The Soulless 'Blockbusters'

[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.

[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.

[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...

[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.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Gate

So, you're back from your latest suspension.

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

[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.

[LegacyCosts]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

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

Moviepass eh? What does that entail

[cinemaphile]

Originally Posted by LegacyCosts

Moviepass eh? What does that entail

like $30-$40 per month (plus a $25 membership fee) to see all the movies you want (1 per day).

[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.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by LegacyCosts

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.

I'm not bored with superhero movies if they're done RIGHT--
The problem is, Warner never does do them "right": At the back of its mind lie fears installed by their own Cartoon Network school-bullying of 70's Superfriends, and now they start to get stage fright and cold feet at the very mention of Green Lantern or Aquaman.
(Although they did actually manage to reconcile themselves with a print-comic friendly version of the Wonder Twins, in one episode of Smallville....And even then, they were portrayed as comic annoyances.)

So, Superman and Batman must be "Re-interpreted", to try and raise their own bars set by Tim Burton, Richard Donner and The Highbrow Guy Who Hates Comics, and each incarnation of DC must be more "unique" than the last....Or, maybe they've just told us the Krypton and Gotham origins too many danged times.
OTOH, we know absolutely nothing about Thor or Captain America's origins, so (even if Thor 2 has almost nothing new to say) Disney/Marvel can go in, keep themselves reasonably sacred to canon, and approximate the same appeal the characters had for comic readers...Unless, of course, they try to "deconstruct" the hero like they did with IM3.

But it was not so much Man of Steel that taught us this year's lesson about summer blockbusters, as The Lone Ranger:
Shaddup and tell the story WE know, nobody's interested in your being a danged showoff.

[duggie walker]

The decline in quality of these films is because they've become part of the studios economic "tentpole" strategies. Because they're so expensive, and so much rides on them, the studios micro-manage the product and become very risk-averse in terms of content.

There's really one key to a good blockbuster and that's a good screenplay. Hire a good writer and give them some creative freedom. Studios now tend to pick "bankable" screenwriters ie screenwriters who've written films that have made money which is no guarantee of quality. They value a screenwriter who is malleable and will hit deadlines more than one with exceptional ability. Once they have the screenplay, they ( and not only th eproducers; the director and oftentimes the "star") begin to mess around with it, sometimes to the good, often to the bad. The best blockbusters of recent times, I think you'll find, will be the ones where they've allowed the writer a reasonable degree of creative freedom (or the director has protected the screenplay from interference, often because they've co-written them).

The solution is simple: Trust the primary creatives and get out of the way. It won't always lead to a great movie but it will up the chances considerably.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by EricJ

The problem is, Warner never does do them "right":...

I can't keep up with all the revisions to history. Is our current story now that we hated Batman Begins all along?

Cause I think I missed that memo. Or mail. Oh, wait, was it a tweet? That would explain it, actually.

I did the get the one about us changing our minds and deciding we actually hated The Dark Knight all along. I laughed and then ignored it but at least I received it.