Apparently, by no sane measure of logic, adding a kid to a movie franchise will liven up a tiring concept and reinvigorate a series for the millions of people who once breathlessly paid to watch the adventures but whom now shrug a collective “meh” to the whole deal. Further, the mere sight of a plucky young boy or girl boldly entering the grown-up fray will reduce audiences to a puddle of mush and insure a long life for the series. It matters not that the series was born and received without the need of a kid, and was probably successful due to not having one. It matters not that the introduction of a kid stunts the natural progression of the characters and swings the emphasis from an adult-oriented storyline to one of beleaguered parents and/or guardians risking life and limb to save said plucky kid from situations that are only necessary because the script called for the damn plucky kid to begin with. It matters not that kid is not so much plucky as he is really annoying. Apparently, all that matters is that people love plucky kids.
This, along with much of how decisions are made, is completely off-base.
Kids do not make movie sequels better. They are merely a signal that the producers have no more stories to tell and are just throwing their hands up in the air and grabbing whatever trite sitcom cliché happened to be stuck to the ceiling. Are you in the third or fourth gratuitous sequel and grosses keep going down? Congratulations are in order, because someone’s having a baby! Let us all rejoice that we can no longer swear or show nudity in the movie because someone decided to drop a precocious eight year-old onto the scene. Huzzah!
I say humbug.
Sure, there are exceptions to the rule (Shortround in Temple of Doom comes to mind), but generally speaking, adding a kid to a movie franchise equals creative death. Such is the concern many geeks across the world are having as news comes in that Steven Spielberg has cast Transformers-loving, Michael Bay explosion-runner-away-from, Shia LaBeouf, in the role of Indy’s long lost son. Regardless of the fact that no one wants to see a younger version of Indiana Jones (If we did, Sean Patrick Flannery would be on his 14th season of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and not threatening us with more jittery episodes of The Boondock Saints), the bearded master remains convinced that what audiences have really waited seventeen years to see is Harrison Ford and Sean Connery chasing the plucky kid from Even Stevens across the desert. And we wonder how War of the Worlds went so wrong. He should have just killed Dakota and the jackhole son and let Tom Cruise single-handedly take down the entire Martian army using only his Xenuian mind powers (though it’s not like he was ever gonna off Dakota Fanning. She would have had his hands cut off. It would have been “to the pain”.).
It’s not so much the idea of introducing a kid, as much as what the real purpose of doing so is. For example, the Alien series brought out Newt in Aliens and it was a resounding success. This is because she humanized Ripley, gave her a will and motivation to destroy the Alien Queen, and was the impetus behind the classic line “Get away from her you bitch!” It also helps that Newt had one of the most awesomely adaptable movie quotes of all time in: “They mostly come at night. Mostly.” You can use this quote in almost any situation and it will always get a laugh. If you’re at a bar and someone asks what you want to drink you can say “I mostly drink Heineken. Mostly.” If you’re talking to a date about sex, you could say “I mostly like oral. Mostly.” It always works! Other good uses for the quote:
- “I mostly deuce at night. Mostly.”
- “You’re mostly a bitch. Mostly.”
- “I mostly hate Reese Witherspoon. Mostly.”
Newt rules.
The point is that Newt had a reason to be in the movie. She advanced the Ripley character and provided crucial plot points for the movie. Now on the other hand, take the African American girl from The Lost World who showed up out of nowhere as Jeff Goldblum’s daughter. What did she bring to the movie? What was her purpose? Nothing. She was there to add a kiddy element to the picture. To put her in jeopardy so that Goldblum could be heroic in saving an oh so PC black girl. She was there for that stupid gymnastics routine. She should have been there as raptor food.
Getting back to the point, we already know that Indy can be a good father figure, as we were shown Temple of Doom. And Indy already worked out his daddy issues in The Last Crusade. So the only purpose for having an Indy prodigy in Part 4 is to align Indy with a past lover and potentially settle his personal life. But who cares? We don’t need Indy to settle down. We need Indy to crack Nazi’s in the face with his whip. We need him to ride horses in the desert and blow up tanks. We need him to make “wise choices”. We don’t need to see him playing catch and cheering on little league games. And that’s what it will be, make no mistake. The movie WILL focus on the Shia LaBeouf, and Indy will become a passerby in his own movie. It will be depressing, disgraceful and disrespectful. But most of all, it will be a bad movie.
And if Steven Spielberg and George Lucas don’t believe me, here are some other instances of kids ruining successful movie franchises.
Since those glorious bastards at 
Birthday wishes go out to Steven Spielberg, my all-time favorite director, who celebrated his 60th birthday on Monday. He may not always make the coolest movies, or even the smartest movies, but his movies are always exceedingly watchable, expertly made and laced with the type of magic seldom seen on-screen. In other words, he makes the best movies.
25
Last week Newsweek magazine came out with a cover story called “
This is a concept that screams for personalization. Which would solve both of the problems I posited earlier. Creating my own list would not only define my personal environment, but also what America I believe in. Those 15 people would be the real “15 People Who Make America Great”, but specifically for me. And not ten minutes after I decided to make the list, I was done. They came so quickly I surprised myself. Merely off the top of my head I was able to name the group of people that most affect my life in a positive way. And that’s when I realized I’m not as apathetic as I thought. I’m just selfish. But that’s OK, because being selfish is a wholly American quality. Told you I was an average American. 
2. Marc Cuban – Despite knowing nothing about the film industry, having no creative spark of any kind, and being a pretty big blowhard, he is doing more good for the world of entertainment that almost anyone not named George Lucas. He bought the Landmark Cinema chain, and is restoring each theater. As well, he is exhibiting indie movies that would never have gotten theatrical distribution under any circumstances. Through his 2929 Entertainment production label he is funding interesting, experimental cinema like: Goodnight, and Good Luck, Bubble, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and the underrated John C. Reilly movie Criminal. He is one of the leading proponents of digital cinema. He runs a highly entertaining basketball team. And he’s a complete blowhard. He rules.
And really, how can I not include him when he gave me lines of dialogue like this: “I gotta tell ya, at this point the length of this conversation is way out of proportion to my interest in it.”
8. Zach Braff – The soundtrack for Garden State alone makes him worthy of this list. But he’s also responsible for the best Natalie Portman role she will ever have. He’s the star of my favorite sitcom (Scrubs). And his next movie looks like a continuation of the themes of Garden State, and not a cheap cash-in he so easily could have done. His career is one I’d like to emulate. Especially the part where he made out with Natalie Portman in the rain. 
11. Tom – He helped create MySpace, which has made communicating with friends and random hot girls so much easier. I have found old friends, reconnected with people I long since wrote off, and read the innermost personal thoughts of people I had no interest in learning more about. I get to see pictures of friends, I get to say I have Jenna Jameson and Kevin Smith as friends, I get to spy on ex-girlfriends and I get to pimp my website. It’s a good service, and if it didn’t exist I don’t know how I’d keep all my friends. 
14. Lance Armstrong – He’s inspirational in a way that seems completely irrational. No one in this country cared about cycling (even the people who do the sport) until Lance Armstrong lost a ball and started winning the Tour de France. His resiliency and determination to beat his illness has helped people draw strength in their own fights against disease. Also, nailed Sheryl Crow and invented those bracelet. That bracelet that I see on every other person, yet I have no idea to get for myself. And whenever I ask someone, “Hey, where’d you get the Livestrong bracelet?”, none of them can tell me. It’s the strangest phenomenon. It’s as if Armstrong created the little yellow rubber thing, flew up into the atmosphere like Superman, dropped a half ton of them and people started finding them in the street. It’s inexplicable, but then again, so is finding inspiration in a guy that rides a bicycle (and wasn’t in the movie Rad).
We here at TheJay.com (and by we I mean “
Brad Pitt: Seriously, Tom, how do you get Katie to stay so quiet? I can’t get Angie to shut her trap for five minutes; always going on and on about starving Africans and poor Cambodian mine fields. I don’t care. I’m from Missouri, Tom! The most I want to say to a girl is “Where’s my bud?” And now we’re having the kid, who to be honest may not even be mine, in some country called Namibia. I don’t even know where that is. Where am I? Can’t I just go home? Is this really my punishment for leaving Jennifer. She wasn’t even that great to begin with. Always had this slight stench of… Ross on her. Help me Tom, you’re my only hope.
Scarlet Johansson: Poor Katie. 
Val Kilmer: You can be my son’s play date anytime.
L.Ron Hubbard: Tom, Katherine, Little Baby Zort, I mean Suri, warmest wishes from your beyond the grave Thetan leader. Now I have a bedtime story for little Suri. Many, many years ago there was a writer named Herman Melville, who wrote a book called Moby Dick. When the book was released it was a huge success, a bestseller for its age. Some time after the release of the book Oxford University invited Melville to speak at a roundtable discussion of the themes and elements of his book. The discussion was led by a slew of the finest minds in all of England. They instantly began peppering the writer with in-depth questions about the philosophical and metaphysical elements of Moby Dick. They wanted to know if the journey of Ahab was a meta-reference to the downward spiral of western intelligence. They asked if the color of the whale was a sub-textual representation of the ills of Mother England. And so on. The questions kept coming, and kept getting more deep and complex. After a time Melville raised his hand and silenced the panel. He gave a little smile, looked up and told the geniuses of the world: “Guys, it’s just a book about a guy chasing a whale.”
