Why Movies Suck Today ?

Did some spelling changes in my initial post. Proof reading it was a pain.

1) Movies like high end video games are expensive to make with no guarantee of making your money back. As a way to improve those odds you either make a sequel to a profitable movie or create a similar movie. However a lot of times Hollywood wrongly guesses why a movie was profitable. Example Avatar, Hollywood assumed it made a billion dollars because of 3D, not because it was a novelty and rehash of a successful previous movies like Dancing with Wolves or Last Samurai. This is also why films are toned down to PG-13 often because it's a demonstrable fact that successful PG-13 films return a higher profit than a successful R. Exception to the rule is if you can do a movie cheaply enough, then an R can be very profitable in certain genres (horror, teen sex romps).

2) When over the top special effects were impossible to do or insanely expensive (pre-CGI), it constrained the screen writers, producers, cast to deliver a character centric movie. Now it's too easy for the story to go over the top with CGI FX (Transformers, 2012) and turn all the characters into 2D cardboard props the film goer doesn't connect with at any level.

I got to the bottom of the OP and saw negative comments towards Thor, Captain America and Iron Man 2 (Which happen to be some of Marvels best to date) and then I thought to myself, "This is a poster who's opinion doesn't matter."

imdb - 7/10
rotten tomatoes - 74%

m'kay?

first really negative review I saw on imdb gave a 1/10, the opening line saying he's a huge fan of the franchise, didn't read farther then that, biased reviews hold no weight.

Maybe you don't realize this . . . but there have always been sucky movies. It's just that the bad ones don't get remembered and replayed in later years. (Well, the really, REALLY bad ones do, as jokes.)


I'm a bit older than you, and I can remember lots and lots of bad movies from a long time ago (60's and 70's). Bad cheesy westerns. Bad cheesy sci-fi. Bad cheesy horror. Even bad beach movies, bad "romance," bad thrillers. Bad movies is not just a modern problem.


Part of the problem is that movies are such a mish-mash of talent and effort and artisic vision, it takes an extraordinary congruence of factors to make a good movie: Good writing, good direction, good acting, good editing, and a good producer to put them all together. Studios who finance films pressure filmmakers to make sure that a film is profitable by reducing risks. Sometimes you have a director or producer who has such great leadership or vision that that one person can drive the entire production. But even those people can have a stinker every now and then. (Example: Spielburg.) Sometimes someone can have one or two good films, and then everyone assumes that his other work will be just as good (M. Night Shamalama-dingdong.)

Great artistic movies often don't make a lot of money. And how many attempts at an "artistic" movie are made until a really good one comes along? Whereas, Transformers 4 is pretty much a sure thing to make lots of money because people enjoy seeing giant robots, lots of explosions and a few hot chicks -- i.e. a typical Michael Bay movie.


But back in the day, you had Hammer Films with cheesy horror. You had a ton of formulaic beach movies. In my college days, there were a ton of cheap Barbarian Sword and Sorcery movies. How many people remember "Yor, Warrior of the Future?" I actually saw that one in the theater with a group of friends who liked to see bad movies and make fun of them. One guy in our group would yell "Mamma" every time the lead character's name was said on screen. I saw "The Visitor" with an all-star cast (and a few friends of mine as extras), which was the worst movie I have paid money to see in a theater.


Then again, I saw films in the early 80's like "Ordinary People," a great drama about a family torn apart by divorce with Mary Tyler Moore in a very dramatic role. And I just saw "The Muppets" the other night . . . what a wonderful film with lots of great humor!


Every era has had its good movies and bad movies.

Edited opening post due to moderation reasons.

Quick and dirty answer to why there are so many "bad" movies today... people don't demand better. If you can serve up crap and make millions why bother being creative and/or unique?

When the topic of modern movies sucking comes up, a friend of mine always points out something that kind of makes sense: studios make movies based on what they know already sells. This is why you tend to see a lot of remakes of old movies. People recognize them. There's little guess work involved. Even if the movie sucks, it will still bring in enough to make a profit. The name is already out there.

I think the same could be said for movies inspired by comic books and other mediums. But the problem that I see with comic movies in general is that the audience has some idea of what's going on going into the movie - and hardcore fans more so.

Comic movies tend to start with an origin story. Most fans already know the origin of these characters so for us, we already know what's going to happen in that regard. (And then get annoyed when the studios make changes but that's another story).

I think they did it right with The Hulk (Ed Norton). The intro sequence gave you a brief history of the character, enough that you knew how he came to be, and then the movie goes right into the story. If memory serves, I think the subsequent Spiderman movies did the same.

All in all, I think Marvel and DC have done decent jobs adapting (and that's the keyword, adapting) their comics to movies. I mean, Alan Moore didn't want the Watchmen being made into a movie because he knew there we certain things that could be conveyed on paper that couldn't be done properly in film.

I take comic movies with a grain of salt. They'll never be 100% true to the source material (same as any movie that's ever been inspired by a novel). I take it for what it is and go from there. It's easier to go into something with no so you can't be let down

As always, just my 2cents.

YMMV

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