If every franchise needs a kid, at least Star Trek: Picard does it well

polygon.com:

Sequels and remakes have ruled Hollywood for ages, but for the past decade, film and television have been dominated by long-running franchises with uninterrupted continuity. This has given rise to the “legacyquel” or “requel,” works that revive dormant properties using a mixture of new and familiar characters. New characters, usually played by much younger (and less expensive) actors, serve as an on-ramp for new viewers as well as a potential off-ramp for the “legacy” characters, who are present to attract nostalgic fans and reassure them that their version of the franchise hasn’t been discarded. It’s an opportunity for the leads or even creators of a popular intellectual property to pass the torch to a new generation and ensure its longevity. Or, less charitably, it’s the tip of the spear in studios’ efforts to minimize the importance of movie stars in the marketability of films in favor of making brands themselves — things they own — the real selling point.

More than that, however, the proliferation of the legacyquel has given birth to another Hollywood trend: We are seeing a lot of movies and TV shows about the children of famous characters.

This isn’t automatically a bad idea, and many of the better examples find ways to twist or subvert the basic formula of “the same story, but with the next generation.” Creed (still the best legacyquel) is an inverted Rocky, the saga of a born somebody who wants to make it as a nobody. Star Wars: The Force Awakens casts the child of two iconic characters as its villain, while Cobra Kai and 2022’s Scream have protagonists who are descended from the villains of their source works. In the realm of superheroes, it’s more of a mixed bag. Alongside new faces like Shang-Chi, Ms. Marvel,