Given that 2019 is the last year of the 2010s, it seems only
natural that we’d be thinking about endings.
What doesn’t necessarily follow, though, is that so many
popular franchises would have been geared toward a natural 2019 endpoint in
their own chronologies.
No popular cultural commodity can be packed away for good,
so in many cases, what we’re talking about here is a pause in the action. But
it’s a big pause with a big symbolic value, even if it ends up proving to be a
short one.
That this should coincide with the end of a decade is, to be
certain, a coincidence. It must be. No franchise starts with the idea of
wrapping it up by a certain symbolic date, if only because most franchises can’t
be sure they will endure long enough to get there. The point it starts is
entirely a function of when its perceived viability has reached a critical
threshold in order to make it into a film (or a TV show, as we shall see). The
point it finishes, then, is usually a function of x number of consecutive
production schedules until the entirety of the story has been told.
For whatever reason, that entirety really descended on us in
2019.
SOME SPOILERS, TREAD
CAREFULLY
Let’s look at the examples:
Star Wars – This is
the big one, as a story dating back 42 years, with many of the same actors,
finally reached its conclusion in 2019. Star
Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is not, of course, the last Star Wars movie we
will ever see. In fact, it’s almost certain that 20 years from now, we’ll
already have as many more Star Wars movies as we’ve gotten in the last 42. But
as the end of the Skywalker saga, or at least the end of the actual Skywalker
bloodline, it’s a pretty big deal. Sure, Daisy Ridley may say now that she’s
done with Star Wars, but I also read that she went and cried alone in her car
after seeing the final cut. Emotionally, she’s susceptible to returning, and
she adopted the name Skywalker after all. But there’s no doubt that for now,
this is an ending, and it’s a big one.
Avengers – It’s
hard to feel like a saga has come to an end when a new movie featuring some of
the same characters comes out scarcely two months later. But there’s no arguing
that Avengers: Endgame represented a
real culmination of 11 years’ worth of movies that had preceded it, and that
you definitively draw a line when you halve the total of six original Avengers in
one fell swoop. Of course, in the perfect example of pop culture’s perennial
self-rejuvenation, one of the deceased Avengers is actually getting her own
movie just a couple short months from now, albeit a prequel (or so it would
seem). Still, to measure just how much of an effect the MCU has had on us, many
of us (myself included?) were sadder to see the end of this story than the end
of Star Wars. And walking out of that theater back in April, it sure did feel
like an ending.
Game of Thrones –
Apologies if I switch to TV on a film blog, but GOT is one of the most cinematic TV shows we’ve ever gotten, and in
the past decade, its cultural cachet came to rival the two mentioned above and
the likes of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. That too came to an end in
2019, though I’m sure we’ll get The
Further Adventures of Tyrion Lannister at some point in the next decade.
The final season of Game of Thrones
was heavily criticized in certain corners of the internet, as well as off it,
as you didn’t have to be a geek to get involved in this epic of swords and
dragons, breasts and beheadings. For me, the final season flashed moments of
brilliance and moments of great disappointment, though more disappointment in
the way our heroes can let us down than the way the writers botched the
job of telling their story. And for me, it was another sentimental end to a
saga I’d been living with for years.
Breaking Bad – While we're on TV ... Breaking Bad should have ended years ago, but since Vince Gilligan decided we needed a conclusion to the story of Jesse Pinkman, we got a movie that did that in 2019. Although the movie was received well in most circles (though not this circle), I suspect Gilligan won't decide he needs to wrap up any more characters, making this the final chapter in the story of these characters, in any case. Unless he gets the bad idea for Breaking Bad: Alaska, which, I hope not.
Breaking Bad – While we're on TV ... Breaking Bad should have ended years ago, but since Vince Gilligan decided we needed a conclusion to the story of Jesse Pinkman, we got a movie that did that in 2019. Although the movie was received well in most circles (though not this circle), I suspect Gilligan won't decide he needs to wrap up any more characters, making this the final chapter in the story of these characters, in any case. Unless he gets the bad idea for Breaking Bad: Alaska, which, I hope not.
Toy Story – So if
Toy Story 3 wasn’t really the end,
then Toy Story 4 surely is, isn’t it?
Never say never, but for now, it does seem like Pixar is ready to move on from
the story of Buzz, Woody, Bo Peep et al, delivering the final installment of
their story in 2019. There’s nothing that states this has to be the end, except for the perceived catcalls of Pixar fans
who thought a fourth movie was already a bridge too far. But at the very least,
it’ll be hard to imagine how Woody will reunite with the legacy of Andy and his
family friends, represented most distinctly by the gaggle of toys who do remain
together at the end of this one.
X-Men – Not all
conclusions had a sentimental quality to them. Given the general response of
sheer exhaustion and disinterest by fans, they didn’t want to let the door hit
X-Men on the ass on its way out. Dark
Phoenix was always envisioned as the end point to this particular iteration
of the X-Men franchise, but after the way the last two films were resoundingly
rejected, it could be a stake to the heart of the franchise on the whole. If
so, it’ll leave a bad taste.
It – Okay, so the
first chapter of It was only two
years ago. But this is definitely the last chapter, unless someone wants to
pull some silly stunt like getting these actors together again in three decades, Before Sunrise style, to have them fight
Pennywise as 70-year-olds. I include it here more for the way the poster added to
the symbolic trend I’m exploring today. The tagline reads simply: “It ends.”
How to Train Your
Dragon – Okay, I didn’t even see The
Hidden World, which came out in early January in Australia (I was invited
to a preview screening in 2018, as a matter of fact). I guess I tired of seeing
these movies before they tired of making them. However, they have now tired of
that, as producer Dean DeBlois confirmed they don’t intend to make any more.
Right, and Sylvester Stallone didn’t intend to make any more Rocky movies after
Rocky IV.
Rambo – Another one
I didn’t see, but since the aforementioned Sylvester Stallone is now 73, it’s
reasonable to believe the promise implicit in the title Last Blood. And since I didn’t see it, I have no idea if Last Blood puts a definitive ending to
the story of John Rambo. But whether it does or not, this is actually a pretty
big one, as the character has cinematic origins older than any other character on
this list save Luke Skywalker.
And this is to say nothing of the franchises that may have
practically ended due to poor box office, whether they intended to or not (Terminator, Charlie’s Angels), and the movies that felt like they were career
summations based on the age of the director (The Irishman, Pain and Glory).
So yeah, it seems that 2019 was a year for us to look back
on the past and kill it, to quote Rian Johnson’s version of Kylo Ren.
But 2020 is not only the start of a new year, it’s the start
of a new decade. It seems likely that we’ll get more recycling of franchises
that haven’t yet worn out their welcome. But don’t forget that when the last
decade started, most of us hadn’t even heard of Game of Thrones or How to
Train Your Dragon, and the MCU was in its comparative infancy at only two
years old.
Ten years from now, we might be mourning the endings of things we haven’t yet imagined.
