Have you seen this column before? If this piece were to follow the recent trends of our entertainment industry, chances are you would have. Who else rolled their eyes the first time they saw the preview for “Puss in Boots,” a spin-off of the popular “Shrek” series, or when the commercial for the Sherlock Holmes sequel, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” initially aired? With the heavy rain cloud of recession hanging over the heads of Americans, carefree diversions are a necessity, so what gives with the “improved but not new” tendency of the entertainment industry, and where has the creativity gone?

Take Star Wars for example. According to Forbes.com, the Star Wars franchise has earned over $22 billion since the first movie, “Episode IV: A New Hope,” was released in 1977. It sparked a sci-fi revolution and in many ways defined the generation. Not bad, eh? So in a time of economic uncertainty when a flop at the box office can be catastrophic, it pays to stick with an almost guaranteed success rather than take risky chances. This explains the re-release of each Star Wars film in 3D starting with “Episode I -The Phantom Menace,” which is scheduled to appear in theaters on Feb. 10, 2012, according to Aceshowbiz.com.

Of course, Star Wars is not the only example of this déjà-vu entertainment phenomenon. In addition to the remake of the 1984 classic “Footloose” released in October, there is another sequel to “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” titled “A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas,” that was released early November, not to mention a remake of the already once remade Spiderman series starting with “The Amazing Spiderman” scheduled to be released July 2012 according to IMDB.com. Naturally Disney cannot sit on the sidelines while other studios rake in revenue from recycled ideas. Following the success of the October re-release of “The Lion King” in 3D, Disney has decided to launch 3D versions of “Beauty and the Beast,” “Finding Nemo,” “Monsters Inc.” and “The Little Mermaid” into theaters scheduled throughout 2012 and 2013 according to The Huffington Post.

Movies are not the only component of the entertainment industry, and television follows the trend of reusing its successful ideas to the point of insanity as well. Because if you liked “Real Housewives of New Jersey” then you will love the housewives of Beverly Hills, Atlanta, New York City and Dallas as well. On the other end of the television-viewing spectrum, there are various Law & Order, CSI and NCIS shows set in different cities with new actors than the successful originals in order to give the shows a “fresh” feel. Even programs on children’s networks are to blame. It does not take an adult to see that “Dora the Explorer,” “Go, Diego, Go!” and “Ni Hao, Kai-Lan” are all shows featured on Nickelodeon based on the same idea of a bilingual child going on adventures while teaching viewers problem solving, language skills and the backpack song.

The music area of the entertainment industry is not without guilt either. Music featured in episodes of the popular “Glee” has produced a major profit, and while new people perform the songs, almost none of the pieces are original, remaking music from artists such as Journey, Lady Gaga, Fleetwood Mac and various musicals. And while popular artists draw inspiration from other musicians of the past, some must consider themselves pretty inspirational seeing as they are remixing their own music. An example of this is Kanye West’s remix of “Love Lockdown,” which he originally released in 2008. Because if it was popular the first time around, let’s see how many more times a profit can be made off of it, right?
So what does all this mean? As high school students we are too young to have been around during the original releases of favorites like “Footloose,” Star Wars and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” but that does not mean that we are unaware of them. The idea of remakes, re-releases, sequels and spin-offs is economically smart for the entertainment industry due to a sense of security based on the original’s success, but high risks can also equal high rewards when the call for ingenuity is greater than that of playing it safe. Just look at the originals. What movies, television and music do we have to define our generation when we look back on it in the future?

As Americans, we have always taken pride in being innovation leaders and having revolutionary ideas, but what do we have to brag out these days? We have the remixed, 3D, “improved” entertainment, but 30 years from now what ideas will the next generation be able to steal from us in its time of possible economic crisis? “It’s all just a little bit of history repeating,” Shirley Bassey sang in the song “History Repeating” in 1997, and of course this song has been remade as well.