I think the entertainment industry is infected with a preconception about multi-book/movie epics, and I blame J.K. Rowling.
Well, not really. Rowling is patient zero, but I don't think she intended for something she did to become a creative habit across the entertainment spectrum. Either way, this issue seems to have infected the minds of many a creative writer. It even infected mine for a short time.
It's the idea that a universe has to grow up with its readers, and it all started with Harry Potter. For those who've never read the books or seen the movies, you meet protagonist Harry Potter when he's 11. He sees the world through an 11-year-old's eyes, understands things in an 11-year-old's way, and he's treated like an 11-year-old by most people around him. The narrative does the same, constantly giving you hints and references to a far grander, complex, and dangerous world outside the bounds of Harry's ignorance, but keeping him insulated within the protective bounds of his childhood.
Part of Rowling's brilliance was her ability to slowly peel back the protective veil of her universe as Potter grew up from book to book. By the time of the final books in the series, Harry isn't a child; he's a young man dealing with adult concepts, emotions, and dangers. The world Harry grew up in is still the same one from the first book, but now both you and he understand it far better.
Kind of like real life.
A brilliant writing strategy that Rowling masterfully pulled off, but the issue is that the Potterverse was so successful that an overwhelming number of creators began thinking the youthful-fun-to-grizzled-veteran pipeline was a must to tell a good story. You can see it even in major studio creations such as the MCU, where it started with Iron Man creating a suit to fight terrorists, and is now filled with so many mature and complex plot threads that many people have thrown up their hands and refuse to keep track of it anymore.
Iman Vellani, who plays Ms. Marvel in the MCU, said something to that effect during a Q&A on the website "League of Comic Geeks" while talking about Gen Z and their lack of enthusiasm for superheroes:
“If anything, I think Gen Z responds incredibly well to superheroes when they’re treated as people first. The themes of grief, identity, legacy, belonging — they’re timeless and will never age out. Every genre goes through cycles. Westerns did. Musicals did. Romcoms did. So the answer isn’t to abandon the genre, but to find new stories that only be told through THIS genre. At the end of the day, I think we just want these films to evolve and grow alongside their audience.”
To be clear, I don't disagree with her for the most part, and I think she's correct about characters being better when they're more human and fleshed out as such. Moreover, Vellani is one of the few Gen Z actresses who seems like a decent person who understands her job, is grateful to have it, and sees the big picture. I just disagree with her last point.
And my proof for that is "The Chronicles of Narnia," C.S. Lewis's most popular work.
I was read the Narnia books as a child by my mom before bed. As a kid, I read them myself. I dove back in when I was a teenager, and as an adult, I've read them multiple times. Each time I read them throughout the stages of my life, the books grew up with me. They never changed. I did, but this new stage of mine only opened up a deeper understanding of the stories.
Lewis never makes the books "grow up." He establishes the universe, lays down its logic, sets its moral compass, and allows the characters to grow and stories to unfold within them. The most mature it gets is in The Last Battle, where finality is one of the key themes.
"All worlds draw to an end, and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy," the last words by a dying centaur, is one of the key messages in the book, which is a reassurance to both young readers and old ones.
Some of the best stories don't start naive and become mature; they are mature already, they just know how to talk to the hearts of anyone who arrives in the world, no matter their age.
Rowling's approach is a great storytelling tool, but it's not one everyone has to use. In fact, done incorrectly, you could easily destroy a good story. It's a path you have to walk very carefully, slowly, and deliberately, but if you're true enough to the story, you don't have to take that path at all.
