Forced Continuation Disease

So after my article on the best of Metal Gear Solid, I got to admit that I had a bit of trouble thinking about what to review next and while I have a good number of ideas, one movie in particular came to mind. I won't say specifically which, but lets say it has to do with some old series that I used to enjoy, but as it went on, my love for the series deteriorate at a great rate. It doesn't help that I'm thinking about this in the shower of all places, but nevermind that.

The reason the series seemed to deteriorate was after it contracted what I like to call the 'forced continuation disease'. What is force continuation disease or FCD for short? The concept centers around a fairly good and enjoyable series, such as for instance, Naruto, that starts off fairly strong, only to be controlled by a demand by the fans for more and as a result, it goes down in quality.

Spoilers abound for a few series, so readers beware.

I'll admit to being among the first to actually watch and enjoy Naruto, but after a particular arc, came the filler and oh man, there was a lot of it, about a hundred episodes worth. Sure some of the weren't too bad and even gave spot light to some of my preferred, yet under appreciated characters like Hinata, but if you even glimpsed at the manga after this arc, you would know that none of these fillers would lead to anything, so basically, the company waste a lot of time and money for nothing. However, this isn't where the show got bad, it's just where I dropped it for a good while.

However, when the sequel series, Shippudan came out, a number of friends told me how awesome it was again, and I didn't believe them, but when summer rolls around and you have nothing to do, you start to delve into things you normally wouldn't, so I picked up Shippudan and it did seem a lot better than the filler we were subject to to nearly two years, but then a realization occurred to me: These episodes in particular were going very slow. I mean, sure, it took a few episode for each fight to conclude, but more aspects were covered in each episode. Now it just seemed like they were purposefully making these fights longer just to make them longer. Protip: Longer does not always equal Better!

I believe the final straw for me was episode 17 of Shippudan, where after ten episodes of pursuing the kidnappers of Gaara, the team finally finds the entrance to the Akatsuki hideout but oh noes! The door is sealed, but it's not any normal seal! It's a seal where the party has to split up and removes each seal at roughly the same time. When the episode ended, the door was open, but then I realized, 'they just took an entire episode to open a door!' and I swore off Naruto forever.

This turns out to be a smart idea cause I began to hear of events that follow for the series in the manga, where where it would seem like one character would die, it would just be a Disney Death. However, further in, there was a string of extreme deaths, including Jiraiya, Asuma, and perhaps most importantly, Kakashi, a fan favorite. This would lead into what I think to be the most forced and stupidest reason to put a big ol' nail in your coffin. Upon defeating the villain who caused all these deaths comes the biggest deus ex machina that brings back like 90% of everyone the villain had killed.

Why?!

It's obvious that the writers are controlled by their fanbase when there's some stupid excuse that makes everything that the villain did meaningless just to bring back a fan favorite. While I had admittedly thought it was neat that major characters were finally getting killed off, this really made me hate the series cause it's just so forced and makes it a decent example of Force Continuation Disease. The show itself really wasn't too great to begin with, but as time went on, it became obvious that the series was more and more controlled by the fans rather than the writers themselves and personally, while I can appreciate wanting to please your fans, you don't want to be controlled by them. If that happened, just think of all the near-yaoi moments that would happen in Kingdom Hearts 2...... wait a minute...

Another good example is the Dragon Ball series, and by that, I mean Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. To be fair, Dragon Ball Z as a whole is a perfectly fine series, acting as the staple for many shonens to come. Even today, it retains its popularity through numerous video games and even re-releases of the show, but I think there's a fairly obvious point where the series begins to dwindle. Where exactly? Why the end of the Frieza saga.

But wait, you shout, the Cell Saga wasn't THAT bad. And you're right, it wasn't. However, there is a noticeable change of pace. Before this period, everything was interconnected, the saiyans attack, cause a lot of deaths of the main cast, including the functionality of the Dragon Balls themeselves. To solve this, the remaining cast of characters go on ahead to Namek, the origin of the Dragon Balls themselves to bring back their friends, but coincedentally, the peaceful planet is being terrorized by the force of Frieza. To make a very long story short, they get the dragon balls, revive their friends, have a very long fight with Frieza, which then leads into what was meant to be the climax of the series, Goku becoming the legendary super saiyan and defeating Frieza.

That was originally meant to be the ending. However, there was still a large desire for the series to continue and why not, it was very popular. With such a climax, it was hard to not be a fan of the series and to want more. But the demand was strong and eventually, the creator decided to continue it due to fan demands. Rumor was that he was getting death threats about it, but I couldn't find any proof to these statements.

Thus we got what we would know as the Android/Cell Saga which reached back into the history of the original Dragon Ball and the Red Ribbon Army to make a interesting continuation, with the evil Dr. Gero having made two deadly androids design specifically to kill Goku, as well as a super bio android made with the celluar DNA of all the major fighters, including Goku, Tien, even Frieza for the brief moment he reappears on earth (It doesn't end well for him), named Cell. Cell's main goal ends up being purely to absorb the two Androids Dr. Gero made in order to achieve perfection. After that, whatever he wants.

Cell was a fairly creative villain and upped the ante for our heroes, considering he knew everything about them and perhaps even more. After achieving perfection, Cell decides that he wants to have fun and holds a tournament to decide the fate of the planet. Again, to make a long story short, Gohan reaches what's known as Super Saiyan 2, Goku sacrifices himself, and Cell comes back for a final showdown. He dies. They consider just bringing Goku back, but Goku's fine with being dead because every villain up to this point appeared and threatened the earth because he existed on it.

Again, this would've been a great ending as it brings a good ending to the story of Goku and establishes Gohan as the next hero in the series. What makes it not as good as the Frieza Saga was that it ultimately established a pattern. Some fighting, waiting for someone else to show up, power up for a episode, and then big fight. It wasn't too bad and while the earlier fighting was more crafty, such as Vegeta purposefully getting to near death, only to have Dende heal him so he would come back stronger than before or the Warp Kamehameha, this saga had some cunning as well, though it would be more in the direction of 'how can we get stronger faster'?

If a sequel series followed Gohan and the adventures he would go on as he grew up, I think that might've been better, but what came after... oh man.

Finally, the series finally wraps up with the Majin Buu saga and honestly, I have no real care for this saga. Mainly because there's nothing to relate to. There's really no compelling reason that Majin Buu is more interesting that other villain we have seen, which are the reasons Goku decided to stay dead. He's not related to Goku in anyway like Raditz, he's not a Saiyan like Nappa and Vegeta, he doesn't rule over the universe or the entire saiyan race like Frieza, he's not particularly targeting Goku like the Androids, and he wasn't made from Goku or any of the other fighters dna like Cell, so what is he? The short answer: just a monster. A monster that wants to eat everything. A interesting villain this does not make.

There is some development with the character as it adopts a dog and even gets close to being made into a goodguy, but then the dog dies and the evil comes out, eats himself.... don't ask, and becomes more powerful. That's about it. I think another reason I dislike this saga is the bastardization that Gohan goes through at the beginning of the saga. Seriously, he turns into such a lame dork... he gets a little better, but going from Super Saiyan 2 to the Great Saiyaman at first is.... embarassing. I got to admit that there is one thing I enjoyed about ths saga and that was Videl, mainly because I enjoy female fighters, even though she doesn't provide much beyond the first handful of episodes.

The craft of the series at this point is a bit goofy too. With the main draw of the fusion being a quick way to get powerful fast and well. I found the concept a bit too silly at times, especially with Trunks and Goten pretty much making it a joke, despite being very powerful. Maybe that's just his personality, but personally, I didn't like it. The saga ends with a final battle in the afterlife with a team up between Goku, Vegeta, and the first Buu against Kid Buu.... again, don't ask. And with a Spirit Bomb using energy from... well... the whole universe, Kid Buu is destroyed. Ironic, actually, considering the any time the Spirit Bomb was used before, it was never the finishing blow.

Overall, the Dragon Ball Z series played it mostly smart and had a definitive ending... In fact, it had several definitive ends, unlike Naruto, so while it did decrease in quality after the Frieza Saga, there wasn't as much excitement with the fights and I swear I fell asleep several times through out the Buu arc, probably cause by then, the same thing over and over again was just tiresome.

But FCD isn't limited to just anime. Oh no, American Media is just susceptible to this potentially fatal disease. Though when it comes to television series, it takes a significantly longer time for the effects to true show up, like the Simpsons. When exactly the Simpsons began to decline in quality is debatable, but the lack of quality shows. It can be occasionally funny, but the show has gone from a clever satire of the modern disfunctional family to a show filled with celebrity cameos and subpar plots. It's kind of sad really, because the show is such a icon of 90s pop culture and most ages can enjoy the early seasons.

But no, we're not mainly going to talk about the Simpsons for American media's cases. No, the more obvious cases for FCD come in the form of Movie franchises, and what better example than one of the biggest disappointments in movie sequel history, The Matrix.

Everyone's seen the Matrix, or at least, everyone who grew up through the 90s. It was a creative and somewhat unique sci fi movie that showed the world as a virtual creation of machines that have enslaved the majority of the human race and they don't even realize it. This movie had everything, a great variety of action scenes, cool looking special effects, and classic scenes and lines of dialog that are parodied even to this day. On top of everything was a world that audience is thrust into with rules that are different from the real world. It was suspenseful, it was fascinating, and further more, it was entertaining.

The movie was so popular that fans clamored for a sequel, and the Wachowski brothers eventually made one in the form of Matrix Reloaded and later Matrix Revolutions. Well, the sequels weren't as successful, with Reloaded getting labeled as one of the worst sequel ever made. And to it's credit, it's not. Sure it's not nearly as good as the original movie, but when your main character end the first movie as basically Superman, then the suspense more or less goes out the window and while there are a few good actions scenes, such as the park brawl and the freeway chase, it didn't match the excellent choreography of the first film. The story continued the plot of the first film well enough, adding in elements that continued the philosophical debates of life, purpose, and meaning, both in reality and the virtual Matrix. All in all, Reloaded wasn't too bad a movie.

Revolutions on the other hand seems very shoe horned in with a majority of the film dedicated to a big battle at the last bastion of humanity Zion, and well, it's hard to care about these characters when the majority of them are basically CGI. The plot is forgettable as a rogue agent Smith basically manages to infect the entire world, and in ends in one big computer generated battle and once again, it's hard to care, ultimately ending very anticlimatically. Really, that is one of the main problems with these sequels: they value special effects over substance and most fans of the original film utterly hate these sequels with a passion.

Is it possible to recover from FCD? There aren't too many cases of this happening, but the answer is a simple 'Possibly'. The case for this instance is actually one of my favorite franchises of all time: Metal Gear Solid. But wait, you ask, didn't you recently write about how awesome Metal Gear Solid is? That I did good viewer, but even so, the symptoms of FCD are there: Very popular and successful first entry, a fanbase clamoring for more, and director deciding to follow up, albeit director Hideo Kojima decided to do something the fans did not intend, replace the main character after mouths of showing screen shot and footage of Snake going around doing everything we would be doing, but as a completely different character. And the story suffered by poor presentation with a good chunk of the story being told through codec calls. The gameplay was still a significant improvement over the previous title, but the story is where is really suffered. Despite this, the Metal Gear Solid series never sunk any further than this in quality with games like Snake Eater and Guns of the Patriots definitely improving in their methods of story telling, so it's easy to say that this is a good case of a franchise recovering from the effects of Forced Continuation Disease.

Why do I suddenly bring this particular topic up? It's a trend I've begun to notice lately, both in current media and shows I used to love but stopped caring about after a time and with cases like the Pirates of the Caribbean series getting a fourth movie when there's no reason to have a continuation, the remastering of the Star Wars movies into 3D, constant stream of school-based anime, and remakes and sequels abound, it just seems like writers are too afraid to take risks with new material, or at least try to give some thought about their sequels. I suppose it's just better to remember the good times over the bad, though.