What is a sequel?

So I like listening to podcasts about bad movies while I'm moving my wood (not a euphemism, we have an actual woodstove and it needs to feed in the winter). Bad movie podcasts, because I think we learn more about the craft of storytelling listening to fans trying to comprehend why something went horribly wrong than when it went right.

This was a podcast about Men in Black II, and the reviewers spun into a debate about the "purpose" of a sequel. There were two schools of thought, which I'll go into here because I've got a few minutes before the next episode of Dexter. (And because I care. Awwwww.)

First school: sequels exist to further the story started in the first installment. The main characters go further down the path they already were, discover new things about themselves, change in meaningful ways, and experience very different things than they did in the first adventure. This school of thought is called: "How to piss off fanboys and receive hate on the internet."

Second school: sequels exist to put the main characters in exactly the same situation as the original adventure, only with the names and circumstances changed just enough to make it not a carbon copy. This school is called: "How to make scads of money in Hollywood."

Because, come on. If James Bond X+1 didn't feature him defeating another hammy supervillan using another ridiculous gadget somehow perfectly suited to the situation that no one could see coming and then sleep with model X+1 which has different hair color but same body type as model X, we'd burn the studio down. If we really wanted Bond to grow and change, by movie four he'd be giving up on the whole agent thing and exploring other life choices like helping inner-city kids win a dance competition and then we'd REALLY burn the studio down. On the internet. And I'm a Bond fan.

Same for each new X-Men movie, or sequel to that long-running detective series you really love, or police procedural your parents enjoy watching on CBS. Fans want to spend more time with the characters they love in the exact type of situations they first loved them in.

But that nagging pain you and I are getting in the back of our heads right now isn't a hangover (well, not for one of us, anyway) but our Artistic Conscience trying to tell us something.

Putting the exact same characters in the exact same situation as your last hit with just the names slightly changed feels hacky. It feels lazy. It's bad art. It's bad for you.

This is the debate the podcast was having about Men In Black II. Once again, (and AGAIN in MIB III, which had just come out) the Will Smith character was a new-comer in shock at the crazy antics the MIB group got in to, and once again the Tommy Lee Jones character was the wise, grizzled veteran who had seen it all, even though he had his memory completely wiped in the previous installment.

Why couldn't Will Smith be the wise one, paired with an equally wise partner and go on a different type of adventure which didn't involve being stunned by the 'crazy' alien hi-jinks around him? BECAUSE THAT WASN'T WHAT MADE THE FIRST MOVIE SUCCESSFUL AND IT SCARES MOVIE EXECUTIVES TO DEVIATE.

This is the debate I'm having WITH MYSELF while writing the sequel to Infinity Squad. The first book featured lots of small-scale infantry missions against vicious but dumb alien animals of increasing ferocity in different climates of an alien planet. The second book seems like it will feature mainly fleet-level ship-to-ship action against plotting, sentient opponents in the unchanging vacuum of space. Because it would be crazy for the Squad to somehow get dropped on ANOTHER untamed alien planet to battle ANOTHER set of increasingly ferocious monsters while they question how their resurrection technology works, again. That'd just be silly.

But that also means the second book will have almost none of the set pieces that were the enjoyable "action bits" of the first book. And that makes me pause.

The characters remember what happened in the first book; they're now interacting with each other in different ways. They've changed. Their universe has changed. But I'm the same. Basically. And so are all thirteen fans of the first book. (Except you, Steve. Mazel Tov!)

So, should I find ways to shoe-horn in adventures like old? Should I have the characters fall back into the same comfortable patterns of interaction? Same adventures, with the names changed?

Probably not. As before, I'm going to write a book that I'd want to read, and if the second book turns out to be a completely different type of book than the original, I guess that's just what a sequel is.

Oh, crap- Dexter's on! I wonder what villian which says-"We're so alike you and I, Dexter" he'll defeat this season while almost-but-not-quite getting caught by his sister and the police while questioning if he really is a Monster!

Over and out,
Shuvom