At the time of this typing, “Cobra Kai” is set to wrap up its six-season run. Granted, six seasons isn’t the flex it used to be, now that a TV season in the streaming era is typically eight or ten episodes at most. Even so, considering how most streaming shows are cancelled after one or two seasons, it’s impressive that Netflix kept the show around for so long.

At the same time, we’ve got the upcoming Karate Kid: Legends, a cinematic follow-up to the series that brings in Jackie Chan’s character from the 2010 remake. Which means that the 2010 remake is now officially canon to the mainline Miyagiverse.

Did that register? Has that sunk in? Because in case you missed it, Karate Kid is now a full-fledged megafranchise. Granted, it’s more on the scale of the Legendary Monsterverse (i.e. A straightforward timeline of releases, rather than multiple franchises going on simultaneously) than the MCU. Even so, it’s demonstrably more popular and influential than the Conjuring Universe; and it successfully got off the ground, which is more than can be said for the DCEU and Dark Universe experiments.

So many cross-media megafranchises crashed and burned, but this was the one that succeeded. The goddamn Karate Kid. How the hell did this happen? How could this franchise find such durability that it’s now stronger than ever after 40 freaking years?

With this burning question in mind, I set out to learn more about the franchise to date. For clarity, I still haven’t actually seen “Cobra Kai”, as I gave up on Netflix some time ago. And while I do have some distant half-forgotten memories of watching The Next Karate Kid on the Disney Channel, I didn’t bother revisiting that one either.

I did, however, procure a box set comprised of the original Ralph Macchio trilogy and the 2010 remake. So, let’s take a look and try to break down why they work.

Right off the bat, this franchise has a serious advantage over all the other megafranchise attempts in modern history: It’s cheap. Adjusting for inflation, The Karate Kid (1984) cost roughly $24.5 million. The Karate Kid (2010) cost an adjusted $58.3 million. I don’t even think Marvel or Legendary could produce a streaming series — much less a movie — for so little money. Because these entries are so cheap and quick to make, this particular megafranchise has a flexibility that others simply don’t have. There’s virtually no risk of a billion-dollar loss putting the whole venture in jeopardy, and the franchise is better positioned to adapt with changes.

And “change” is certainly a recurring theme with this franchise.

The Karate Kid (Parts I-III)

On an individual basis, the original films are not great. They’re dated as hell. The plots are paper-thin. The casual racism and homophobia (even coming from the villains) is classic ’80s cringe.

It’s bad enough that the antagonists are all one-dimensional narcissistic psychopaths literally too stupid to function, but I’m honestly more pissed off with the love interests. Daniel finds a new love interest, they go through a flatly boring romance arc, they break up offscreen in between movies, rinse and repeat. Not that I would expect a teenage boy to find his everlasting true love in high school, but it would’ve been so much more compelling to see him and a recurring love interest grow up, grow together, and grow apart over the films.

I maintain that’s absolutely what should’ve happened with Alli (Elizabeth Shue) — the offscreen breakup in the second film did that girl dirty.

Individually, each film in the trilogy is mediocre and formulaic. But all three films back-to-back comprise a surprisingly layered and engaging coming-of-age saga centered around the only two worthwhile characters in the entire collective cast: Daniel LaRusso and Nariyoshi Miyagi, respectively played by Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita.

What we’ve got here is a neat contrast between the brash and impulsive student against the wise and patient mentor. The two of them learn from each other and clash against each other in surprising ways, most especially in the third entry. It’s honestly endearing to watch Daniel learn from his failures and come into his own as a man of courage and integrity.

While the fight scenes are mediocre by modern standards (seriously, that iconic crane kick needed so much more in terms of editing and cinematography), the film is far more notable for how Mr. Miyagi finds ways to make literally anything into a martial art. After all, karate is a martial art — it’s a means of creativity and expression, a reflection of the practitioners’ thoughts and values, not just a means of beating people up.

As boring and flat as the antagonists all are, they’re primarily interesting and useful as an embodiment of the cruel, harsh, uncaring nature of the world. The villains all represent the predators and bullies who oppress the weak for their own benefit. Mr. Miyagi is the pacifist who keeps rolling with the punches, looking for ways to wait it out until the bad guys destroy themselves, exhausting literally every other option before resorting to violence. Daniel is persistently caught between those who think that violence is the only answer, and a mentor who believes that violence is never the answer, forced to find a viable middle path between them.

Funny enough, this ethos is likely a key reason why this franchise has found new life in the MAGA era.

The New Karate Kid

On paper, it makes sense that the PTB would try to keep the franchise going with a new lead. After all, it’s hard to keep calling this “The Karate Kid” after Macchio had visibly aged out of the role by the end of the third movie. Perhaps more importantly, the third movie marked a clear endpoint in the Daniel/Miyagi dynamic. By the end of the trilogy, Daniel was well on his way to outgrowing Miyagi-Do, ready to set out and find his own path. I’m not sure there was anywhere left to go with that partnership, so why not try again with another kid?

Even better, the filmmakers were smart enough to switch up the gender. As a way to make sure this wouldn’t be a retread of the old Miyagi/Daniel dynamic, that makes all kinds of sense. And of course it helps that this was the breakout role of Hilary Swank, arguably the only actor in the entire franchise (with the debatable exceptions of Pat Morita and Elizabeth Shue) to reach mainstream name recognition outside the Karate Kid franchise.

Unfortunately, Swank’s later A-list status turned out to be a long-term detriment to the franchise. Her cost and availability are likely reasons why her Julie Pierce is the only major character of the Miyagi era who never made an appearance on “Cobra Kai”.

More importantly, spending three movies with Daniel/Miyagi only to switch over to Julie/Miyagi was never going to completely work. Not after everything Daniel and Mr. Miyagi have been through together and everything the audience had gone through with them.

Case in point: There’s a scene in the second movie when Mr. Miyagi and Daniel are helping each other work through the deaths of their respective fathers. That is some core trauma these characters are sharing with each other. This is a pivotal moment in both of their lives. There’s no possible way for either of them to match that — never mind top it — with anyone else. From that moment on, Daniel and Mr. Miyagi will always be inseparable and one will always be in the shadow of the other.

“Cobra Kai”

I haven’t seen this series, and I’m not sure I want to, but I’m nonetheless glad it exists. For the sake of Daniel and Mr. Miyagi, the original film trilogy, and the fans who grew up with them, this story was never going to be complete until Daniel stepped up to mentor a new generation like Mr. Miyagi mentored him. And this “mentor” chapter in Daniel’s life could only have been possible in this decade, after he had sufficiently grown and aged.

(Side note: Pat Morita was 52 at the time of the first movie. Ralph Macchio was 57 when “Cobra Kai” premiered. Look it up, do the math, and weep.)

However, that comes with a big fucking asterisk.

In the Kung Fu Panda movies, Po (Jack Black) went through a beloved trilogy of films as a student of kung fu before getting his shot as a mentor in the fourth movie. In my review at the time, I questioned how far we can and should take this, and I’d ask the same question of the Karate Kid franchise. We never had to see Mr. Miyagi die, I don’t think anyone wanted to see that, and I don’t think anyone wants to see Daniel or Po die either. And do we really want to follow their students through another series of films as they mentor a new generation? How long can and should we keep this going?

That aside, there is of course another major factor for the ongoing popularity of the franchise. You might call it “nostalgia”, which has become a common word for Hollywood exploitation of childhood memories and keeping the audience in an impressionable childlike state. But in this particular case, I’m talking about something much deeper.

I’m talking about the crushing disappointment of meeting (or being) the childhood friend who peaked in high school. The unexpected and peculiar grief of finding out that a classmate you haven’t heard from in fifteen years passed away of a drug overdose. The contented pride of knowing the ones you grew up with are doing well with their own jobs and families.

This is an imperative reason for school reunions and social media. There’s this strange unbreakable bond between two people who’ve grown up together and shared so many formative moments together. In so many ways, we see ourselves reflected in those people and places we grew up with. It comes with this deep-seated compulsion to check in with them every once in a while, to see how they’re doing and make sure they’re still around.

And yes, the same goes for the characters and franchises we grew up with.

Of course it sounds crazy and irrational to suggest that fictional characters mean as much to us as real flesh-and-blood people. And sure, it probably is. But even if somebody only exists in your head, that still puts them in the exact place where your thoughts and emotions matter most.

Watching the original film trilogy, I’d often follow along with the Karate Kid wiki (Internet Rule 44: “There is a wiki for literally anything.”) to see what happened with the characters later on. I found myself relieved and gladdened to know that the narcissistic asshole antagonists of the films (most of them anyway) eventually mellowed out. Even better, it’s nice to know that Daniel got married (to the cousin of his third love interest, no less), and he’s out there living his happily ever after. Even for someone who didn’t grow up with these movies, it feels like like trading emails or social media posts with old friends. I’m sure it would feel much more so for someone who grew up with the franchise.

The Karate Kid (2010)

Then we’ve got the remake with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. As with The Next Karate Kid, there was never any chance of duplicating the original Daniel/Miyagi dynamic. But the filmmakers put in a noble effort all the same.

I can see the logic in casting an actual twelve-year-old in the title role, as opposed to a 23-year-old playing a teenager. (To repeat: Look it up, do the math, and weep.) The unfortunate downside is that we’ve got a teenager’s attitude in the preteen character Dre, which unfortunately results in a kid who’s bratty and obnoxious in a way that Daniel never was.

Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) fares better, especially with the revisions to his tragic backstory. Mr. Miyagi lost his wife and child through no fault of his own, while Mr. Han was in some way directly responsible for the deaths of his family. That pathos is beautifully played out, and Dre helps Han work through that grief in a poignant and elegant way.

However, it makes a huge difference that Mr. Han is a Chinese man living in China, while Mr. Miyagi was a Japanese man (Okinawan, technically) living in post-war America. Thus Mr. Miyagi had to put up with racism and aggression that Mr. Han never does. As such, while Mr. Han’s pacifist philosophy is similar to that of Mr. Miyagi, we don’t see nearly as much of Mr. Han demonstrating how to turn the other cheek or fight off attackers.

That said, while Mr. Han only gets one real fight scene, it’s a doozy: He singlehandedly disarms and fights off six attackers at once without actually striking a single one. According to the Karate Kid wiki, that’s a franchise record. The Jackie Chan character with only one fight scene could very well be the most skilled fighter in the entire megafranchise. But I digress.

Unfortunately, the recurring problem with this remake comes down to one word: China. This remake is emblematic of the Obama years, back when Hollywood was comically desperate for Chinese box office dollars, before the Chinese government’s censorship and humanitarian abuses became too much to handle. But again, I digress.

The point being that this remake is all about Chinese culture and iconography. The film spends more time glamorizing China than developing the characters. That may not sound like much of a problem, considering how flat the plot and characters are, but the fine details matter.

What we’ve got here is a remake that follows the plot of the original beat-for-beat, sometimes even line-for-line. But the original was an American story set in the USA. Take the same story and set in a totally different culture without changing anything else, and it doesn’t really work as well.

Consider that Part II was set in Okinawa. That was very much a movie about Okinawa and its culture, with antagonists heavily motivated by the island’s unique brand of honor and a climactic tsunami set piece unique to the climate of the region. Of course, I couldn’t tell you how much of that was bullshit, but the point stands that the setting highly informed the plot. We don’t get any of that in the remake. There’s no indication that the antagonists are acting out of any kind of culture clash or racism against the protagonist or cultural pressure to win at any cost.

Moreover, as flat and narcissistic as the original villains were, the original trilogy sprinkled in just enough details to make them memorable. For instance, we see that John Kreese (Martin Kove) was a decorated Vietnam War veteran. That backstory carries certain implications as to how and why Kreese got to be the hot-headed domineering shitheel we all love to hate.

Compare that to his Chinese 2010 counterpart (Master Li, played by Yu Rongguang). He has no backstory whatsoever. He’s a cold and heartless character in a role built for explosive arrogance. There’s nothing memorable about this character. He’s boring.

As for the primary bully (Zhenwei Wang in the role of Cheng, the Johnny Lawrence counterpart), he goes through all the motions of the original rival, but without the prior romantic history with the protagonist’s love interest. Without that key motivation, there’s nothing memorable about the character and nothing to explain why he goes through the same motions. It doesn’t make sense.

Little wonder the remake never got a sequel, as Mr. Han is the only character who comes anywhere close to firing on all cylinders, and the remake’s slavish devotion to China has fallen out of vogue. So here we are with a movie that brings Mr. Han into the greater megafranchise. While I doubt Dre Parker or anyone else from the 2010 remake will make an appearance, I expect there will be some passing mention as to how they’re doing — at this point, it wouldn’t be a Karate Kid movie if they didn’t. As to what’s next for the franchise, time will tell.

On a closing note, it’s worth sparing a thought for Jerry Weintraub, the producer who shepherded this series right up until his passing in 2015. Likewise, John Avildsen deserves recognition for directing all three films in the original trilogy, and he sadly passed away in 2017. And of course there’s the late Pat Morita, who was obligingly resurrected with CGI necromancy for a dream sequence in “Cobra Kai”. It’s an inescapable fact that more franchise pillars and mainstays will die the longer this goes on, which brings me back to the question of how much longer we really want this to go on.

Let’s see what happens when Karate Kid: Legends comes out on May 30th.