Beetlejuice Fans of Beetlejuice have criticized Jenna Ortega and Jeremy Conti for their ‘age gap’ kiss in the belated sequel, despite the fact that the performers are roughly the same age.
Legacy sequels can be hit-or-miss. Sometimes they can be a terrific addition to a franchise, and other times you have to pretend they don’t exist in order to preserve the memory of the original.
That being said, Tim Burton’s sequel to his eerie 1980s classic has been a huge success since its release earlier this month.
To the pleasure of fans, Michael Keaton returned to play ‘the ghost with the most’ in the sequel, and Winona Ryder reprised her role as Lydia, the protagonist from the original film.
While many people have been laughing out loud at the film, one kiss scene with Jenna Ortega has made other people uncomfortable.
Jenna Ortega’s Character Astrid Deetz is Lydia’s daughter, and her love interest is Jeremy, played by breakout sensation Arthur Conti.
While Jeremy appears to be the same age as Astrid in the film, he is actually a ghost who died a few decades earlier.
And here’s the clincher that has some viewers up in arms for some reason.
While the performers’ ages are similar in real life, Conti is 19 and Ortega is 21, the age gap in the plot has irritated some viewers.
They did the arithmetic, and if Jeremy has been deceased for more than 20 years, he is no longer an adolescent; he would be in his mid-40s, but Astrid is only 15 or 16.
Consider Edward Cullen being in his early 100s and Bella being barely 17 in the Twilight flicks.
On a post discussing the 600-year age difference between Beetlejuice and Lydia, with the ghost still pining for Winona Ryder’s character after all these years, one fan wrote: “I thought it was MORE relevant for them to mention the age gap between Astrid and the ghost boy, who was said to have been dead for 20-ish years!”
Another person responded, “Omg, I didn’t even consider that! What’s fascinating is, if I’m doing my arithmetic correctly, that would place Jeremy around his mid-30s and Astrid around 15-16… About the same age gap as Ryder and Keaton in the first film (iirc).
Of course, regardless of age, kissing a ghost is quite disturbing.
Conti and Ortega are almost the same age in real life, which the former claims makes him feel ‘less afraid’.
He told Wonderland Magazine, “She was a lot of fun to work with.”
“Probably 99% of my filming was done with her, and I believe that having someone my age who was so down-to-earth and easy to talk to was extremely beneficial in making me feel less scared by the whole affair.
“She’s an incredible talent with an astounding work ethic, and also a supremely lovely person.”
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