Originality is hard to come by
these days due to of the amount of remixes that are out in the world. The idea
that everything is a remix is becoming more and more obvious as songs become
remixes of older songs, books are spin offs of other books, and movies become
spin offs of other movie series.
In the past few years, it has
become extremely common to remix virtually every song that is produced. Dubstep
artists, like Synchronic create dubstep versions of songs, like Radioactive by
Imagine Dragons. Some songs are remixed in several different ways; for example,
several different artists such as Swedtune and Thomas, Daydream, The Dirty
Trees, and several others have remixed Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. Cover
artists, such as Obadiah Parker, sing versions of other artists’ songs. Obadiah
Parker generally sings slower, acoustic versions of songs such as Hey Ya by
Outkast. Essentially, there is an unlimited supply of remixes of songs and each
remix is unique in length and style. These are creative works by other artists,
however it is not their own original work and must be considered a remix.
Songs aren’t the only media that is
being remixed, although I would argue that songs are the most commonly remixed
media. Many books are now spin offs of other books or they are apart of a
series of books. Recently I just read a spin off book of the Divergent trilogy.
After reading the Divergent trilogy I found a spin off called Four by the same author, Veronica Roth.
The spin off was not nearly as well written and detailed as the original
trilogy, but it was told from Four’s point of view, who is one of the main
characters. Four is written in the
past, before the Divergent series begins, and it tells the story of Tobias
Eaton before he became Dauntless and known as Four. Four is interesting because of the point of view differs from
Divergent, however it was not nearly as wholesome as Divergent. Another popular
series of books, the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, has a spin off book
called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find
Them. The book was published in 2001 and will be adapted into a movie
trilogy in the upcoming years of 2016, 2018, and 2020.
Movies such as the Harry Potter
series is getting its own spin off trilogy of movies. J. K. Rowling’s book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,
there will be three movies released in 2016, 2018, and 2020 according to The
Verge. No doubt these movies will be amazing like the Harry Potter series,
however, this new trilogy is a prime example of how nothing is an original work
anymore. The Transformers movies, based on kids’ toys, has become a franchise
including comic books, t-shirts, television shows, and other products.
Transformers is another instance where originality is difficult to come by. That’s
not to say there are not creative works anymore, because there are. However,
these creative works incorporate a change of an older work of art into
something that might be more entertaining to society now but not an original
work.
Most forms of media today are
versions of previous forms of media that have been changed, altered, and
manipulated to seem new. Some forms of media are more creative than others,
such as the Transformers franchise, incorporating toys, comic books and other
products, whereas cover artists sing someone else’s song in a different way.
The statement that everything is a remix is becoming more and more relevant to
today’s society because nearly nothing is a completely original idea.
Sources
Plante,
Chris. "The Harry Potter Spin-off Films Get Release Dates, May Be Larger
than a Trilogy." The Verge. 15 Oct. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/6982525/harry-potter-spin-off-fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them>.
"Transformers."
Movie. Best Little Sites, LLC. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.comicbookmovie.com/transformers/>.
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