The Soulless 'Blockbusters'

[StevenHarvey1990]

I find myself perplexed how it is 'Hollywood Cinema' is so, so backwards. I always remembered studios being frugal, conservative and cautious with big budgets to operate a low risk, high reward system but recently they've spent Billions on so many soulless CGI heavy flops. R.I.P.D. costing $130m is just ridiculous, not to mention The Lone Ranger and Pacific Rim.

The last movie with a budget over $100m that I liked was Avengers. It still managed to feel intimate and I liked that. The CGI didn't take over.

I used to look forward to Summer for the 'big' movies but the majority of them are totally devoid of quality and heart now. Anyone else find themselves starting to really hate these so called 'Blockbusters'?

On paper, Man Of Steel, The Lone Ranger & Pacific Rim are all right up my street but I find myself thinking... "I should like this, why am I not liking this!?!"

Is it the cause of bad film-making? Anybody else find these 'Blockbusters' becoming more and more soulless, or is it just me?

[chris_sc77]

Man of Steel. It is not technically not a badly made film but just a hollow, uninvolving , bluish-grey mush mash of noise and lights.
So many blockbusters get it wrong and forget to tell a story.
The things that make a story and film memorable are the things that are not necessary to tell the story. It is the little things that make it great. Dialogue, performance, plot points, extraordinary display of action or things that impress .

[Buscemi]

Studios as a whole seem to think "high cost, high reward" and as a result, they have been going with all-tentpole slates in an attempt to hit the jackpot. However, this strategy has backfired in Universal's case while Disney, Sony and (especially) Warner Bros. tend to up-and-down in the strategy. Even in the case of indie studios, you have companies like Relativity and Open Road struggling to find a hit as they are going the same route (Open Road should continue to survive due to being run by the theatre chains but I could see someone like Studio Canal buying Relativity in an attempt to enter domestic distribution).

The studios need to return to the old strategies (Disney in the 1990's had a consistently successful game plan by financing a large number of moderately budgeted titles with various audience targets in addition to a few big tentpoles) and see what worked instead of making overbudgeted project after overbudgeted project in an attempt to appeal to white Southerners or an obscure subculture of eight or ten people.

[Al_The_Strange]

I do wonder how 2015 will play out, with an ungodly number of tentpole pictures in the making (and they're all sequels to best-selling franchises). If all or most of them flop (and it won't surprise me if many of them do), maybe Hollywood will finally get the idea that films need more than spectacle to work.

[cinemaphile]

There are plenty of "soulless" blockbusters out there, but there are plenty of great, fun ones, too.

Just like there are good smaller or independent films out there, but there are plenty of them that are complete crap as well.

It's nothing new. There has always been good and bad. We just tend to remember past eras as better because the good stays in our memories while the bad fade away.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

I do wonder how 2015 will play out, with an ungodly number of tentpole pictures in the making (and they're all sequels to best-selling franchises). If all or most of them flop (and it won't surprise me if many of them do), maybe Hollywood will finally get the idea that films need more than spectacle to work.

I'm honestly hoping for a long string of flops in 2015. I would love to see Hollywood thrown into chaos and the ultimate crumbling of the studios' current "high cost/high reward" mentality.

Some men... some men, just want to watch the world burn.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Gate

Some men... some men, just want to watch the world burn.

(And some would find that an ironic comment, in a thread about soulless, so-called "blockbusters" pretentiously manhandled by over-reputationed directors past the point of innocent entertainment...)

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by EricJ

(And some would find that an ironic comment, in a thread about soulless, so-called "blockbusters" pretentiously manhandled by over-reputationed directors past the point of innocent entertainment...)

So, you're back from your latest suspension.

[butch0]

Originally Posted by cinemaphile

There are plenty of "soulless" blockbusters out there, but there are plenty of great, fun ones, too.

Just like there are good smaller or independent films out there, but there are plenty of them that are complete crap as well.

It's nothing new. There has always been good and bad. We just tend to remember past eras as better because the good stays in our memories while the bad fade away.

I partially agree with what you're saying, but when I start to think of this I always end up saying it's not true. of course it's my opinion but if I take last year's "blockbusters" there's only a few that I really liked (Avangers was a lot better than I expected, Batman 3 was a bit of a dissapointment, but it still was a lot better than the contenders and Spider-man was a nice surprise), but the thing is there was plenty of them made.
on the other hand, if I start to think of let's say summer of 1996 there's barely one I could mention that was supposed to be a major hit and didn't really achieve or was a bad movie (like Battleship, Total recall remake, Bourne legacy from last year): The rock, Mission: Impossible, Independence day, Twister, Executive decision, Eraser. I mean, of course not all of them became classics, but do I think any of today's blockbusters will be remembered in ten years time as these movies are remembered at?

definitely not!

so yes, blockbusters these days are made to show us the newest digital effects disguised as films, while a few years back there were films made with digital effects in them...

[butch0]

Originally Posted by cinemaphile

Just like there are good smaller or independent films out there, but there are plenty of them that are complete crap as well.

of course there are, the difference is that small movies still try and tell a story with actors and sometimes they achieve, sometimes they don't. but blockbusters are trying to force the special effects down my throat without any story or real acting and most of the time they don't deliver...

[cinemaphile]

Originally Posted by butch0

I partially agree with what you're saying, but when I start to think of this I always end up saying it's not true. of course it's my opinion but if I take last year's "blockbusters" there's only a few that I really liked (Avangers was a lot better than I expected, Batman 3 was a bit of a dissapointment, but it still was a lot better than the contenders and Spider-man was a nice surprise), but the thing is there was plenty of them made.
on the other hand, if I start to think of let's say summer of 1996 there's barely one I could mention that was supposed to be a major hit and didn't really achieve or was a bad movie (like Battleship, Total recall remake, Bourne legacy from last year): The rock, Mission: Impossible, Independence day, Twister, Executive decision, Eraser. I mean, of course not all of them became classics, but do I think any of today's blockbusters will be remembered in ten years time as these movies are remembered at?

definitely not!

let me refresh your memory about the summer of 1996 - For every Twister and ID4 there was The Phantom, Cable Guy, Escape From L.A., The Island of Dr Moreau, The Crow II...

Executive Decision and Eraser are examples of better films? (Not to mention Executive was a March release and only made $50M). They will be better remembered than The Avengers, etc?!?

Originally Posted by butch0

of course there are, the difference is that small movies still try and tell a story with actors and sometimes they achieve, sometimes they don't. but blockbusters are trying to force the special effects down my throat without any story or real acting and most of the time they don't deliver...

There as just many misses in small films, if not more.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Gate

So, you're back from your latest suspension.

(Oh, what, here you get banned for Nolan-phobic comments, too? )

[butch0]

Originally Posted by cinemaphile

let me refresh your memory about the summer of 1996 - For every Twister and ID4 there was The Phantom, Cable Guy, Escape From L.A., The Island of Dr Moreau, The Crow II...

I thought we were talking about big budget summer blockbusters, not summer movies! Cable guy, The crow II, Escape from LA are summer movies, but definitely not blockbusters and I don't think they are made to be (but they're definitely not related to blockbusters like ID4 and Twister).

about Executive decision: it might have earned only 50 million dollars, but it doesn't make it less of a good movie, so there's no point bringing it up. the discussion was about soulless blockbusters and I don't think this is one of them.

[butch0]

Originally Posted by cinemaphile

Executive Decision and Eraser are examples of better films? (Not to mention Executive was a March release and only made $50M). They will be better remembered than The Avengers, etc?!?

no they won't be, simply because Avangers is one of the good blockbusters but they would be better remembered than Battleship, Total recall remake, Battle LA...

[LegacyCosts]

Originally Posted by Gate

I'm honestly hoping for a long string of flops in 2015. I would love to see Hollywood thrown into chaos and the ultimate crumbling of the studios' current "high cost/high reward" mentality.

Some men... some men, just want to watch the world burn.

This. I love superheroes as much as the next nerd but I'm tired of the endless cgi and boring scripts. I find myself looking to the indie theatres for something with character development, plots, and reality.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by LegacyCosts

This. I love superheroes as much as the next nerd but I'm tired of the endless cgi and boring scripts. I find myself looking to the indie theatres for something with character development, plots, and reality.

If I didn't have MoviePass, I wouldn't bother with much of the multiplex fare out there.

[King Troll]

Just about every superhero movie

[Michael1989]

I find myself liking a good majority of the blockbusters that come out but I find myself loving less and less. Have yet to see Elysium but I've not loved any big blockbusters this year. Infact there's probably only one or two films in general that I have loved so far this year

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by LegacyCosts

This. I love superheroes as much as the next nerd but I'm tired of the endless cgi and boring scripts.

Again, he was using a Dark Knight quote in a thread about "What went wrong with Man of Steel?", and the answer should have been self-evident from that:

After we all went goofy over "It Doesn't LOOK Like a Superhero Movie!(tm)", back when TDK made more money than it was supposed to, it threw a wrench into non-Marvel producers' idea of what makes comic-book movies.
Superman Returns tried to avenge Richard Pryor, and flopped for being ponderous, downbeat, depressing, and throwing in character-examining subplots that just didn't fit the character.
Man of Steel tried to avenge Returns, by bringing in the same dark, ponderous "Tragic saga" geek-reverence that Zack Snyder tried to bring to Watchmen, and...well, while it made more than Watchmen, it had about as much shelf-life.
Oh, but it had CHRISTOPHER NOLAN producing it! He knows EVERYTHING about superhero movies, so why wasn't it proclaimed genius??

But don't worry, the Marvel movies still deliver the goodies, right?
Well, er, yes, unless Tony Stark has an unlikable and way-off-canon villain beat the living crap out of everything we find entertaining with him, so he can spend more screentime personally angsting out of his superhero suit than in it.
Basically the message we came out with last summer was "Okay. We GET it. You liked Dark Knight. And did you like Dark Knight Rises, too, or have we gotten it all out of our system now?"
Warner's fears of its own DC franchise keep sending them to pan for any last veins of 08's dark deconstructionist IDLLASM gold , not even realizing that that came from a time when what audiences and critics thought "Looked like a superhero movie" was Daredevil and Fantastic Four, not, say Thor or The Avengers.
We've, um, upgraded our standards since then, thanks.

[LegacyCosts]

TDK and TKDR may have made millions and millions but to me they aren't good films. Yes heath ledger was great, take him out and its a shitty movie. TDKR wasn't well made in a more "realistic" sense and had too many inconsistencies and plot holes to make it even just a goofy comic movie. It was just terribly written and I had a hard time sitting through it. Obviously my opinions don't matter, money matters. However, I am so bored of superhero films at this point, I'll probably stop seeing them after x-men. I didn't bother with superman, looked like balls.