Hollywood has long traded in nostalgia and known quantities, rolling out sequels and spin-offs for as long as they are profitable, with belated sequels – often released decades after their predecessors – being particularly fashionable for the past decade or so. Regardless of the sequels’ quality or the real need for them to be made (beyond a cash grab), in this particular sub-genre the passage of time can create issues all of its own. What happens when the world has changed so drastically that the filmmakers seemingly have no choice but to have those changes drive the central conflict? Does transplanting beloved characters into a bleaker modern landscape offer less cosy comfort and more of a difficult reminder of how the world has changed?

This year, so far, has seen the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2 (two decades after the original) and Toy Story 5 (31 years after the original), both franchises that were primarily comedic, but carry more melancholic themes when uprooted into a vastly different modern world. The Devil Wears Prada (2006) detailed an excited upstart’s first forays into the journalism industry through the world of powerhouse fashion magazine Runway, offering plenty of fun, satire and glamour. Its sequel centres on the potential demise of that magazine and the industry at large, with our heroine tasked with trying her best to save it while decrying the wider erosion of journalism and media. Similarly, where Toy Story (1995) brought to life the universal suspicion of children that their toys were having adventures when they weren’t around, Toy Story 5 depicts a world where screentime is stealing away childhood innocence and imagination, threatening to make toys obsolete altogether. The challenges of these drastic changes in backdrop are the main driving force of the films’ plots, with the perils of the real-world issues faced by the characters confronting the comfort usually sought in nostalgia.

Their new, stark backdrops are accurate reflections of how times have changed. Runway’s real-life muse, Vogue, has seen its iconic September issue shrink from 840 pages in 2006 to around 365 pages in recent years. The wider magazine industry has been in decline for many years, and journalism at large has come under threat from numerous angles. The film leans into this new reality, skewing the mission of the sequel from feel-good comfort towards thematic eulogy – no longer aspirational and escapist but a firm dampener on once-glossy dreams. Where the original film’s satirical efforts were biting and witty, its successor doesn’t so much reach for satire as let out a muffled scream. Perhaps one of the reasons why we no longer have films of the ilk of bubbly 2000s romcoms is because a modern day setting simply can’t facilitate it; not that the majority of their protagonists’ lives were actually realistic, but their worlds didn’t seem quite so impossible.

Likewise, where the simplicity of Andy’s bedroom in the original Toy Story exemplified the familiar innocence and safety of childhood as a natural home for toys, shifting the story to modern day creates a nightmare for the characters (and many adults watching in the cinema). The latest instalment depicts a world where children are addicted to screens, toys and imaginative play are discarded and the insidiousness of technology exacerbates friendship issues via group chats. Screen time is on the rise for all of us, but particular concern is placed on that of children, even those as young as the character of Bonnie; more and more children are spending their time looking at screens, lost in a digital world rather than an imaginary one. Bringing the Toy Story characters into this modern reality makes the film no longer a fun adventure movie but moves it towards something much more existential, with real world implications. Toy Story has previously explored the passage of time and the idea of a finite lifespan for toys as their owners grow up, but the new backdrop moves it away from individual characters’ identity crises to the wider question of whether toys in general may become obsolete. The concern is no longer the natural change of interests as you grow out of childhood, but about childhood itself being stolen away. The film rarely wavers in its commitment to creativity and imagination above all, with a clear message on the side of the toys (even if it is forced to bow slightly to the apparently inevitable role of tech). However, simply the act of placing old, beloved characters under a very modern existential threat creates a stark reminder of the different childhood that exists today.

As a result, both films have an apocalyptic feel, a sense that it is the end of the world as we know it, for both us and the characters. Shifting characters from one era to another, with lengthy gaps between instalments, forces a blunt contrast between our current reality and the world of two or three decades ago. The films’ finales endeavour to leave familiar faces in a good place, but the central conflict driven by the greater societal forces at play remains unresolved. Whilst there is an arguable nobility in using beloved stories and characters to try and address these problems, for the films that have brought comfort and laughter, I would rather leave them where they were.

With the Can Hollywood continue to rely on old IP or will the taste of nostalgia sour for audiences as comforting characters collide with our current reality? With both The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Toy Story 5 (a recent release) comfortably sitting in the top ten highest-grossing films of the year so far, the answer appears to be yes, at least for now.