearts of the gaming public that Game Workshop are having a near Baldur's Gate level jolt to the system to ramp up their general output of product. As long as the spark to create new franchises breathes, as it no longer does in film and TV, we can stay above and ahead of the creative bankrupt hijackers.
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