Insights into “The Curse of the Sequel”
Earlier this week, I stumbled upon a video from KingK in which he tackled an elusive mystery that seemed to plague him about his experiences with Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2.
In his video, he explains at length the kind of deep emotional connection that laid hands upon him when he first played the first entry in the series, and how said emotional link simply seemed to… *vanish* in that second instalment.
And, while the second game might truly be the more mechanically sound of the two, there just seemed to be something that went missing in that second entry, he argues.
If you have not yet seen his video, please go on and watch it. It’s great and full of useful insights.
But now that that’s out of the way, let us explore what I’m here today to discuss: The Curse of the Sequel.
At some point you might have heard that saying that goes along the lines of “a great piece of media, more often than not, tends to be followed by another work that is subpar”.
So… why’s that?
Is it some kind of divine intervention destined to balance out runaway successes so that new works have a chance to shine? Surely, that’s not the case, right?
Then, why is it that so many sequels seem to be so deeply devoid of a soul, even when the first work captured our imaginations in such an exceptionally profound way? Well, let me tell you that “soul” probably is the key to this mystery here.
But what is the soul of a work?, you might ask.
That’s simple.
It is the collection of reasons that make up the purpose behind a piece of art’s existence.
Human experience is quite colourful. So it makes sense that those works that inspire us are too.
A collection of reasons I say. Motive.
In this piece here, Dean DeBlois, director behind the saga “How to Train Your Dragon” goes on to explain the hardships that he and his team faced when discussing how to follow up on the first movie’s success.
He says, and I quote:
“I knew that restarting with a new story and still having Hiccup as the main character was going to be a challenge, mainly because the first film took care of all his emotional problems. At the very beginning he was largely ostracised, didn’t have the attention of the girl he pined for or the respect of his father or the tribe. However, Hiccup managed to attain all of those things, as well as befriending an amazing dragon, and so by the end of the first film the character didn’t have any more complications.”
In other words, the character arc that motivated the first movie had already been resolved. So, at first sight, there was nothing to go on from in order to produce a second and a third movie. And that’s the pitfall that most often creators fall into when deciding to make a straight follow up sequel.
Dean DeBlois recognised this fact, so he chose to timeskip the saga up to a point where new conflict could be explored. And that’s why we got a grownup Hiccup on the second movie.
New conflict meant that they could afford to explore new issues in Hiccup’s life. They could explore a new purpose, and give the new work a soul of its own. This story would no longer be empty.
Now, let us decode what that means for us in regards to the curse, and how all this relates to KingK’s claimed lack of real connection with Super Mario Galaxy 2.
Say what you will about that game, but… I would argue that, as KingK ascertains, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is effectively… JUST more Super Mario Galaxy in the strictest sense. It is a game that never truly intended to be a beast of its own. And that’s why, when the first instalment came out, everyone and their mother were talking about it. But when the second one did, only the most passionate were.
It is a game whose sole identity and purpose is wholly intertwined with the first game’s existence. And without it, the second one would just be a collection of entertaining levels with cool gimmicks. And isn’t that a sad state of affairs?
But I’m not here to discuss Super Mario Galaxy 2’s flaws. What I truly want to tackle here is reason behind why it turned out like that.
SMG2 is, by no means, a bad game. But it suffers from a severe lack of motivation, other than “let’s just have some more fun in Super Mario Galaxy with new levels”.
And while that might not be a problem to some, who genuinely were just looking for more cool levels. It is an issue to those that played the game for a different reason, like the sense of wonder that enraptured so many players in game, myself included.
You might argue that I was no longer impressed by SMG2 because I had already experienced Super Mario Galaxy. But, to that, I’ll say that you couldn’t be more wrong. Because I, in fact, experienced SMG2 first, and promptly dropped it since I felt no emotional stakes in that game.
SMG2, was just business as usual: Bowser came to kidnap Princess Peach, yada yada, Bowser “BIG and scary”, and Mario now has to rescue her. It’s as generic Super Mario as it can get.
By comparison, in Super Mario Galaxy, while it is true that the premise is exactly the same; the delivery is MASSIVELY more nuanced. In this first entry, you get to experience firsthand the panic and terror that ensues when Bowser arrives with an army and throws everything into chaos. Here, you feel the pressure as cannons pummel your surroundings. You feel the need to rush to the princess’ aid as Toads around you lay encased into crystals (a very family friendly metaphor for dead bodies in a war zone).
It’s a whole different animal.
In SMG2, you might even get annoyed about characters taking too long to talk. You just want to jump into the action. - Come on! Give me some freaking levels already! I wanna pound some Goombas!
But that’s not the case in the first entry. Here, you’re invested in the story, the architecture, the planets, the scenery… Everything feels so fresh and captivating.
Come on, just have a look at each game’s ship, side by side, and come to your own conclusions.
The Observatory makes you want to explore what it has to offer. It makes you want to search every nook and cranny for secrets. It makes you want to discover what lays beyond in those very distant galaxies. It even makes you want to hang out around the place just to soak in the spectacle.
By contrast, Mario’s ship in SMG2 is as bland as in gets. Wow… it’s shaped like Mario’s head. How thrilling…
The Sequel’s Curse is nothing but a phenomena in which a creator simply tries to make more of the previous work, with mixed results. Sometimes it turns out well, but more often than not, it turns out poorly.
Their blind pursuit to just build more upon the sole foundations of the previous work often results in a piece that rarely can hold itself on its own.
And that’s because each new work, even if it’s a sequel, must have its own distinct identity, its own reason for being. It must have an idea of itself that it wants to convey or fulfill. It must be an animal of its own.
But I don’t mean by this that we should simply dispose of everything that formed part of the previous work, or otherwise it wouldn’t be a sequel at all.
Each brand is like a person, in that it holds a set of characteristics that define it as a whole. But just as people are not the same as teenagers as they are as adults, yet they are still the same person. A piece of media and its followup must each be their own thing. In either case, they each have their own motivations and driving purpose, but overall they are the same entity as their followups.
What connects each work with each other is a philosophical shift.
You don’t simply set out to create more of what already exists. That would just be a kind of self-plagiarism. No, you should set out to create an evolution of that very same thing that felt so special, and seek out how these new developments affect what was already established in the previous work.
You want your audience to fall in love all over again with this new evolved version of your work. And the way to achieve that is by treating its sequel with the due respect that it deserves.
No little brother would ever be happy with their parents pushing them to be “more like their big brother”. They, in fact, would often resent that. They want to be their own person. They want to be free of the expectations set by their older sibling. They want to be as they were meant to be.
So, why should a sequel be any different?
