Which once loved franchise has been damaged the most through remakes/sequels?

[Cyke]

Police Academy. Though generally speaking it isn't as much a beloved franchise as it is a well regarded single film with many forgettable sequels, and spin-offs.

Good lord, I tried watching the original again on Netflix not too long ago. The last time I saw it was a kid, and I thought it was the funniest thing ever at the time. I grew up watching the sequels, too.

Now, I get that you try to watch a movie taking into account the period it was in, the cultural context, how times have changed, sure. But my god, it's so blatantly racist and homophobic all draped in that obtuse flag of "if you're offended deal with it" and "it's just a movie, relax" PC-blaming retort that shitty edgelord directors try so hard to do.

And here's the thing -- of course there were tons of other movies made in 1984. Very few of them would be completely non-racist or non-homophobic according to today's standards, and that's fine. Society changes and evolves, after all. But they weren't nearly as bad as this, both in those terms and in terms of just flat out movie making in general. And those other movies had some awareness of those -isms back then. Racist Looney Tunes episodes are at least shown with a disclaimer, and those episodes still have humor and skill behind it (which doesn't excuse the racism, of course) but all that provides an interesting window in time. But no, not Police Academy. Every gag involving a slur shows the harm of that slur but then piles onto it as if using the movie as a hollow shield and an excuse to keep doing it.

IIRC subsequent films toned some of that crap down (however slightly, maybe) but even then, they were still shitty movies, period. That the last one had to resort to cartoony sound effects was such a cheap move.