Prequelitis

I already know the last shot of the last episode of Gotham, Fox's spectacularly ill-concieved new show. Picture this: Young Bruce Wayne, aged perhaps 25 and just returned from years training in the mountains of Tibet with a goateed, spottily accented mentor, has returned to find his beloved city in ruins from organized crime. He decides to act, calling upon the very particular set of skills learned from the mentor, and chooses as a symbol the bat that haunts his dreams. The first suit is crude, the weapons unrefined. Yet he rises, soaring through the city, to stand atop a majestic skyscraper framed against the coming night. Aaaaaannnnd cut.

How do I know this? Well, because I already saw it. The year was 2005, and I sat in an Imax theater watching Batman Begins.

The show's trailer really isn't bad, seen in a vacuum. The show appears stylish, slick and expensive with excellent production values. A lot of very good actors stride around in swirling trenchcoats and intone ominous bullshit about the future of the city. The kids, who I'm sure will be dicey in the way that all child actors not employed by HBO are, at least have the correct look and don't fumble their lines. Were this a show about an idealistic young cop and his orphaned foster son, making their way in a Gothic wreck of a city, I'd watch in a heartbeat. But it isn't.

Does anyone actually feel a sense of danger, seeing Bruce on that ledge on the roof of Wayne Manor? Anyone? It occurs to me that a show about the young Batman probably isn't going to hurt the hero much beyond a paper-cut until he puts on the suit. Which, as the producers have said, will be in the last episode of the series. So, anything between now and then is…. completely pointless. Yay? And yes, I'm aware that James Gordon, not yet Commisioner, is supposedly the show's protagonist. All the things I just said about Bruce apply flawlessly.

We know this story. We know how it ends. We know the people these characters will grow into, because the audience for this show has lived with them for years, and myth-making entertainment like this doesn't have the balls to make radical changes. I suppose there's some mild interest in seeing the adventures of young Catwoman or whatever, but ultimately what is the point? We don't want to see Selina Kyle as a half-formed, unskilled child thief. We want Anne Hathaway, purring seductively as her hips sway. We want the Cat at the height of her powers, the legendary ruler of Gotham's roofs, the only woman who's ever truly been worthy of Bruce Wayne. The process of becoming, which will nessecarily be the primary thread of this show, is by its nature small-scaled, humanized. We've seen these characters at their peak. Anything less, and we're sitting at the kiddy table eating mac and cheese while the adults carve filet.

Prequels are boring, they just are. We know the ending, and so there's no dramatic tension. You know what isn't boring? Genuine, unfettered creativity. Which is not, as is the fear of studio exxecutives everywhere, as profitable in the short term. Batman is among the most iconic characters in modern fiction. Brand recognition couldn't be stronger, and this show will a season or two of decent ratings as a result. Until it doesn't, when audiences realize that brand recognition is literally the entire driving impulse behind its creation.

Quick pop quiz: How much money did Pacific Rim lose? The answer is (drumrolllllllll) none. It made money. The riskiest box-office play of the past decade was profitable. The sequel, if it gets made, will make more money (I happen to think a lot more), simply through stronger recognition and audience goodwill. And that, friends, would be an excellent example of how to build a creatively essential, financially strong franchise. Hire an amazing filmmaker with a vision and a story he needs to tell,  then give him budgets and release dates and cut him loose. That's it. When the filmmaker runs out of those vital, urgent stories, the franchise ends and everyone moves on to the next idea.

Gotham is precisely how not to do it. Nobody needs this section of a story we already know. It comes from a place of fear, not creative passion. We can do better. We need to demand better.