Why Movies Suck Today ?

ya gotta think about movies within the context of who is making this movie and who will be the target audience. 1960s war movies, were being made by adults who most likely served in the armed forces in a war against an actual evil, namely, three fascist/imperialist regimes bent on domination of their respective areas and with some very nasty agendas whereupon lesser classes and races of peopel we subjugated, enslaved and killed. Real evil crap mind you. Notsomuch guerilla warfare as emplyed in lets say, vietnam, and not as much civilian casualties encountered when you arent in the midst of guerilla warfare and your enemy doesnt bother to wear a uniform to distinguish itself from the general populace. So you have vets of WWII making pictures that retell some of their experiences, where they felt a sense of PRIDE at being part of a VICTORIOUS effort against true evil, for a target audience of mostly males that would be going on to serve in the military for Johnson and Kennedy and Nixon. fast forward post Vietnam. Audience has changed, and from older siblings/media they learned that marching off to war doesnt get you a tickertape parade when you come home, you might be minus a limb and pretty much despised as an instrument of oppression or a tool of anti commie propaganda by the general public, while dealing with the same amount of shellshock or whatever teh politically correct word for it is now, post traumatic stress disorder (WWI and WWII vets were encouraged to bury the symptoms more strongly by the society in which they were raised.) SO a natural derivative of movies being made by 70s and 60s contemporary vets tended to emphasize a different side of war itself, placing greater emphasis on the loss (well ya know, they did lose) and the futility of the war as THEY experienced it. Not suprsingly, they are bitter. Who was the target audience for these movies, other vets, who sypathized with their plight, females as they become a greater component of a viewing audience, LIKE the drama. SO you preach to the choir, and you sell tickets.

You want a good war movie, watch inglorious basterds. full metal jacket. you will always find an exception to a trend within any system, if only because someone is trying to make a buck sideways or trying to use thier vision to tell a story from a different angle. On top of that you got a whole generation of parents raising their kids with more pacifist tendencies and a whole generation of kids grew up that werent actively encouraged to enlist. There goes most of your target audience that would laud the glory of war, even with a competent dose of reality paired with it.

Today, you got twenty bucks a month to entertain with, and if u opt for a movie out, it will likely be a compromise between you and your chick caus eit aint no fun to go alone, with her seeing a chick flick and you wtching a straight up action flick.

I watched Cap and I watched Thor. First iron man kicked butt. Second notsomuch cause I wanted original rhodey back not don cheadle, even tho don looks more the part when compared to the comic.

Cap was a good story and was true to the generation, that took pride in serving its country. gonna be interesting seeing his take on modern day living.

Thor. if you stick to comic book origins should even be more of an anachronism than Cap. Im not too fond of science so spiffy its magic take, takes the honor and glory of achieving valhalla.. the wife enjoyed it cause of natalie, go a real chuckle when Mjolnir got mispronounced , but I really dont think she would have enjoyed it as much as she did if there was no love interest angle. Thats what gets female fannies in the seats, and you kinda have to nurse that along, so as an aftereffect what spats of action we get to see has to be a bit condensed so that you can devote time to developing the back story (have to make it appeal to the non comic reader audience) and teh love story and yadda yadda.

wanna know why comic readers are inspiring so much movie creation? cause they miss the way comics USED to be written! the storytelling isnt there anymore, they restart the universe so they can rehash old plots yaddda yadda.. so where can tehy get a story with which we are familiar? where Power Man and Spiderman and Wolverine arent Avengers? why, the movies of course... where teh stories with which we are familiar are retold, albeit with a little polishing to offset 40 years of anachronism if we just lifted the plot and popped it in with the CGI and let her rip.. but enough of the core story is there so that we can feel that elusive reconnect with something we treasured from our childhood.

granted, these will not be teh original avengers, Janet filled the role of the typical shallow heiress which was ok in teh sixties and wont play today, and Hank is a bit of a poor man's Reed Richards and through his own adoption and abandonment of costumed identities through the years to be picked up by other persons has pretty much diluted himself into an unrecognizable guy that just plays himself when last i cared. Janet evolved in the comics of course into a strong leader, but that was primarily through her experience and you cant build that into a 2 hour movie.

I worry about this 3rd Hulk, I like mark ruffalo but ed norton was friggin brilliant. when a star doesnt want to reprise a role, he should make an attempt to figure out WHY he would be asked to reprise the role and sit down and read the first few avengers comics and get up to speed.

I loathed the initial Hulk and i think the majority of the planet would concur. Ang Lee cant direct his way out of a wet paper bag.

One bright side in the change in our target audience is the emersion of chicks what kick *** movies. The female warrior ala Kill Bill, Underworld, the one with the zombies, forgive me its late.. has promise, in the sense of the whole "honor over physical comfort" tenet that used to just be attributed to a male dominated genre...

when the boys stop strapping themselves to wires and putting on blue screen suits to portray their prowess, we'll see strong male heros return. I love Jackie Chan, but he is old school by todays standards, and the old ones some of us grew up with or were raised wath an appreciation of, thanks to our fathers, are sadly too aged or have passed.

It usually takes a big social change or world event to generate large scale changes in the socioeconomic structure, and we really havent had a big one since the sixties. who knows, we might be due for one. Fight Club kinda carried that flag.

My heroes were crafted by George Lucas, and I root for the Empire. The prequels had their faults and their merits. The imagination that these movies sparked (as well as Indiana Jones) is one of a more intellectual (not necessarily winning the war by brute force) variety. Its still a sense of discovery, and of hopefulness for the future. The guys a little older than me may have been more into Star Trek. they kinda share a similar result in fostering an environment where the nerd can triumph, but we do what we can, at least until they come up with a super serum.

I was hoping for a solid thread where we just rag on movies we didn't like and explain why we rag on them but it looks like it got derailed by the original poster on the original post LOL! C&H/VC isn't the first place I go when I want to read someone's social commentary/ rant. As a matter of fact, C&H/VC is where I go when I want to get away from all that. It's almost like the post was disguised in a way so it looks like it's about lame movies but it really serves as a vehicle for the OP to politicize things. Way to go, Trojan Thread!

Anyhoo, in keeping with what I thought the spirit of the discussion was, I do find there are more and more movies out there that don't pass muster but I think it's mainly because every good movie raises the bar. Also, there are different styles of storytelling that I may not be accustomed to. I thought Tron Legacy was going to be this amazing updated version of the original and would cater to today's audiences' tastes but it turned out to be this long and drawn out special effects display. Funny enough, that's exactly how I felt about the first film. It got me to thinking that maybe these stories were written for an audience comfortable with that kind of pacing and if that's who they were targeting then my hat's off to them for their consistency. In other words, I may not have liked it but maybe both films were written with a different audience in mind.

To the OP, I'm sorry it feels like the real estate is shrinking on good movies but I hope something comes along that gets you enthusiastic about them again. Also, I'd like to say I appreciate your service to our country. God bless you and Happy Holidays.

Wow, I'm amazed this thread is still here... either the mods are asleep at the board, or they're using this thread to stress-test the forum servers before they melt down, implode, or simply disintegrate.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Honestly New_Dark_Age, your abilities as a troll would be pretty good in most other places like Fark or Reddit. There they would be bound to get a few rises even though a large percentage of the population there expects trolling. Now someplace like the WoW forums you don't have to put out any effort at all. Just type "You are stupid" and you will have people frothing at the mouth and typing death threats.

Problem is that the CoH forums are different. For some reason the forums here are home to mostly nice people. Most don't even respond to personal attacks, and if they do it is with a reasoned reply rather than blind hatred.

And a second problem is that if it does escalate to personal attacks, threats or outright racist statements then that person often winds up with a temporary or even permanent ban from the forum. Knowing this means that the people who post here frequently aren't going to rise to your bait and start spewing hate filled bile at you. Some of them might be saying those things out loud but they won't post them here because they don't want the ban. And those types who do post that sort of thing here do wind up banned so they aren't here to respond the next time a troll comes around.

My advice would be to try the pvp forums. Since it is a competitive forum there has been a greater degree of leniency there as far as posting insults and threats. You might actually get a rise out of somebody there. Good luck with your future endeavors in the trolling field.

well it's the weekend now unless Zwill decides to pop up and nuke it from orbit

As long as we are talking about Historical facts here, I'd like to point out to the OP that there were in fact free Blacks (both immigrants from the Carribean and freed slaves) in the south and even in South Carolina in 1775. No there weren't a lot but the concept that any person of color in 1775 was automatically a slave is inaccurate and factually wrong. Africans and African Americans fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War from all parts of the Colonies.

I noticed the Mods have done some editing in this thread. You missed some ugly stuff:

Quote:

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age G.I. JANE Yeah cause a woman can really survive Navy Seal training....insulting to all Navy Seals ALIENS VS PREDATOR Leadership figure is a woman..yeah let me tell you she is really convincing when she lays down the law and tells everyone "Dont be a hero" and not to help anyone in trouble. I really bought that Gotta love these female warrior figures that are coming out...Centurion , King Arthur, Pirates of the Carribbean .. cause women are so convincing at it.

Better to just wipe the whole thing.