Raise your hand if you love rewatching your old favourite sci-fi and fantasy shows!
Over the last few months, I’ve slowly become more reticent about watching new films and TV shows in these genres.
I’m sure many of them are going to be amazing once I return to chipping away at my humongous to-watch queue, but for now I’m much more interested in rewatching stories I’ve seen dozens of time before.
Keep scrolling for spoiler-free references to some of my favourite
Familiar Plot Twists
Okay, so don’t laugh at me, but I get pretty attached to certain characters. I cheer when they reach their goals and cry when sad things happen to them.
Empathy is a gift, but there are also times when I’d rather not ride the emotional rollercoaster of are these characters going to be okay?
Yes, most of them will be fine by the time the credits roll. But thanks to earlier experiences with Joss Whedon and the unpredictable things he likes to do with the lives of beloved characters, I don’t fully trust any director or screenwriter when my favourites are involved.
The beautiful thing about rewatching something you’ve seen many times before is that there are no big surprises around the corner. You might forget a funny line here or a minor plot twist there if it’s been a while, but for the most part you roll the opening credits knowing full well what’s to come.
There’s something soothing about that, especially when other things in life might not be so predictable.
Predictions That Do (or Don’t) Come True
Speaking of predictions, the science fiction genre in particular is filled with them.
I’m the sort of viewer who takes note of what fellow storytellers in this genre think will happen in the near future and then likes to check again five or ten or twenty years later to see what they might have gotten right.
Fashion trends of future decades have never been accurate in my experience. (Here’s looking at you, 2015 scenes in Back to the Future Part II!)
But some films do predict the future more accurately. Rediscovering those scenes is like finding buried treasure.
Jokes That Never Get Old
If you ask me, the best films and TV shows are the ones that still make you laugh the third or thirtieth time you see them. Case in point: The Princess Bride. This fairy tale was framed as something a grandfather was reading to his sick grandson.
A few minutes into Princess Buttercup’s adventures, the kid interrupted to ask if it was a kissing book.
As someone who avoided kissing books as a kid and rarely reads them as an adult, I laugh every time I hear this line. It’s classic.
New Details in the Story
Anyone who has followed this blog for a long time may remember my love of the paranormal film The Others.
(Someday I need to write a full-length review of it for this site! It’s a modern-day classic).
The first time I watched this film, I missed the major plot twist in it until the last possible moment.
It was only after rewatching it that I picked up on the clues about what was really going on with the main character and her two young children who were living in a remote house during the World War II era while waiting to hear news about her husband who was on the front lines of the war.
This was always a good story, but it became even better once I knew what on Earth was going on with this strange, reclusive family. Every time I rewatch it, I pick up on even more subtle foreshadowing or small moments of character development I hadn’t noticed in the past.
Respond
What are your favourite science fiction, fantasy, or other speculative fiction shows to rewatch?
Google analytics keeps showing me visitors who found this blog by searching for phrases like “how to get quiet people to speak up.” It seems like a good discussion topic, so let’s jump into it!
Some people excel at filling every potential moment of silence in a conversation with words.
There’s something wonderful about open-ended questions that do their best to avoid assumptions.
If possible, choose a smaller group of people to talk to instead of a larger one. I find it much easier to chime in when a few other folks are taking turns talking than when a dozen or more people have joined the conversation.
This is the fourth instalment of this series.
I could have easily made this list twice as long. What a great topic! Please note that the final opening line references the death of a child.
4. “It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.”
9. “The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
Thank you for asking this question, Elda! I always enjoy hearing from my readers.
Talk to Your Characters
Describe the Setting or Backstory in Vivid Detail
Take Notes After Each Writing Session
What does meditation have to do with writing?
Karin Lowachee’s