so I was just watching the new
live-action Beauty and the Beast teaser
trailer starring Emma Watson another
remake of a 1990s Disney Animation film
and I noticed that the trailer ends with
two instantly recognizable symbols a red
rose and an appeal to be our guest from
the first film's famous song and it
occurred to me that symbols like this
have come to represent a new kind of
emotional currency in Hollywood the
currency of intertextuality the dollars
will do
intertextuality is something in a text
in this case a movie that is shaped by
another text that could be a film or a
book or a play or a song the new text
reality is something that you can't
escape it's as old as storytelling us
it's how language works all language
reaches back and is informed by how it
was used in the past but today there
seems to be a new kind of intertextual
'ti born out of the endless series of
sequels remakes and reboots adaptations
and shared universes and it's perfectly
captured in that force awakens clip when
the Millennium Falcon is revealed or
later when Han Solo and Chewbacca board
their ship or later still when bb-8
pulls the cover off an old friend what
do we feel in these moments it's a bit
hard to pinpoint but personally I feel a
kind of freeze on a chill everything I
know about the intertextual object in
question unloads onto my mind like the
vision Rey gets when she first touches
Luke's lightsaber this is the weapon of
a Jedi Knight I was clumsy or random as
a blast intertextual references can
point to genre conventions they can
point to the texts influences or
cultural historical contexts but in this
new generation of films more and more
the intertextual manifests itself as
objects people or situations
specifically meant to trigger an
emotional response in the viewer
it's weaponized intertextuality goodness
what's a bit troubling about this trend
is that increasingly I'm seeing films
use this kind of intertextual reference
as a dramatic substitute I mean why else
include Sauron in The Hobbit trilogy for
example when he appears nowhere in the
book it seems to me that Saruman
Galadriel Sauron that whole plotline was
included purely for entertaining
decades-old series are right for this
kind of thing and if you want a couple
examples of just how cheap these moments
can be just take a look at two big
intertextual reveals my name is Kai the
man you're talking to now and then
inside your head is an stuff on Blofeld
surprise [ __ ] scenes like this
are kind of unicorns blood they'll keep
your story alive but only with half a
soul one of my favorite TV shows when I
was a teenager was small film by its
very nature that show was built around
intertextual cues what made the show
great in the early seasons was how it
took those cues and deconstructed them
in unexpected ways namely in the
friendship of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor
it's strength was that fanservice
payoffs played second fiddle to deeply
drawn relationships but in the later
seasons the show began to lean a little
too heavily on intertextual objects and
moments from the Superman Canon really
DC Comics has always had this problem
because its heroes are mythological
Batman and Superman are the
quintessential intertextual characters
just seeing them at all is exciting but
the recent Batman V Superman movie
directed by Zack Snyder proved that the
freeze on of having these characters on
screen together of having them fight
each other was just no substitute for
strong intelligent drama Snyder had a
similar issue with his film Watchmen
almost every shot in that film is a
compositional match to the comic it's
trying to adapt now for those who read
and love that comic there certainly is a
thrill in seeing those frames and
experiencing those intertextual moments
come beautifully to life when that's all
there is the final feeling is an empty
one
hi Mars I think when cinematic
storytelling is confined by an economic
situation like this one where 300
million dollar bets have to be safe ones
weaponized intertextuality is going to
be an inevitable byproduct I mean this
year alone we have coming up finding
dory
Independence Day resurgence Ghostbusters
the Angry Birds movie a Jason Bourne
sequel rogue one star trek Beyond and
Warcraft expect to be flooded with
weaponized intertextuality at every turn
as I said before I don't think
franchises and shared universes are bad
by default quite the opposite at their
best they build interpretive communities
and foster social bonds an increasingly
alienated world the kind of intertextual
'ti that we're talking about can reflect
these good qualities and when it's done
right when it's not a substitute for
strong characters and a good story it
can be funny excuse me I'm Erik
Lehnsherr
tale exhibit come [ __ ] yourself it can
be amusingly subversive and of course it
can add to the drama while still being
exciting his help hey everybody welcome
to the nerdwriter end screen thank you
so much for watching that that was so
much fun to make and I love thinking
about stuff like this and if you want to
help me make more videos you can click
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page the small pledge has helped so much
and I'll see you guys next Wednesday oh
and thank you so much for watching my
video on taxes I didn't think that would
get a lot of views but people really
seem to like it so so cool