Allwynd said:For me the problem with such "sequels" is that they are:
- very lazy in conception and originality
- their existence is completely pointless, meaningless and cannot be justified in any way whatsoever other than making money, but from a viewer's/consumer's perspective, there is no justification of their existence
- they try to ride on the fame of the original in hopes to be relevant
- relies heavily on cameos of the original cast, because all relevancy will be lost
- the plot is no different
- the whole idea of such "sequels" feels fan service for the most hardcore, diehard fans, who had wasted an unhealthy massive amount of their lives obsessing over imaginary characters or even caring who these imaginary characters "love" or who they "should be loving instead"
In my opinion, it will be better if such sequels are actually an alternative timeline, where they start the original story from scratch and then branches into an "expanded universe", kind of like the one in Star Wars, which was discarded in favor of a woke joke that killed the franchise and made everyone hate Star Wars.
In that notion, I always imagined an alternative Naruto where different events took place and different issues were tackled. For one, the massive Ninja World was left all but unexplored in both animes. All we see is a few countries, out of which even less have unique architecture and we see a tiny glimpse of their story and that's it. Maybe I'm affected from One Piece by thinking like this, because I didn't care about it while watching Naruto before I knew One Piece existed, but I loved the expose One Piece does on each island the Straw Hats visit - usually it takes a few episodes, you get to meet the inhabitants, you learn the history, see the architecture, there is a little plot involved there and they move on. And there are probably hundreds of such different islands explored, such a thing would have been so good for Naruto's universe - it has so much potential - it can literally be a 500-800 episode anime and they still wouldn't have explored all of the Ninja World.
I may have talked a lot about Naruto and One Piece in a forum about Shaman King, but the same can be said about Shaman King's universe - an alternative timeline where Hao didn't become evil or something entirely different happen and reuse the same cast of characters, add even more new ones along the way and just explore an alternative timeline, which I think will provide more enjoyment for the viewers than some stupid, disappointing sequel that just solidifies things and sends the silent message "If you don't like this, then move on, because your favorite franchise is over."