This is not a rant about "sequelitis," "prequelitis," or "franchise fatigue" per se, or the distinct but related "reboot fatigue," although those factors are at play. What pisses me off more than creators not respecting the original material, is not respecting the fanbase enough to be satisfied with crafting a high quality product that stands on its own, but instead seeing fandom as a cash cow for marketing "official tie-in merchandise" that exists not so much to further develop characters or plot, but to explain and excuse lazy writing, plot holes, bad research, weak characterization, and inconsistent and often controversial or unpopular production choices.
There's nothing wrong inherently with a sequel, or a prequel, or a reboot. Franchises function under the auspices of industrial capitalism, I don't expect any grand nobility there, but I do expect craft. There is a craft difference between creating a sequel or a prequel to a well-loved book or movie or other media, because of a commitment to the people who love it, and this masturbatory exercise of releasing calculated for-profit tie-in material to explain all the inconsistencies and choices that you, yourself, the creator, made that frustrated or did not resonate with the fans in the first place. And it's also, in a way, about accountability.
So let's say you're rebooting a classic franchise, like "Star Trek." Just to name a prominent example. It's the 21st century so obviously what looked futuristic in the sixties is retro now. The thing that creators underestimate about fans is, we're actually willing to overlook things like that if the product is high quality and stands on its own. Of course, if you change the look of something, it's fairly simple to own that production choice. If you have confidence in your work, this shouldn't be a source of shame. It's reasonable and expected that a modern production would make use of modern production values and maybe that means the USS Enterprise looks different, or the uniforms are more detailed, or whatever because that's not really the important part. Sure, it will frustrate nitpickers who make a religion out of entertainment, and people like that are annoying, but just because they are annoying, doesn't mean they deserve to be exploited.
What I find exploitative is the notion that any unpopular decision or instance of bad writing, bad characterization, bad research, bad continuity, etc, can and should be the basis of a sub-industry of for-profit tie-in material. I think if a creator is concerned with the quality of their product, even if that product is part of a series or a franchise, the product has to stand on its own merits. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is a great fucking movie in this regard. It's a direct sequel to a classic episode with one of science fiction's most memorable villains, but what's remarkable about "Star Trek II," to me, is that a casual viewer can enjoy it without necessarily having seen that episode, or having sat through the very poorly received and much less exciting and charismatic first Star Trek movie. The characters and the conflicts work in a self contained fashion, even though it's part of a series and the series is part of a larger franchise. It does this because enough people who were responsible for the production process respected not only fans but casual viewers and didn't generate continuity lockout by design for the sake of selling tie-in comics, novelizations, web series, etc. That's not to say "Star Trek II" had no plot holes. It did. But the whole product held up under enough intensive fan scrutiny and enough "casual viewer who's maybe seen two Star Trek episodes in their life before this" scrutiny that it struck a happy medium that is vanishingly rare in entertainment today that most people would be hard pressed to remember the plot holes compared to their positive experience of enjoying "Star Trek II."
I also happen to think "Back to the Future Part II" improved on the original and didn't detract from it in the least. It stands on its own because you don't actually have to see the first movie to appreciate the second. It works if you have, the callbacks will be more significant, but it's not strictly necessary to "get" what is going on with Marty and Doc in "Part II." More of the jokes make sense if you've seen Part I first, but guess what? Story-wise, it doesn't much matter. You could actually watch any of the "Back to the Future" trilogy films out of order and each would still be reasonably coherent on its own. That's a strength of the writing, and it didn't take a hundred "official tie-in" titles to link the movies together.
That's not to say those movies don't have plot holes either. It's just that they are overshadowed in the audience's mind by the coherence of the storytelling and production.
This is not how franchises work now. Now, any bad writing, any negation of continuity, any stylistic choice at all can be justified because there will be a prequel comic or a novelization or some other non-promotional (I.E. "not free") tie-in material that enough frustrated fans will buy to keep the studio from going into the red. Yes, I know, this is how capitalism works, but there has also been a sharp increase in this trend in, I would say, the last two decades or so, and I think it has had a negative impact on the quality of Sci Fi mass media.
I've got no issue with user generated content. User generated content has been a feature of fandom since before most people even knew what the internet was. Fan fiction was published in DIY zines that were sold at conventions to pay the vendor fee. No one got rich from this, people did it out of love for the characters and the worlds. I don't think that's equivalent to doing it to milk a cash cow, and when you're doing it to milk a cash cow and also justify your own laziness and inconsistency, that's the point it stops being an "expanded universe." Expanded universes "expand" on what it known. Casual enjoyment of the main franchise shouldn't depend on consuming every last bit of profitable material associated with the 'verse of one movie or a series of movies or a TV series, etc, etc etc. Maybe George Lucas thought it was cute that every funny-costumed extra on the set of "Star Wars" had their own story, but no one needed to know those details in order to enjoy the first "Star Wars" movie, or any of the original trilogy. The names and backstories of the bounty hunters are interesting on their own but not particularly relevant to any of the action in "The Empire Strikes Back." Likewise, no one needs to watch every episode of the 1980s "Ewoks" cartoon to follow the plot logic of "Return of the Jedi." Fortunately.
But these days, the model seems to be that studios don't create self-contained high quality works. Every work is now a living commercial for a universe of high-quantity, varying quality explanatory (as opposed to "expanded") tie-in material. These do not tell one story, they do not do it very well, and they do not move on.
And it is killing science fiction. I can't even watch any new "Star Wars" material anymore because my understanding of the nuances of the characters and world of a show like "The Mandalorian" seem dependent on the assumption of my consumption of every single tie-in novel, comic book, and board game to understand the barest elements of the backstory. I haven't even bothered to sit down and watch "The Mandalorian" because I know there will be too much continuity lockout, and I don't have the time or the inclination to read and absorb all the tie-in shit. I love "Star Trek" much, much more than I relate to the themes or setting of "Star Wars" (for reasons I will detail in another post, they are primarily political reasons) but I don't have time or inclination to read the various "Countdown" comics that explain how all the unpopular choices and inconsistencies the latest installments of the franchise have introduced are actually relevant and part of "canon." I just don't care. It has nothing to do with good characterization, storytelling or worldbuilding.
I care about quality. Not quantity. Guess I'd make a pretty shitty capitalist, but there's no "good capitalism," is there?
Still, there is a difference between true "expanded universe" material and the new wave of "explanatory universe" material. "Expanded universe material" expands on what is known, it adds nuance. But what I am calling "explanatory universe material" doesn't add nuance in that way, it is largely instead a contrivance explain away plot holes and controversial stylistic decisions, and recoup studio losses. Everyone in the Mos Eisley Cantina having a name and backstory in some obscure notebook of George Lucas' is an example of an "expanded universe" done well, because none of those characters or their backstories are particularly important to the plot concerning Luke, Leia and Obi Wan, and their slaves ("droids" maybe the politically correct term but fuck that, they are slaves). But when important plot points (or, in many cases, plot holes) depend on supplementary material to make sense in context, that's when you've a problem. A high quality product shouldn't need to have important plot points or gaping plot holes elaborated and explained by supplementary material. It's the worst combination of lazy craft and aggressive marketing.
I've got news for fandom: they don't make this material because they "respect you." They do it because they're betting that you'll shell out money for quantity in lieu of actual quality. And that pisses me off more as a writer than it does as a fan. If I'm able to get my stories published and I have fans of my own one day, I'm not going to treat them like this. It's a shitty way to treat someone, even if enough people fall for it and are making you rich.
If the latest installment of a series or franchise can't be reconciled with the rest of the series or franchise without a whole "explanatory universe" of supplementary material, maybe that's because the quality of storytelling just isn't what it used to be, and the creators need to be held to a higher standard. Quality, over quantity.
I can think of many situations like that throughout history, where boycotts seem to always have worked.