Cultural dinosaurs and creative exhaustion
Part of the problem is the insane costs of modern special-effects-laden behemoths. $200 million isn't an unusual budget for a major movie these days. And that doesn't mean that it breaks even once it grosses $200 million. First, there are huge marketing costs that also need to be earned back. Second, the studio generally gets only about half of the revenue of tickets sold (the theater keeps the other half). Thus, for example, if a movie costs $200 million to make plus $100 million in marketing, it has to gross $600 million just to break even. In fact, it's worse than that since in China, the second-biggest film market after the US, the share passed on to the studio is usually only 20% or 25%. Like dinosaurs so huge that they need more food than their environment can easily provide, modern film blockbusters seem to be headed for extinction via sheer bloat.
There is also a problem of creative exhaustion. Almost everything seems to be franchises and superheroes and remakes and reboots. With such massive amounts of money at stake, taking a chance on something original seems too risky. The remakes are usually duds because the people who make them don't understand the meaning and essence of the originals. (Instead of remaking great movies from the past, maybe they should try remaking movies that weren't so great, in hopes of actually producing something better rather than merely an inferior knock-off of a classic. Just a thought.) Almost everything is full of preachy woke messaging that turns off mainstream audiences. There's the dull, ugly, gloomy visual look that's so pervasive these days.
The deteriorating theater experience probably plays a role. Ticket prices are ridiculously high; you get more than a quarter-hour of commercials before the movie; jackasses in the audience chatter or consult brightly-glowing phones throughout; the dominant chain where I live now requires you to choose a specific seat when you buy a ticket, rather than just going in and sitting wherever you like. But the fact that some major streaming TV projects like The Rings of Power, Willow, Velma, and She-Hulk -- with the same kinds of creative flaws discussed above -- were similarly rejected by audiences, suggests that theater-related irritants aren't the main problem.
This video explains some further issues, notably the covid pandemic and competition from internet-based entertainment:
A very few recent movies have managed to succeed with audiences in spite of all these obstacles -- Top Gun Maverick, Super Mario Bros, Avatar 2 -- so it can be done. But even there, in the case of Mario, the Japanese company that owns the original material had to put its foot down and stop Hollywood from lacing it with all the usual junk which would probably have made it just another flop.
It's interesting that as American movies are losing appeal world-wide, Japanese anime is growing in popularity everywhere, including within the US. It generally has fresh and original content, often genuinely intellectually thought-provoking, and there's almost never preachy social messaging. It offers what American movies once did, before the age of the formulas and franchises.
But always remember that the fruits of those better days haven't gone anywhere -- they're still with us. DVDs are cheap, or free at the library. There are specialist companies that sell older movies and TV shows for every niche interest. Most people now have big high-resolution home computer monitors, or even bigger TVs. The streaming services are starting to take some older films out of circulation, or vandalize them Orwell-Ministry-of-Truth-style to fit current fads on what is or isn't "acceptable", as is already being done with older books -- but once that DVD is on your shelf, no one can take it away from you or change it.
Someday the current creative dark age will end, and our native film industry will grow daring and original again. But until then, we're well provisioned to survive the cultural wasteland.
posted by Infidel753 at 12:48 AM
9 Comments:
It seems like no one has an original idea these days, everybody just wants to make reboots, remakes etc. Plus like you said how much it cost to make these movies and how much they have to make after it hits the theaters is crazy.
who's writing all this shit off? I'll just sit home and wait till it streams at home..fuck that.
"The remakes are usually duds because the people who make them don't understand the meaning and essence of the originals."
I will buy that but I'd like to add that they also fail because they are utterly unnecessary.
I have mentione here before that there is tons of good stuff that hasn't been filmed but I think Infidel you make a good point about good stuff adapted badly being more in need of a remake than good adaptions. I hadn't really thought of that.
I'm curious as to what people think might fit into that category.
I used to go to movies because there was no choice. No video, no computers, didn't even have cable TV in our little town.
There were several years in the early 80s that I went to a lot of movies, both the hubby and I used to love seeing the latest James Bond movie for example. We were really poor, but a movie ticket was 2 bucks. And popcorn and a drink a couple more.
Fond memories of our early married life.
But prices went way up. Personal manners went way down at the same time. I think they passed each other going in opposite directions there somewhere. People talking through the show and up and down and up and down getting more food, going to the (filthy disgusting) bathroom. Last movie I saw in a theater was the 4th Harry Potter, so it's been awhile.
Streaming services, DVD and the internet changed it all for us, no more people with shitty manners interrupting the movie. We could pause to go to the bathroom and once IN the bathroom, were able to narrow it down to one or two people who could possibly have left pee drops on the seat. Haha.
Comfy chairs, a blanket. Could turn it up or down as needed.
And we'll be here all day if I start talking about the difference in actual movie quality. Better stories, nicer visual quality. I noticed awhile back that things were very dark and hard to see. The whole experience of going OUT to a movie is waaaay in my past.
Either I've become a curmudgeon (quite possible) or I've found a better way.
Just my probably ignorant opinion about why Marvel movies and other Disney blockbusters seem so far off of the mark these days. Some years ago, Disney bought a studio built by England's Pinewood company, which is located in empty land a ways south of Atlanta. I worked on a movie there fairly recently. It's a magnificent facility- dozens of large, well equipped sound stages and all the other facilities of a first rate film production studio. But it's in the middle of nowhere. I think maybe there is something to be said for being around all the creative energy of the film business in LA, or even Atlanta, that gets lost out there in the fields. It was a pleasure working there in terms of the physical facilities, but I think it was kind of emotionally empty, and eventually that takes a toll on the people who work to create this product.
Last time I went to the movies, I had a great experience - I went to 1/2 price Tuesday and had dinner there. They had a vegan option on the menu and my favorite beer. The seat were big and comfy and reclined. I saw The Little Mermaid which was cute and funny and I am looking forward to going to more movies this summer like the Haunted Mansion movie. Dark, dismal and gloomy - that's my thing so I am happy as a pig in SH*#! Just call me Morticia!
Mary K: The best hope for now is smaller, independent productions, especially from foreign countries where they can't afford to spend so much and aren't locked into the same narrow range of ideas -- I'm thinking District 9, for example. But it's hard for movies like that to get a wide distribution when they're competing with the huge dinosaurs.
Granny: In most cases a tax write-off is the only positive they get.
NickM: There is plenty of worthwhile material that hasn't been filmed -- Larry Niven, for example. I'd love to see what they could do with that, instead of the umpteenth Star Wars or Star Trek rehash.
One example of a lower-quality movie getting a remake is Dune. It's generally agreed that the first film in 1984 wasn't very good, and I understand a remake is now in the works. Personally I think the novel is unfilmable (and greatly overrated), but we'll see if the new movie can do better than the old one.
But the original versions of Blade Runner and The Wicker Man were perfect. There was no point in re-doing them.
Ami: Those are the kinds of reasons why a lot of people are abandoning theaters. Price is even more of an issue since if you watch a movie at home, the cost is the same regardless of how many people are there watching it, whereas at $14 per ticket plus overpriced popcorn, a whole family can easily spend $80 and up to see a movie, which very few people would want to do.
People's terrible manners are a real problem. To overcome that, the theaters are going to have to bite the bullet and start throwing people out for misbehavior, which they'd hate doing because nobody wants to deal with that kind of confrontations. Look at the problems airlines had with anti-mask assholes on their planes during the pandemic.
Green: That's interesting -- I didn't know about that. To some extent the same would apply to filming on location generally, but if the regular work location is out in the middle of nowhere, it's a less attractive deal and the best employees are less likely to want to work for them.
Lady M: Chacun à son goût. It does seem, though, that not enough people have such a positive experience to allow these movies to turn a profit. Half-price Tuesdays would help -- I'll have to see if the theaters were I live have something like that -- but of course aren't accessible to people with regular jobs, unless they take vacation time.
I'm also not too keen on the idea of serving alcohol in theaters, when there are already more than enough problems with people behaving like jackasses.
I think the 1984 Dune movie is unduly slated as being terrible. It's not good - it has Sting in it for starters - but it has a very interesting proto-steampunk aesthetic before that was even a thing. It is surprisngly coherent for a David Lynch* movie. So, much so that I was astonished that Dune was the first in a series because it tells a story straight through with a beginning and an end - it's kinda the Star Wars trilogy in one film. My understanding is Frank Herbert wrote the novel, it was an enormous success and he kept churning them out. My further understanding is the sequels are shite. I haven't read them but know the plots. Anyway, Dune has been remade and it's on Netflix or Amazon or something.
OK... How about adapting some Greek, Persian, Indian myths? Or Chandler? Whilst the Humphrey Bogart "Big Sleep" is a good film it is only very loosely based on the book even to the extent that Philip Marlowe should look more like a Gladiator-era Russell Crowe than a Humph. Ursula K Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" might be worth a stab but in this era of rabid trans-ideologues that might not exactly be a good idea. Philip K Dick's "Paycheck". Iain Banks "Complicity" though that might be seen as perhaps too thematically close to "Se7en". That was adapted about 25 years ago and the adaption was awful.
I have a theory though. I think you're usually best off adapting from short stories or novellas than whole novels. And that means a lot of Dick. He was always at his best in the short form because he lacked the organisation to write novels (though he did). As far as I'm aware his most coherent novel was "The Man in the High Castle" (which was done for TV a while back) but stuff like "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" is all over the shop. PKD had some "interesting" personality traits which were not helped by his prodigous consumption of drugs.
I'm somewhat amazed nobody has done Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy though would folks now just think it was a rip-off of "The Matrix".
I haven't read any Larry Niven. Where should I start? Did he write short stories? I like short stories esp. in the SF context.
*Which is almost certainly the only explanation for the presence of Kyle MacLachlan in the starring role of Paul Atreides because he is so wooden he's "cupboardy". That BTW is an Easter Egg for fans of "Little Britain".
I think the problem with Dune is that the story is so complex, and the culture and technology described are so alien, that it's impossible to convey anything like the totality of it in a movie of reasonable length. The 1984 movie would have been completely incomprehensible to anyone who wasn't familiar with the novel.
I personally think Dune the novel was overrated, but it was certainly popular.
An example of a classic story still awaiting a proper movie is I Am Legend. The book is amazing, but from what I understand, all the film adaptations have been crap because they changed the story to reflect modern fads. One even changed the vampires to zombies.
Dick strikes me as a little too weird for mass audiences, but I've only read a few of his stories.
Niven's best stuff is his short stories -- there is one recognized classic novel, Ringworld, but that's best read after reading some of the future-history short stories so you understand the various alien species, etc. The short stories are mostly set in a common universe 400 to 800 years in the future and involve various odd colonized planets, relations with other intelligent species, etc. He focuses on social and cultural implications of new technology more than on the mechanics of how it works -- for example, what happens to the concept of an alibi when teleportation allows you to be at a party in San Francisco, murder somebody in Australia, and be back at the party in a couple of minutes before anybody notices you were gone? What would it really be like when medicine is so advanced that people live centuries but stay permanently about 25 biologically?
A good short story to start with would be "At the Core", which is in the Neutron Star collection. Another good collection is Tales of Known Space, which has a much larger number of shorter stories.
Niven is noteworthy for a basically optimistic view of the future -- he wrote before modern performative cynicism and pessimism became fashionable. Any film adaptation would need to stand fast against any effort to bugger up the story by adding that stuff, or it would just come out shit.
The Mote in God's Eye, which Niven co-wrote with Jerry Pournelle, is probably my all-time favorite SF novel. It needs careful reading, though, rather like a mystery -- there is a lot of mysterious stuff going on and subtle clues to pick up on.
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