Modern blockbusters are increasingly ‘to be continued’. This trend needs to go straight in the bin, writes Chris Schulz.

Contains spoilers for Fast X and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

I remember the first time I saw it. Marty McFly sprints down a street that’s on fire. Doc thinks he’s just sent him and his DeLorean to 1885 to help reverse the damage they’ve done to the time-space continuum. When Doc sees McFly, his grin quickly turns to despair. He doesn’t know it’s a different McFly. He believes his lightning bolt of a plan has failed. 

“Great Scott,” declares Doc, collapsing into a heap on the tarmac. It was a big, bold, dramatic moment, ruined by three big, bold, dramatic words. Right there, in a shimmering font the colour of Fanta, a statement scrolled across the big screen that included an ellipsis and an arrow.

Aged 11, I hated it with every fibre of my being.

Back then, clutching my half-eaten box of Tangy Fruits, wearing my gold Bata Bullets and an Incredible Hulk T-shirt two sizes too small, I realised I’d been had. This story wasn’t over. This movie wasn’t done. They wanted guaranteed box office returns. They wanted an audience for the next one. They wanted you to buy another ticket.

So, at the end of Back to the Future II, they played the trailer for Back to the Future III to entice you to return. I remember thinking, “This sucks”. (Also, “Why is Back to the Future a Western now?”)

No one got to find out how the Back to the Future trilogy concluded until the following year, 1990. I don’t remember going. Instead, I watched it when it screened on TV, for free, many years later. It was my muted rebellion of one: if they didn’t want to put a proper ending on Back to the Future Part II, I would refuse to care about Part III.

I’ve been feeling a sense of déjà vu lately. As the film industry settles into this WTF post-Covid era, when many Academy Award-winning movies flop, previously bankable box office stars and directors no longer do a guaranteed turnover and multiple multiverse superhero spinoffs are sucking the life force out of big screen creativity, studios have started using those same three words in an attempt to pull audiences back into theatres, to guarantee returns on their investments, to give you more.

Blame the Marvel-isation of the movies. Blame the franchise-ation of cinema. Blame the struggling bank balances of the movie-going theatrical conveyor belt, from studios that desperately need blockbuster hits to theatres that need bums in seats snacking on buckets of overpriced popcorn. They want your attention. They need your money. And so, “To be continued,” has become the worst cinematic trend since they cancelled Snifters.

Fast X, the 10th instalment of the mega-popular seat-filler featuring meathead boy racers getting into gang fights and sweaty car chases all in the name of family, doesn’t end with a race, or a heist, or with magnets, or by driving between two skyscrapers, or swinging a car across a ravine, or by taking on a submarine, or with Ludacris driving into space. (All things that have happened in the Fast & Furious franchise.)

Instead, it ends on a cliffhanger, the series’ first. Vin Diesel’s Dom drives down the side of the Hoover dam. A plane full of his sidekicks crashes into a mountain. Bombs have been set to timers and begin exploding, meaning water is about to drown Dom and his recently rescued son. Cue the credits. Fade to black.

You’ll need to come again next time (April 4, 2025) to see what happens.

Same too with Across the Spider-Verse. The animated sequel to the surprise 2018 hit is a dazzling masterpiece full of dizzying set pieces, wonderful comic timing, beautiful voice acting, great gags, an incredible soundtrack and colours that fizz and spin like the pop art spectacle it is. My son and I loved it just as much as we loved the original.

Yet, near the end, we could both sense it coming. There were too many webs left hanging. Too many plot points were unsolved. Spider-Man, and all of his new Spidey sidekicks, were in too much of a pickle for it to be resolved after two hours and 20 minutes. My son turned to me, leaned over and said something that reminded me of the cold, hard lesson I learnt at his age: “It’s going to be ‘To be continued,’ isn’t it?'”

I have lived long enough to have seen many cinematic trends come and go: post-credit scenes, M Night Shyamalan, Star Wars getting shit, then good, then shit again. I once made it all the way through Michael Bay’s Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen on iMax. Even that giant shocker got one thing right: it had an ending. It told a story. It may have been a bad one, but at least it was complete.

If you’re relying on the “to be continued” trick to reel audiences back in, you’re just making television.

Tara Ward talks to Bluey director Richard Jeffery about how a little cartoon about a Blue Heeler became one of the most beloved shows on television.

Since Bluey began in 2018, humans around the world have fallen in love with the wacky antics of a six-year-old Blue Heeler pup, her parents and little sister. Last year, Bluey was TVNZ+’s most streamed show (a whopping 29 million streams), as well as the number one programme across all on-demand platforms in Australia and the eighth most streamed show in the US. It’s won an International Emmy, several Logies and a BAFTA, and is currently broadcast in over 60 countries around the globe. 

That’s a lot of kids (and more than a few adults) watching a lot of dogs playing a lot of games. Director Richard Jeffery has a theory as to why Bluey has found such astonishing global success: “Anyone can watch it with a family anywhere in the world, and say ‘Oh my god, that’s my life’,” he says over the dog and bone. It’s not every day you get to talk to someone who’s not just one of the masterminds of the show, but also a character on it. Jeffery voices a footy-loving, barbie-cooking border collie from New Zealand who is friends with Bluey and her family.

“Yes, I voiced Mackenzie’s Dad, quite badly,” Jeffery jokes, “but it was a lot of fun.” 

So how did a New Zealander (and his border collie alter ego) end up on such a quintessentially Australian show? Jeffery began his animation career in New Zealand 25 years ago working for Warner Bros and Disney, before moving to the UK, where he worked on popular children’s TV shows like Charlie and Lola and Tinga Tinga Tales. It was there that he met fellow animator Joe Brumm. Years later, when Jeffery had returned to New Zealand and Brumm to Australia, Brumm called to pitch a new animated children’s TV show called “Bluey” about a curious young pup and her loveable family. 

“It was an easy yes,” says Jeffery. He joined Blue as an animator in season one and later became director for seasons two and three. He’s not the only New Zealand connection to the show: the characters of pup Mackenzie and his border collie family, who speak with distinct New Zealand accents, are a small homage to Footrot Flats, says Jeffery. “Growing up, Joe [Brumm] loved Footrot Flats, it was one of his big influences. He really, really enjoyed the comic book series. And, you know, having a Kiwi director and animator, he wanted to get a bit of Kiwi influence in there.”

Trans-Tasman relations aside, Bluey also captures the small but beautiful (as well as the frustrating and annoying) moments of family life, telling sweet stories with a gentle charm and warm humour. Parents watching Bluey for the nine millionth time will understand the struggles of Bluey’s frazzled parents Bandit and Chilli, while children will adore watching Bluey and her pals turn everyday experiences – like visiting the supermarket or a picnic at the park – into creative adventures. “Bluey is essentially based around how kids learn through play, and so kids can see those moments and recognise them.” 

This broad appeal was always the show’s intention, Jeffery says, and he credits the writing for creating mature storylines and heartfelt moments that connect with viewers far beyond the show’s traditional four-to-six-year-old audience. Several episodes touch on big life issues like separation, infertility, loss and change, explained in ways that children can understand but with enough emotional depth and relatability to bring tears to an adult’s eyes. Jeffery reckons the Australian setting helps too, with the series recognisably set (and entirely produced) in Brisbane. “It brings a little flavour to it, which translates well.” 

What also translates well is the refreshing way Bluey reflects modern day parenting.  Bandit and Chilli seem to have an endless amount of patience for playing yet another game of Magic Xylophone, and while that might make the really lazy parents among us feel bad, there’s no room for a hapless Daddy Pig-type of parent on Bluey. “We wanted to make Bandit break the mould of the classic dad being a bit of a dunce,” Jeffery says. The parents on Bluey don’t have all the answers, just like the rest of us pooches, but they’re devoted to finding them out.“We want the audience to know that they’re not the only ones going through it, you know?”

As director of Bluey, Jeffery works across the entire production, from editing to art direction to music, and while he’s not giving much away about the new season, he does reveal it’s full of classic Bluey humour and many more touching moments. It also includes a special guest appearance from music icon Neil Finn. Jeffery says it was a delight to meet Finn (who voices Bandit’s doctor in ‘Exercise’), and that Sam Neill, Lucy Lawless and Jeremy Wells are next on his famous New Zealander cameo wish list.  

Even in the show’s hectic early days, Jeffery says he could sense there was something special about Bluey. ”It was definitely our intention to make the best show that we could, and we really set the bar high,” he says. He’s proud of making a show that has become a household name around the world, one so beloved that a generation of children and their whānau will grow up watching it together. “To be honest with you, we went beyond our expectations,” Jeffery says, “but it’s been amazing.” 

Bluey is available to stream on TVNZ+.