Me and a few friend were having this discussion when we saw how Tom Holland says he won't want to be a 30+ year old who pmays Spiderman, which makes sense to us, but then whay that means is we are gonna get yet another reboot within the next few years of Spiderman. We couldn't agree on why they need to tell this same exact story over and over every generation, when many other great stories (even other kids' stories) are left as is. It made me wonder how quick these superheroes – Batman, Spiderman, Superman, etc became such staples of media that we cannot go any prolonged period wothout another movie or show or something starring them. Each one gets adaptations in every medium over and over. When they wrre invented, was it a phenomenon where every new superhero got this big? Then it makes you think, what about older stuff like the Odyssey?
I'm sure scholars of Ancient Greek/Roman classics have their favorite stories which are not the Odyssey/Iliad and the like, but those are the ones that stood the test of time and loom large over everything else for the vast majority of people. It doesn't matter how much you kove the Captain's Daughter, you are never gonna convince the greater population that it is as important (or moreso) as War and Peace. You can wonder just how many incredible stories we've lost to time – that were not just less popular or known but are now completely gone, never written down, just the ephemeral whisper of a long forgotten genius, never to be discovered again for the rest of history. Perhaps what would have been your favorite story ever written is one of those ilk, and you will never get to experience it. There is something to be said, though, whether you even like the works of Homer or not, of their sheer longevity. They have lasted thousands of years, completely dwarfing the rest of their contemporary canon into such utter oblivion that they are the only ones known by really anyone who didnt study the subject intensely at a higher level for the most part. Which begs the question of whether it's even possible for a new story to be codified again, the way those works were, and the way that superhero stories, the Lord of the Rings, etc have been most recently. They are engraved in a way that defies reason, that the masses not only are forced to relive over and over but actually want to. The demand for these superhero movies never dies, and that speaks to how resounding they are, how they stick in the public's consciousness so well and keep them wanting more somehow. So I was just wondering what it was about any of these stories that has this sort of effect on people, where anything that deviates from the Hero's Journey now feels like an experiment of some kind and generally ends up losing traction or falling to the wayside.
by Traditional_Land3933