Dearth of New Ideas

[EnglishEdward]

If you perceive a dearth of new ideas in the film industry,
there is an interesting article in this Sunday's Guardian.

Reboots and remakes: why is Hollywood stuck on repeat?

As Jurassic World: Rebirth and 28 Years Later become the latest franchise titles to hit the big screen, movie fans are realising a depressing truth

www.theguardian.com

What are your views?

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

So I have many thoughts

- Over-reliance on CGI to the detriment of having practical effects, making films feel same-y between one another. Especially true when you have kaiju-monster-type stuff or fight between two superhero-brawlers in front of a bluescreen. Not to rag on these two genres, but when your tech allows the camera to spin in any direction you want, I think you lose a sense of grounding. A sense of: "I'm paying attention to this, because someone actually made that thing happen..."

- Just bad writing. I think most comes from the injection of humor, or trying to inject humor, into stories that don't need it. No longer do we get a "Man with a troubled past..." archetype (or rarely, or it's a throw-away line) because everyone's now a joker who lives right down the street and so you can relate.

- I also imagine there are international dynamics at play here. Language translations are easier when you have brief quips between characters, rather than dialogue where certain idioms don't carry over well.

- Remakes that don't need it. I think this goes without saying. The original yet still popular films are (or, tend to be) better. What I would consider doing is finding a previous movie or genre that didn't do well because the technology and effects just weren't there yet, and expanding upon that. Like, the Lord of the Rings had some cruddy animated version in the 1970s that was only liberated by Peter Jackson's vision. You have to be thinking about that.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

It's all about following the money, after all. Showbidness don't think much of us, and the money's in dumb stuff, mostly.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I don't know if there's a dearth of ideas in so much as that the industry has priorities and creativity and novelty aren't among the higher ones

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I haven't physically gone to a theatre in over 25 years. The last time I did, was to see Toy Story 2. There's not much I've seen since then that I wish I'd seen for the first time on a large screen. I'm sure the Harry Potter movies were probably beyond amazing in a theatre, but I've only ever seen them on TV. And even then I get sensory overload and blank out some of it. The fanfiction stories are more manageable, as I can imagine things at a pace that's more comfortable.

The ultimate decider of what gets made is what the studio suits think will make the most money. So the more people support this current stuff, the more we're going to have.

Take Star Trek, for instance (please take everything that's been made post-Voyager, except the fan films...). I've lost track of how many spinoffs there are now, and have exactly zero interest in seeing any of them. It would take a tremendously different kind of story to win me back to even check it out, never mind like it. The impression I get is that the formula now is an ensemble cast with the right ratio of humans, humanoids, non-humanoids, different uniform design, and whatever people expect from modern TV shows regarding storylines and dialogue.

As for creativity... AI is killing that. I belong to a number of writing groups on FB and there are people who want to be professionally published but offer up their latest AI-created cover blurb or cover "art" and ask for feedback. I've told them to get a piece of paper and a pencil and do it themselves. At least try to be original. Who cares if it's not instantly wonderful? That's how people learn.