Two major movie releases are happening this late spring: The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann) on May 10 and Man of Steel (Zack Snyder) on June 14. Man of Steel is about a guy who gets transplanted from a strange alien world called Krypton to the wholesome, unassuming Midwest. The Great Gatsby is about a guy who gets transplanted from the wholesome, unassuming Midwest to the strange alien world called Rich People on Long Island.

So they’re basically the opposite movie. EXCEPT! Both movies are adaptations from literature. Also, both of these stories have already been turned into movies, one as recently as 2006 (Superman Returns). At this point in history, we’ve all been forced to read (or “read”) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in ninth grade, while Superman has been an American icon for literally 75 years now. If you aren’t aware of these characters yet, either through print or screen or screen-printed t-shirts, you yourself are probably an outer-space alien who was born deaf and blind and dead. (Tragically.) So here’s my question: Why would we want to be told the same stories over and over and over and over?

I have two theories, explainable through strained yet timely analogies.

The Gatsby Theory: Hear me out, okay? We, the audience, are the shallow party girl Daisy Buchanan. Hollywood, the entity, is Gatsby. Gatsby knows the only way to win Daisy’s affections is by throwing tons of money around on fast-paced lavish affairs starring square-jawed men with lush, amazing hair. Throw in some cool cars and nice clothes and presto! By focusing his efforts on his superficial assets, Gatsby doesn’t need to cultivate traits like depth or creativity or content or what-have-you. Daisy’s love can be bought. Remember: In this analogy we’re Daisy. Yes, I insulted everybody and I’ll do it again. The Gatsby Theory basically assumes we are shallow idiots (which we are … we keep going to the Transformer movies) who just want to have fun and Hollywood gives us the expensive spectacles we crave. So, under the Gatsby Theory, the answer to the question “Why make a movie with a story we’ve already read and seen before” is this: The Great Gatsby, as a story, has already been vetted and proven popular. Hollywood does not need to take a chance on some new, original story when audiences will be satisfied with a high-budget superficial adaptation-remake.

The Superman Theory: Okay, forget Gatsby for a second if you can. I know, Gatsby is super compelling and accounts for like 90 percent of what everyone thinks about every day of their lives. You have to try, though. This is a whole new thing. So, telling the same story over and over is not a new Hollywood invention. People have been telling fairytales and reciting epic poems and junk since forever. We’ve all got songs and tall tales and that one mildly entertaining anecdote about how you almost had a three-way which you bust out at every single party.

Some stories are legends. Here’s the Superman Theory: We know the story of the little orphaned extra-terrestrial who gets taken in by farmers in Kansas, discovers he can fly and see through walls, gets a job as a reporter and saves the world in Spandex as his superhero alter ego. We know it because we’ve lived it. We identify deeply with this story because, well, who among us can say that this exact story, down to the last detail, does not describe us? No one. That’s why he’s called “Superman”: because he is extremely a man. The point is, we like to hear legends because they remind us of how great we can be, or because any weird alien overlords can always be overthrown. Legends give us hope and unite us through common values and shared culture.

So, whether it’s a cynical ploy to sell haircuts and action figures or a part of the rich tradition of storytelling that ties humanity together in some sort of wonderful love blanket, adaptations and remakes are here to stay, though of course they will soon be remade yet again. We will continue to hear the same stories we’ve already seen and read, from Les Mis to Twilight, from The Godfather to Jurassic Park. And there will be sequels. So many sequels. You know what though? Almost every movie we see we go into knowing what’s going to happen, whether it’s an adaptation or a remake or not. We know the villain isn’t going to destroy the world. We know the guy is going to get the girl. We know order will be restored. What difference does it make if that all happens with fresh new characters or old beloved ones? It’s all the same anyway!

Kit Bryant lives in Iowa City with her valid alibi and several innocuous non-lethal pastimes. Outside the workplace, she enjoys sarcasm, light spanking and fleetingmoments of hope and levity. Her blog is popslashcorn.wordpress.com