Although I happen to like Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, it’s mostly now remembered for being the start of a trilogy that dropped the stock of Star Wars so hard that it seems like there are more haters than fans these days. But if audiences had any type of nuance to their hatred, they would dislike this film moreso for being the start of a terrible Hollywood trend: the legacy sequel.
Legacy sequels predate The Force Awakens, which blasted its way into theaters 10 years ago on September 18, 2015. (For example, Rocky Balboa revived the franchise in 2006, and Creed perfected the genre a month before Disney’s Star Wars sequel.) But those types of movies were few and far between until Lucasfilm laid out a blueprint for reviving long-dormant cash cow franchises. Since then, legacy sequels have made up an increasingly large slice of films slated for release. For every good legacy sequel, like Top Gun: Maverick or the Cobra Kai series, there’s a Ghostbusters: Afterlife, The Matrix Resurrection, or Tron: Ares waiting in the wings. They’re all built on the same template introduced by director J.J. Abrams: a new cast of fresh faces for the older cast to pass the baton to, while stuffing in familiar locations, iconography, and story beats from the original.
Set decades after Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens mirrors the original trilogy’s hallmarks while updating them for a new generation: a desert orphan (Daisy Ridley as Rey) discovers a connection to the Force, a rebel resistance rises against a fascist remnant (the First Order), and an evil superweapon threatens the galaxy. By bringing back icons like Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) alongside a handful of new heroes, Abrams frames the fall of the New Republic and the rise of the First Order as the unresolved consequences of the original saga. In doing so, The Force Awakens uses nostalgia as narrative scaffolding, positioning its new characters as heirs to both the victories and failures of the past and making legacy itself the engine of the plot.
The same thing happens in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, with the new, younger cast having blood ties to one of the original Ghostbusters, finding the equipment to fight ghosts, and taking on Gozer from the original film in an unfinished battle. Like the original Star Wars trilogy heroes, the original Ghostbusters are treated less as protagonists and more as legends whose past triumphs failed to solve the problem permanently. By literalizing legacy through bloodline and mentorship, Afterlife uses nostalgia as an entry point, ultimately arguing that heroism isn’t about recreating the past, but about inheriting its tools, its mistakes, and its responsibility to move forward.
This isn’t an isolated incident; it’s the setup for several revival franchise films: Jurassic World: Dominion, Independence Day: Resurgence, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Scream (2022), Halloween (2018), the list goes on. Not all of these films are bad — Halloween (2018) is actually pretty good! — but they all came out in the same decade, and they’re tired in 2025. Tron: Ares bombed this year, Happy Gilmore 2 was horrific, I forgot Jurassic World: Rebirth even released this year, and Karate Kid: Legends couldn’t live up to the legacy of the Netflix series it spun off from.
The Force Awakens may have reignited Star Wars, but it also cemented a legacy-sequel playbook that’s proven far more hit-or-miss than studios would like to admit. In action-adventure, sci-fi, and comedies especially, nostalgia often outweighs momentum, leaving familiar beats without the spark that once made them work.
