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Why Today's Movies Suck
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Gamma Rays
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Yeah I look at that Wiki list - There were some really good films come out in 1976 !!
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Chukzombi
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thats just 20 classics i listed. they made less movies back then. please feel free to list 20 classics from this year.
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Gamma Rays
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I did like the Video in the start of the thread. He does make some valid points.
But then the cynic in my brain goes " Umm if this guy has such a complete understanding of the do's and don't do's of film making . . . where's his list of massively successful films?"
But then the cynic in my brain goes " Umm if this guy has such a complete understanding of the do's and don't do's of film making . . . where's his list of massively successful films?"
Chukzombi
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basically then you nullified every big name movie critic that ever was. moviess arent just ideas. you need capital, permits, film crews and post production. it takes a lot to put that shit together and its a major major undertaking to do it yourself. you can be the greatest idea man in history, but if the film studios dont like your shit then you aint ever gonna see the light of day. thats pretty much this guy's point. movie studios arent looking for fresh new edgy films, they want safe bets from established IPs. they want asses in the seats on opening weekend before all the pirates throw that shit up on the net for free. its why Edgar Wright got fucked over on Ant Man, they wanted their Avengers cameos because they didnt have faith the movie would make bank without them. i still cant believe Guardians of The Galaxy was relatively unscathed. i guess because it already had Thanos. maybe he was added?
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Lithose
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people can make more movies, you're going to have
Last year.
Deadpool. (This effectively wins)
Hell or High Water.
Captain America Civil War.
Doctor Strange
Rogue One.
Moana
Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them.
Hacksaw ridge.
Arrival
Sing
Zooptopia
Sully
Manchester by the Sea
Finding Dory
Fences
This is not including Academy jerk off material like Moonlight or La La Land. Nor is it including films which could become cult classics because they are audacious, like Sausage Party, or because they were over the top and campy and people start to enjoy that later. Before you say "all those films suck by comparison"--doubtful. I like many of the movies you listed, I do, their equivalents in entertainment value are on that list, easily. I don't know which films will go on to be classics. But given we consider many films classics today which were just average at their release? The fact is, no one really knows.
But I think a lot of what people are biased from is the fact that movies have become easy enough to make now, that the sheer volume of them has increased, and thus a proportionate volume of crap.
Last year.
Deadpool. (This effectively wins)
Hell or High Water.
Captain America Civil War.
Doctor Strange
Rogue One.
Moana
Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them.
Hacksaw ridge.
Arrival
Sing
Zooptopia
Sully
Manchester by the Sea
Finding Dory
Fences
This is not including Academy jerk off material like Moonlight or La La Land. Nor is it including films which could become cult classics because they are audacious, like Sausage Party, or because they were over the top and campy and people start to enjoy that later. Before you say "all those films suck by comparison"--doubtful. I like many of the movies you listed, I do, their equivalents in entertainment value are on that list, easily. I don't know which films will go on to be classics. But given we consider many films classics today which were just average at their release? The fact is, no one really knows.
But I think a lot of what people are biased from is the fact that movies have become easy enough to make now, that the sheer volume of them has increased, and thus a proportionate volume of crap.
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Chukzombi
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zooropa was watchable but ultimately forgettable, dory was good because pixar, deadpool was very good, memorable. civil war was very good, memorable, doctor strange was shit. sorry, but it was terrible, completely forgettable. the rest of that list i havent seen and some i never heard of. so much shit comes out, its gone before you know it was there and the stuff you see is so meh that you have no lasting impression of it. the list i read off from 76 all have moments i can reference or quote from and you would know what movie i was talking about if you had seen the movie too.
Gamma Rays
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Which then brings us back to the ugly truth . . . it's us, the wider audience, that are responsible for the bad movies made + why they're made.
If things like the Transformer movies and their kind are making huge money and keep making huge money, then that's what the studios will put their money behind.
Palum
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Lol most of those are garbage and the ones that aren't generally are decent at best.
Here's the deal, much of art is about the adversity of its creation. It's not hard to make movies look slick anymore, so that's all most of them are. It's become a formula for most of the industry. It's very rare to see a truly great movie come out anymore because you have to purposefully make things harder for yourself as a filmmaker to face challenge. Some filmmakers have discovered this and hence the reintroduction of practical effects over CGI. But it's going to take a lot longer to get there, especially when Chinese moviegoers are apparently all 8 year olds.
As to the point about future opinion, I think that's unlikely to change favorably for modern films because of the current acceptance of fucking with films after release, massive over filming with huge editing cuts and special editions, etc. I think the corporate treadmill baggage will anchor a lot of films to mediocrity.
Lithose
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Most of the films Astro listed have a ton of garbage elements, too. They aren't masterpieces, they are classics. There is a difference. Every film on that list is entertaining for the vast majority of people who watch them. What makes something a classic is simply still being relevant after 30-40 years, if someone else can watch it from that time period and connect with it. I don't think anyone in the future will have an issue with that given tons of those movies have the same themes as other classics.
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Palum
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Lol universal themes like "this CGI is awesome" and "look another prequel" and "yet another Marvel movie".
Lithose
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See, the thing is a lot of this is just the stimulation of first experience, and LESS experience overall. It's the same reason why summers as a kid used feel long and awesome--and now they are short and barely memorable. Because the proportion of your experiences was extremely limited when you were younger. As you grow older, you see patterns repeat, you experience things again and again, it takes more to make an impression.
One of those movies you watched back then may have been judged against maybe, depending on your age, about 100 films. Today, it will be one of a thousand, maybe much more depending on how big a movie buff you are. You've seen the patterns, you've seen the emotions, the characters, anything that's the same is less stimulating. How many times have you gone back and watched a movie that as a kid you thought was the most awesomest thing ever? And then as an adult thought "holy fuck this is bad". Why? Experience. And experience works the same way on new movies, too.
Tell me a 15 year old Astro doesn't walk into Doctor Strange, without ever seeing any other super hero movie, or not many movies at all, and isn't blown the fuck away. You, as an older person, have seen Dr Strange before, and done better--so you judge it more harshly, and this is the cycle that makes old people seem bitter. It's just experience.
It works in reverse too though. How many people told me to watch Citizen Kaine because it was amazing! But its not...not really. It's good, story is good, the movie is well put together, but its nothing exceptional...to me. But when that movie came out, a lot of the techniques in it were brand new, and amazing. It made a massive impact on the people who saw it, and that "new" experience, left it's mark. The same with Star Wars, a kid today watches Star Wars and "it's a good movie"....because it is...in that timeless, classic way, it has all the hallmarks of a good movie. But are they as blown the fuck away by it as we were? No. The special effects that completely changed our world because of how new they were are old hat to kids today, Star Wars is a classic that uses techniques which have now become normal.
That's the way life works. It's why happiness is fleeting, it's just the thing before you need more.
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Palum
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The reason Dr. Strange won't be a classic is because it's a mediocre overproduced movie with a cardboard character story.
The rain Rogue One is a pile of trash is because the characters are trash.
Before Ikea plots and storyboarding, CGI ez, formula dialogue, etc., you had to rely on actual human characters in the movies. That's why classics are watchable, because it's always about the characters since they had no CGI or manual on his to create a mediocre movie.
This is why these studios cling to sequels and Hoover up all these successful non movie franchises, as an industry they have forgotten how to make good characters. See Ellen Ripley number 84.
The rain Rogue One is a pile of trash is because the characters are trash.
Before Ikea plots and storyboarding, CGI ez, formula dialogue, etc., you had to rely on actual human characters in the movies. That's why classics are watchable, because it's always about the characters since they had no CGI or manual on his to create a mediocre movie.
This is why these studios cling to sequels and Hoover up all these successful non movie franchises, as an industry they have forgotten how to make good characters. See Ellen Ripley number 84.
Chukzombi
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it is our fault and it isnt, audiences have been conditioned to like shiny things. its no longer the story, its the spectacle. you could put shit in a shiny box and dummies will call it gold. but people who know what quality is can still tell its just shit in a shiny box. there is a pretty simple way of testing it. if you go to the movies, enjoy what you saw and 2 weeks later you barely remember it, then you likely just been razzle dazzled into thinking it was good. i mean look, its not really a scam if you enjoyed the movie. you enjoyed it, so its real. but you didnt get anything from it.
lets get a movie from that 1976 list. Bad News Bears. movie ended with the Bears losing and it really bummed the team out cuz they tried so hard and bad feelings happened along the way. but they realized it was really just a game and you can do better next time. there were many morals to be learned from that movie. shit you will experience in real life and you can use what you saw in that film to help you deal with your own RL failures.
now lets take a film from Lithose's 2016 "classics" list. dory wants to find her parents even though she keeps forgetting stuff. she has a bunch of adventures in the process and then finds her parents and they are happy to see her. then she needs to head back home and so stuff happens to do just that. great movie. i can leave thinking all is right with the world and everything works out in the end. 2 weeks later, i still remember is that i liked the movie. a year later, i remember being happy, but not what i was happy about exactly. i think reuniting with her parents was the happy part i was supposed to feel happy about, but its ok. the movie was an above excellent production and of course it was happy. so that makes it a classic? i dunno. i just know that when a film imprints shit onto your monkey brain that lasts 40 years, then it has something going for it than 90 minutes of happy fun time you vaguely remember from a year ago.
but thats just me. maybe there is somebody out there that got deep meaning from dory talking whale to a whale.
Lithose
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CGI is awesome. It's fucking fantastic. I love CGI, and so do you--when its done well. You act like practical effects are great, but practical effects were used consistently in those "great films" with really shitty, campy effects that look awful, and are ridiculous, and completely take me out of the plot seeing them. This view that practical effects are somehow more difficult is silly (The whole adversity thing)--really good CGI is a shit ton of work to look right, and looks great when its done right, and I can guarantee it takes as much time and skill as a practical effect (Which is why CGI mixed with practical is so amazing.).
A prequel, who cares? If its a good story its a good story. In the 50's it was 'yet another biblical epic', in the 60's it was "Yet another Western" or in the 70's "yet another crime film"...Genres get popular, and a lot get made in a time period, has happened all through the history of film.
You're older. Less is new and memorable to you because you've seen it before, in some cases genuinely done better, in other cases simply done better because when you saw it before it was fresh and exciting. I watch old movies all the time now, when I first began I was shocked to find out how often a "classic" from the 80's and 90's was effectively a rehash of elements from some older film. I began to realize why older folks were so often bored with what I was watching. I didn't make those films less good through any objective criteria, they just weren't as impactful to them. Some films break this mold and are real lightning in a bottle, or they completely alter the way movies are made, but those are masterpieces, not classics.
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Chukzombi
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that may be true for some or most people, but i can still relive that childhood feeling of awe by a new or old film that i discovered and wasnt hyped the fuck up that i was supposed to like because its the greatest fucking thing ever according to everyone.
those movies come very few and far between on newer movies, but it still happens fairly often on older films. i'm not dead inside yet and summers can still be long and awesome if you make the time to enjoy them.
Lithose
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lol, look at your comments on Dr. Strange, and then look at coming of age movies from the 80's that are now classic. Literally had designated character arcs, and types that began to be labelled in Breakfast club. All classics, though. I actually don't like Rogue One because the characters are boring, I agree. A lot of the movies Astro listed have boring, 2 dimensional characters, too.
CGI easy again, lol. Where did this notion come from? It's like you guys watched Red Letter Media and took it as gospel. Great CGI is fucking hard. And its amazing. Think Mad Max was all practical? Nope. A lot of what you saw was CGI. CGI CAN be easy, but practical effects can be easy too. A ton of schlock was put out with shit practical effects. You know what the difference is? Bad CGI is often better than bad practical effects--and thus bad CGI is now used.
Okay, there are no "human" characters in films anymore. I hate to tell you guys this, but some movies have always been made that rely on spectacle over characters...Always. From Cleopatra, to Jaws 3.
Much practical. Much good. So character development......
lol, if you notice this trend more today...it's because there are a FUCK TON more films.
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Chukzombi
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i listed what was from that year that are referred to as classics. Car Wash is a blaxploitation film, but its got a lot of depth to it and its hilarious as well. they countered the funny with the serious in a masterful way. that movie was more "real" than 99% of the shit you will see today.
Lithose
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You know what was a stupid CGI fest when it came out? Independence Day.
Guess what it is now? A classic.
A few of your movies were hot garbage when they came out. They have terrible characters, and dumb plots--but they are classics because there is some insight or connection from that period there, blaxpoitation is a perfect example (And I'm not disagreeing they are classics.). Disaster movies is another. You're being silly if "Super Hero" films won't have its call backs or referrals as classics. When Black 2 Spirit Owlkin Ironman is making a virtual reality interactive movie, some old fuck is going to pop in Iron Man 1 and reminisce about when Superhero movies were fucking great, and the director is going to have some commentary about how he was impacted as a kid in the theater when Ironman, and Captain America and Doctor Strange came on screen.
Chukzombi
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it wasnt as much CGI as there would be today. this was still during the practical effects heyday. that rubber tentacle choking out that nerd scientist was actually there. the alien creatures were practically done. i'm pretty sure they used models for some of those alien ships too. and it was an immensely quotable and misquotable film. "welcome to erff" for example. sure it was a big dumb popcorn flick and while not something i would consider a true classic film, but it had its moments and they are still memorable. i dont mind super hero movies. in fact i love super hero movies. i wanted to see Edgar Wright's Ant-Man and i can tell what his moments of the film were over the shoe horned avengers bullshit he quit over. Doctor Strange i have no defense for. it's easily the worst MCU movie. worse than all the Thor movies and even worse than the Ed Norton Hulk movie. its the epitome of shit in a shiny box.