Some stories succeed because they’re in the right place at the right time, like a vampire movie in 2008 or a dystopian book series in 2011, or a legacyquel in 2021. But other stories are timeless and work regardless of what time they’re set in or when they are released. Star-crossed lovers, for example, or a mythical hero’s journey.
But these stock stories are a curse as well as a blessing: they invite the viewer to compare what they’re watching to all the other, better, variations on the theme that came before. Unfortunately for one sci-fi movie now streaming on Hulu, what should have been the start of an anthology franchise quickly became a predictable slog for this very reason.
