Matt Hills, Star Wars In Fandom, Film Theory and The Museum: The Cultural Status of the Cult Blockbuster

(In Movie Blockbusters)

Hills argues in this chapter that there is nothing textually definitive about blockbusters, and that blockbuster status is discursively constructed by fans, the industry, and the academy, and that its cultural status is thus constantly in flux as discourse shifts from one point of view to another. This is interesting because I intend to argue that there is something textually distinctive about franchise films, but that this distinctive feature (the logic of reintroduction) can only be observed in context of other films - so perhaps a better way to say it is that franchise films are intertextually distinctive.

Hills also discusses the "time-value" of Star Wars and how it's endurance in cultural discourses is seen as justification for its cultural status and continued existence. This is similar to many discourses surrounding the James Bond franchise, in which its uncanny ability to continually reintroduce itself successfully is seen as valuable in and of itself. I think that the reintroduction of the four action heroes with which I am concerned can be seen as partially motivated by a sense of time value, especially with characters like Indiana Jones and the Terminator which endure in the cultural consciousness. The simple fact that I can title my thesis "He'll Be Back" seventeen years after the release of Terminator 2: Judgement Day and still have people who haven't even seen the film recognize it is a testament to that percieved "time-value."

Hill cites somebody who refers to blockbuster films as "commercial inter-texts." That could be a useful term (although I would axe the "commercial," as it implies that other texts are not fundamentally intertextual).