Why aren't new movies better?

Nate North

Nate North

This is a solid question. In almost every aspect of life, things constantly improve due to technology, an ever growing source of creative inspiration, and the increasing number of case studies of how to get it wrong.

So why don't we get at least 1 move a year as good as Indiana Jones or Back to the Future? Why has no one tried to one up Star wars in 30 years? Chronicles of Riddick? You've got to be kidding me.

Your thoughts?
 
I think there's been some great movies the past several years. Avatar and Inception were pretty epic. Lord of the Rings can be compared to Star Wars in a lot of ways. There were a lot of firsts over the past several decades that can never be firsts again, but that doesn't mean good movies aren't being made.
 
Isn't this too subjective to answer?

No movie since Raiders, Back to the Future or Star Wars
has been as good as those in your opinion. In mine, there
have been many. I'd say more than one a year. But that's
a subjective opinion that you clearly don't agree with.

I suspect if I posted a list you would say that proves no movie
has been as good Raiders, Back to the Future or Star Wars.
I'm not convinced that you would be right and me wrong, only
that you and I have different tastes in movies.
I'm not convinced that you would b
 
I'm basically just trying to start up an interesting conversation, I hear a lot of people say this kind of thing, and wondered what filmmakers thought.

It's absolutely a matter of opinion. I agree with most of whats above, but still, it did feel like we were in a golden age of film in the early 80's.

Was Predators as good as Predator?

Was the expendables as good as Die Hard?

Was Undefeated as good as Rocky?

Was Scary movie as good as Spaceballs?

I liked Office space, The Matrix, 300, etc, and they are definitely as the films of old, but they are exceptions and I don't often see the creative Magic from the Blade runner days.

Maybe I'm just too old to realize how cool Twighlight is. But to me it seems far less epic than stuff I'm mentioning. I watched the movie awards this year, and there was nothing as good as Casino in sight.
 
Nate North said:
It's absolutely a matter of opinion. I agree with most of whats above, but still, it did feel like we were in a golden age of film in the early 80's.
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Something very similar to this came up a while ago - how many mediocre movies can you remember from the 80's? Are you going to remember The Expendebles or Scary Movie in 30 years time? While the quality of a movie is obviously very subjective, so too is what you remember; I could reel off a list of the fantastic and awful films that I've watched in the past five years or so, but I probably wouldn't recall many of the ones that were somewhere in the middle.
 
You’re right.

I should never get into these subjective conversations. I usually
don’t. Today I’m sitting and waiting for show time so I’m bored.
I’m never prepared to suggest what is “best” or even “good”
because my tastes differ from so many people.
 
As with many things it's all a matter or perspective. Your own personal perspective changes over the years. You gain more knowledge and experience. I remember seeing "Star Wars" when it first came out; I was 19 years old. It was so radically different than anything else I had seen or heard before. I don't think a film affected me as much until I saw "Saving Private Ryan." An entire life was in between. "Avatar" was fun and entertaining, but for me was not even close to the ground breaker that "Star Wars" was

You also have to keep in mind the culture of the film industry and the culture of the country and the world at the time any given movie came out. In the 30's and 40's movies were as much a product as Henry Fords cars. The 50's and 60's were an age of rebellion in both cultures. I could go on drawing comparisons, but you get the idea.

Technology is only a tool; understanding a technology does not transfer into using it artistically. A great story is still a great story; bad acting is still bad acting. No amount of technology will make a bad performance better, but misusing or failing to understand technology can destroy a great project.

There have been a few great films from every generation accompanied by a number of very good films, a bunch of fun, entertaining films and, of course, lots and lots of really really bad films.
 
Nate North said:
...In almost every aspect of life, things constantly improve due to technology ....
Click to expand...

Oh really?

My digital cable, courtesy of Comcast, constantly "hiccups" or freezes. Out of a twenty seven minute program I get to watch about two full minutes. Now apply the comcast effect to almost any topic: job security, automobiles, TV, politics, airplane travel, Tiger Woods, etc .... They all suck worse than ever and cost 80 percent more.

Why do movies now suck? One, Michael J Foxs and Harrison Fords don't come around that often. Two; most "good movies" don't work as 3D movies. How would you 3dify The Graduate? Have Mrs Robinson's high heels and panties fly off towards the camera? Three; cgi sucks. I like cool fx as much as the next guy but it can't compete with a good story. Plus, actors simply can't act in green-screen sound stages. Imagine having to act scared of a hanging tennis ball because it represents where a cgi ogre will be.

The main reason is Hollywood has shareholders now. They're no different from major pharma or any other money-hungry industry - they all want money. And to make money with films you have to have the most dumbed-down, easily acceptable, family friendly, committee driven scripts imaginable then load 'em up with product placements and cgi. Then market the living shit out of 'em.

Bottom line: the new, Big Business Hollywood wouldn't know a good story if it sued 'em.
 
Yeah, I'm with directorik, and everyone else who's said pretty much the same thing. This conversation is interesting enough, but it's purely subjective.

Me? I like the movies that are being made these days. All of them? Of course not. Most suck. But every year there are at least a small handful that I really enjoy, and a larger handful that are at least somewhat entertaining, and that's enough for me.
 
Perspective has a lot to do with perception. I remember having a heated discussion with my grandmother about the golden age of Hollywood. She described it as the most glamorous of times where every other "picture" was a classic and I countered that people were much easier to please back then.

Well, she's been gone a long time now and I have aged a bit myself. It turns out that it's all perspective from my latest point of view. Those were the films of her prime and I have my favorites from my prime (still ongoing).

We were talking on another thread about the Harry Potter movies, of which I have never seen in entirety. There is no doubt in my mind that this series of movies will be one of the classics of a newer generation, just as it should be.

On a positive side note: It is an older generation that is making the "classics" for a newer generation. It's always been that way, and that's pretty cool when you think about it.
 
Your just getting old dude. I'm sure kids today would think back to the future sucks. I agree there is some crap being made lately though.

Owen
 
CamVader said:
We were talking on another thread about the Harry Potter movies, of which I have never seen in entirety. There is no doubt in my mind that this series of movies will be one of the classics of a newer generation, just as it should be.

On a positive side note: It is an older generation that is making the "classics" for a newer generation. It's always been that way, and that's pretty cool when you think about it.
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I do think that's cool. And I think the Harry Potter films are a good example of films being made today that really do live up to that classic standard.

I definitely know what you mean about age. I think a lot of it is that we know all the tricks now. I can guess how most detective shows will end half way through, including subplots. It's never as good as the first time.

good post
 
I think the biggest problem is that because so much attention is paid to visuals, filmmakers are getting too vivid an image in their mind of what they want the end result to be when they're only just beginning to start the project. An artist should start with a blank canvas and work from there, rather than having an almost complete idea of what they want to see at the end.

That's why most of the best current films are those based on books and well documented history. Discounting films based on bad books, and films based on incorrect history manipulated to make it more exciting.

And CGI is a mess too, unless the people in charge really know what they're doing. I still haven't seen anything anywhere near as good as Jurassic Park, because they actually built full size dinosaurs that looked like dinosaurs.
 
CamVader said:
Perspective has a lot to do with perception. I remember having a heated discussion with my grandmother about the golden age of Hollywood. She described it as the most glamorous of times where every other "picture" was a classic and I countered that people were much easier to please back then.
Click to expand...

Oh, I don't agree....

There are so many films that dealt with heady subjects. The situation is that almost (almost) anything goes now. Whereas back then, writers had to rely on innuendo because anything too racy would be rejected by the studio heads. And even then, some movies would slip through.

Look at A Face In The Crowd and you'll see nice ol' Andy Griffiths playing one of the most reprehensible characters you've seen. (1957)

Look at The Sweet Smell of Success and Tony Curtis pimps out a girlfriend of his by playing on her low self esteem and guilt about behavior she didn't engage in anymore. (also 1957)

Look at Bergman's Virgin Spring and that's a rape scene that made me cringe. (1960)


As for new movies not being better, sure a subjective question, but still interesting. I think many movies are better, but it seems that chasing the money is why we see so many sequel and remakes. It's unoriginal and boring, but then there are rays of light every once in a while. I personally like a complicated, 'don't yawn or you'll miss something' kind of film. But it has been proven that bathroom humor, which I find stupid and not so humorous, seems to be what people want to pay for.

At some point there will have to be a 'changing of the guard' as it were and maybe films will be even more interesting and better. I would hate to see a Paris Hilton version of Hollywood where talent, ingenuity and inspiration gives way to only what is pretty or cool with marginal talent.

-- spinner :cool:
 
The Real Matrix

It's interesting that throughout this conversation we're seeing some talk about perceptions across the ages sort of echoing. The thought that someone in the 80s was saying, "audiences were easier to please in the 50s", and then someone in 2011 is saying "audiences were easier to please in the 80's"

What if nothing is actually changing at all. There seems to be an issue where tolerance builds, and these changes in more aggressive writing and tech improvements are just keeping up with that tolerance. Maybe you got the exact same feeling (dopamine response) from seeing a bullet hole appear in a suit in the 50's, as we do from seeing a guys head blown off now.

So if this theory is true, and all movies are on average equal across the time continuum, then it would point to waves of new technology or economy, as the source of the perceived golden ages, with lulls appearing not when film quality dropped, but as our tolerance grew vs the latest wave of technological improvements. Movie cameras took a huge jump in quality right around 1980 for example.

Also this may be a funtion of our ability to enjoy. You can physically only enjoy something so much. Maybe that's why no amount of money spend on Avatar made me enjoy it more than Star Wars.
 
All right, I'll bite. As others have pointed out, the question is highly subjective, but here are my own biases:

1. You have only mentioned "genre" movies: Star Wars, Raiders, Back to the Future. At that time (late '70s and early '80s) several transitions were under way in the industry:

1a: Jaws and Star Wars did two things - they were the first modern "blockbusters" that attracted audiences for multiple viewings of a movie, especially by young people. With a couple of notable exceptions (Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz) this was not typical. Hollywood took notice. Those two movies also legitimized the horror and sci-fi fantasy genres as huge moneymakers for the general public. With few exceptions, prior examples of those genres were either cheezy as hell (insert Roger Corman movie title here) or aimed at older audiences (The Exorcist, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes).

1b: Home video was about to take off. Suddenly audiences didn't have to go to theaters anymore; they could wait a few months and rent a videotape. For adults, going to the theater was a potentially spendy proposition (tickets, parking, babysitting, concessions, etc.) so that was the demographic that opted to wait for the video release (and still does). Hollywood took notice of this as well. Movies became increasingly targeted to a younger demographic.

2. Non-genre movies are as good as they've ever been, maybe better. There are just fewer of them. Pre-Jaws/Star Wars, maybe 1 in 10 movies was a pure genre picture; now 1 in 10 is a non-genre picture. You don't remember the flops. Everybody always asks, why don't they make Casablanca or The Godfather anymore? They forget that those movies were made amidst a huge output of mediocre product that everyone has forgotten about. The best pictures stand the test of time, but only time will tell which ones those are.

3. Star Wars, Raiders, and Back to the Future were made at a time when movies were still largely about storytelling, and the adult audience member was still a viable customer. Since most moviegoers today are 14 to 24 year-old boys, that's who Hollywood markets to. Movies have become a carnival ride. Movies - especially genre movies - that try to tell complex stories and deal with adult issues don't do well in the box office. Very little is allowed to get in the way of the explosions and shootouts, which look great in the trailer.

In conclusion, the final irony is that the very movies that changed the industry were the very ones that made it impossible to make movies like them anymore.
 
Fantastic answer

That's what I was looking for 2001.

Maybe this golden age was just the overlap period where truly good special effects were introduced to crews that had relied on story their whole lives. For the first time, a more serious breed of filmmaker could use effects, because they did not subtract believability from a film as badly as in earlier decades. Later on a generation of directors raised on special effects couldn't really be expected to regard their use identically.
 
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