#build a wall...of text

I love movies; and I love going to theaters to see them, it's not an experience I had very much growing up. However, I have resolved from here on out to neither watch in theaters nor at home any movie from a franchise of more than three. For brevity, we shall call these movies Universe Movies or U-Movies, after the Marvel Universe whose unprecedented success set the tone of such franchises from 2012 onwards. There may be some exceptions - watching with a large group of friends, for instance - but on the whole my mind is set: no more Avengers, no more Star Wars, Star Trek, or Harry Potter. I would mention the DC Universe, but I was already not watching that. "But wait!" my inner critic cries. "You need to be aware of the culture! You can't just put a blanket ban on movies that haven't been announced yet! Think of how many good movies you'll miss!" And it's right. I will miss a lot of good movies. I've already missed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as Star Wars: Rogue One, and I only saw the new Star Trek movie (Beyond?) because I was on a plane with nothing else to do. So why am I doing this? Well, to save money in part; but also because I'm fed up with un-innovative, uninspiring sequels; action/adventure movies that are all action and no adventure; boring, routine storytelling and cliched camera shots. Here, for your perusal, shall I list the 5 Universal Sins of Universe Movies:

1. Theme park effect I read a great article, and I'm upset that I can't find it again, about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the screenplay that's acting as a "Book 8" in the Harry Potter series. It pointed out that in Cursed Child, story took a back seat to spectacle: a lot of things were put in for fan recognition - "Oh, I remember this!" The author of that article called it something like a theme park story. What happens doesn't matter as much as the fact that you're in the same place you were before. And I get it, I get the longing to be back in Harry's England or Gotham City or what have you. But the reason we love those places in the first place is the characters we learn about there, the stories that move us to better ourselves; and in U-Movies those things are often gone, poorly replaced by brand recognition.

2. Character undeath One of the worst features Marvel and DC took from comic books is that heroes often seem to be immune to enemy attack. Or, if they do fall, they are resurrected somehow, or it was a faked death, or...you've heard it all before, I'm sure. It's a cheap bait-and-switch for storytelling: all the drama and loss of death without having to end the story arc! This tactic has been used so many times that it's all but certain now that main character deaths are not real. Part of why Game of Thrones is so refreshing is that most people in it stay dead. I remember watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it came out (spoilers, btw). Poe and Finn's ship crashed in the beginning, and Poe was apparently dead, but I had a sinking feeling he would be popping back up later; and when the expected reveal did happen, I was disappointed. J.J. Abrams had a chance to do so much character building based on Poe's death, but chose the cheap thrills instead. This topic also leads into

3. Escalating or dangling plot lines *Old man voice* Back in my day, movies used to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Now, they're all middle! </Old man voice> For real, though, when you know a character /needs/ to be alive for the sequel, or there's a whole lot of backstory that props up the character interactions in a movie, it feels like you're watching a TV Show with breaks of epic proportions in between episodes. 2 to 3 hours should be enough to start and resolve a plot; but in a U-Movie there needs to be a teaser of what's coming next, some unresolved issue to use as a cliffhanger. There's only so long movies can say they're going to resolve everything and then don't before I start getting suspicious.

4. Unclear directive vision Universes in and of themselves are not bad. There are, presumably, stories it would take many movies to tell well (see: The Lord of the Rings). But many Universes these days exist only to make money, because other people are doing it, or it was successful in the past (see: The Hobbit movies [why is that a plural what were you thinking Pete]). The thing about long franchises is that at some point, the director you've hired will die or stop making movies and you'll have to find another one. Same for characters in your franchise. Hence Spiderman is more like schizo-man because he's been remade so many times.