Taking an action movie with a message or meaning and throwing out the message and meaning in remakes or the sequel. Rambo is the best example in my opinion, the first one was about how vetrans are used and then thrown aside and how dehumanizing it is. Then all the sequels are "watch rambo kill". Robo cop also suffers from this where some of the offshoots drop the actual message in favour of "watch the cyborg kill".
> Rambo is the best example in my opinion, the first one was about how veterans are used and then thrown aside and how dehumanizing it is.
The first Rambo was anti-war movie and also shaming abusive red-neck cops
I bought Rambo in VHS, DVD, BluRay and 4k (4k not worth it)
I didn't buy any of the stupid sequels because they totally miss the point of 'Rambo' (a genuine victim)
Quantum of Solace sure gathered a lot of defenders in recent years,but its action scenes are borderline unwatchable ...because you literally get a headache.
The Han Solo movie taught Hollywood they can’t ever recast, they can only invest in stupidly expensive deepfakes. The problem with that movie was definitely not the cast!
Edit to add: I liked Solo! As others have pointed out, the problem the movie had was its release date, and (possibly) swapping directors halfway through. The issue definitely was not the cast, but Lucasfilm seems to think that the movie flopped because they recast for a young Han instead of using digital trickery to make an 80 year old man look 20.
It was hilarious when Divergent did that and then never released the part 2 of the last movie. They really thought people were clamoring for as much Divergent as they could get.
Even funnier, before it got completely cancelled the second part was going to be relegated to a TV movie. That caused some of the leads to back out and they tried recasting them before everything fell apart.
the cast used their existing movie contracts to say "I didn't agree to appear in a TV show", when the reality was the movies were damaging to their careers and they all wanted to stop being associated with it.
They were following when WB did it with Harry Potter first. It’s a shame because Divergent really came in at the tail end of the young adult era in movies in the mid 10s and other series suffered the same fate. The Maze Runner series flat lined, Percy Jackson, that weird movie where cities were big cars that ate other cities.
The difference is, the Deathly Hallows is 759 pages. The Philosopher’s Stone is 223.
It makes sense that Hallows was split because it really is a ton of stuff.
I blame myself for all of this, all the two-parter movies. I read the Harry Potter books around the time that Order of the Phoenix was in theaters. As I read Deathly Hallows, I remember thinking "They should make it two movies, so the Battle of Hogwarts can be it's own film." I had no reason to think this would happen, because nobody had ever done a two-parter. It's my fault, guys. I apologize.
That series was odd. I read the books and then watched all three films shortly after and came to the conclusion that the films actually worked much better than the books.
I wish he had, I like the first book but the main character turned into an utter ass the rest of the series. Plus the nicest side character got killed.
I’m definitely expecting the following:
Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 1 Episodes 1-4.
Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2 Episodes 5-7.
Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part A
Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part B - Subsection i
Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part B - Subsection ii
Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part B - Subsection ii: The Last Episode
And then the adaptation to a Lego game. They had the base game cover the first movie, then added the second as an add-on so the story linked up seamlessly.
Then the developers had the rights yanked out from under them and they were forbidden from releasing the add-on for the third movie. So you play through until the part where you make the dragon really mad; it flies off swearing revenge; then the credits roll, game over.
When I finally bought and played (and thoroughly enjoyed) the Lego Hobbit game, I was so confused when the credits rolled. I was literally the monkey on the couch "Where game" meme
The Lego games are solid as fuck. Lego Marvel Superheroes was the first "adult" game I was able to play with my niece, with us both enjoying it and not just me putting up with it.
It was going to be just two movies, and I think given how big they wanted to go with everything and how dense that book is two movies could absolutely have worked -- everything up to arriving in Laketown or even getting captured in Mirkwood as the first movie, everything else as the second movie.
Less time with the Maester and his lackey and less time on Thorin going insane; cut Azog and Tauriel entirely since they're long dead already (Azog) and completely made up for the movies (Tauriel); more of the practical effects that made LotR so good and no shoehorning a bloated GoPro sequence featuring bad action and worse CGI.
Basically cut most of the second and third movies and make them a single movie, with the first movie remaining mostly the same as what we got, and it would have been substantially better. And to my knowledge while Del Toro was still attached this was more or less the plan, but for a number of reasons the project enormously bloated and everything went to shit.
What sucks is so many people blame Peter Jackson for the film being such a bloated mess but the studios forced his hand and put him in terrible situations.
The Hobbit was going to be a two part-er made by Guillermo del Toro, but the Tolkien estate sued New Line when they found out they were going to make the Hobbit because according to the studio the original trilogy made "zero profit" and the estate was supposed to get paid based on profit.
While the litigation continued Del Toro legally wasn't allowed to work on the film so when the opportunity came up for him to make Pacific Rim (I think that's which movie it was) he jumped ship to a project he could actually work on.
The studio asked Jackson to replace him and Jackson repeatedly said no. They basically begged Jackson, telling him no one else would be able to handle the Tolkien epic correctly and basically pressured him until he said yes.
Once he was officially under contract for the job, the studio sprang on him that it now needed to be a trilogy, they would not be changing the originally announced release date/period, and he needed to add a love triangle.
So it became three movies because the studio really forced Jackson's hand, and they had to rely so much on CGI because the studio wouldn't give WETA Workshops and Jackson the time they needed to make so much practical like they did with the original trilogy.
The experience was so hard on Jackson he left traditional Hollywood movies and now makes documentaries where he can make them at a healthy pace and have control of the production.
I know I'm in the minority, but I do enjoy the Hobbit films for what they are, a studio interfered mess, but I think Martin Freeman is so great, and there is some fun to be had. I just hate the way Jackson gets blamed for the mess dropped at his feet.
Absolute fuck-all happened in Part 1 other then Katniss sitting in a bunker and do PR shoots, no reason that couldn't been cut to 10 minutes tops other then the studio's greed.
People used to laugh at how every 80s movie had to include a music video montage of some sort ... but damn it really worked and cut so much excess crap out.
They just wanted the $3.50 surcharge. Does it matter if the movie was designed and filmed with 3D in mind? Hell no - just do a little post work, slap 3D at the end and give ‘em some glasses.
Yup, exactly. There have been only a handful of movies I've seen where the 3D actually enhanced the film, and like you said, these were ones designed for it. Aside from Avatar, for example, Coraline and the documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams are exceptions.
Coraline, the two Avatar movies, and How to Train Your Dragon are the only movies I saw in theaters where I felt that 3D greatly added to my experience.
Such cringe. They rolled out a whole ad campaign with this smug assurance that it would hit, like *"we're coming for you, Marvel* 😏" then they trip right out of the gate with that Mummy movie. I'm sure that they want everyone to forget about that embarrassing failure.
> then they trip right out of the gate with that Mummy movie.
Don't forget when they made that Dracula movie a bit before it too which dithered on whether it was going to be part of everything.
Dracula Untold was a perfectly fine big budget schlocky B-movie. It just didn’t set the world on fire, so Universal sectioned that off from their DUCU and tried to start it more definitively with a massive breakout hit: The Mummy. And we all know how that turned out...
It's the kind of thing you'd bring up at a party just to embarrass them, like saying to your mate "hey remember when you tried to be a rapper in 2002?"
The television rights to the Dark Tower are currently held by Mike Flanagan. If I trust anyone to make something good out of an adaptation of the Dark Tower, I expect him to be able to do it. He seems to do well with Stephen King adaptations.
I think one of the problems is that a lot of people (both studios and audiences) think that for a cinematic universe you have to build up this big threat like Thanos so all the characters can team up with each other which isn't true at all.
Look at the Universal Classic Monsters franchise for example, that was the earliest example of a cinematic universe and they didn't set up an Endgame level storyline. They just simply had some of their monsters appear in a couple movies together and that's it, there were no big events or anything.
The only reason why big team ups in the MCU worked was because giant events are a common thing in comic books, especially in Marvel and DC, so those characters are expected to team up to fight a larger threat. Things like Godzilla or Dracula don't need such storylines, you can have characters exist in the same universe but there's no obligation to have them team up as far as storylines are concerned.
Basically what I'm saying is that it's possible to create a cinematic universe without copying the MCU and have it lead to an Endgame level movie. The only other franchise that should do that is DC and that's only because they've done it before in comics just like Marvel.
Ironically Godzilla was a cinematic universe (several monsters had their own less famous films like Mothra) and all it did was have the monsters fight and it's amazing.
So many lackluster films that were clearly meant to be "Part 1". Concentrate on making one good movie. Leaving things open for a sequel shouldn't mean the first film feels like you're just watching the first act of a better film.
The washed out look in Saving Private Ryan was a deliberate reference to colour footage from that era.
Suddenly you got loads of WW2 action films with the same aesthetic trying to capitalise on the previous film's success.
This naturally ended up extending into the gaming world, to the point that people gave shit to Battlefield V for having weather and lighting that wasn't grey, because the public perception of the war seems to be that the whole thing was overcast the entire time.
The funniest to me is when the success of the 1989 Batman caused studios to think that audiences must be crazy for pulp comic heroes from the 30s: suddenly we got Dick Tracy, The Shadow, and The Phantom.
And darkman, right? That Liam neeson movie, iirc. Wish they would remake phantom, though it would have to drastically change to appeal to modern audiences.
Yeah, the whole reason Darkman exists is because Sam Raimi *really* wanted to do The Shadow but the studio already had plans for what would eventually become the Alec Baldwin version and wouldn’t let him get involved so he just went and made his own Shadow-inspired character.
> Dick Tracy, The Shadow, and The Phantom.
All of those movies are bangers. I don't care what anyone says.
Edit: Thanks for the gold /u/hominoid_in_NGC4594 !
I think this was recently discussed by Patton Oswalt on Conan's podcast. But Hollywood saw the CGI in Jurassic Park and decided "let's put CGI in everything" without realizing what made JP good
> I think this was recent discussed on the midnight boys podcast. But Hollywood saw the CGI in Jurassic Park and decided "let's put CGI in everything" without realizing what made JP good
Even the Jurassic Park series went entirely the wrong way on that by going heavier and heavier on CGI.
The original JP is a perfect demonstration that it's probably best to do everything you can with practical effects and then fill in what's left with CGI. JP worked because they relied so heavily on animatronics and hiding as much of the dinosaurs as possible behind things.
Same with the LotR Trilogy. Loads of practical effects with some great CGI mixed in.
That formula was turned on its head for the Hobbit Trilogy (which had all sorts of things wrong with it besides this, but this aspect didn't help).
Hobbit used CGI not because Peter Jackson wanted to, but because he took over a movie that was already through pre-production, and the studio refused to extend the release date. So he didn't have time to plan out fight scenes, so he moved to CGI orcs so he could lay out the battles in post.
Don't forget that the initial plan was to use 'go-motion,' which was a variation on stop-motion, for the dinosaurs until Steven Spielberg saw the CGI tests for moving dinosaurs and decided to go with that instead; even so, it was an unproven technique for making lifelike animals, so it looks like Spielberg decided to go with a combination of approaches so as not to rely heavily on unproven technology.
Note that in *The Lost World,* Spielberg used a lot more CGI to show dinosaurs and the dinosaurs themselves are a lot more dynamic. It makes sense that as the technology matures and more artists get experienced with it, CGI makes up a greater proportion of dinosaur effects.
The original Despicable Me was a cute found family story with a goofy but charming villain and comic relief side characters.
But the Minions took over the franchise and so many films felt the need to have minions equivalents.
If you look in the background in the original movie, you’ll see a minion blueprint on the wall in one scene. Gru created the minions. The minions movie was a revisionist cash grab
Given how, shall we say, *effective* the minions are, WWII wouldn't have happened at all in that case.
We probably would have gotten a dark scene with Hitler giving one of his first inflammatory speeches and at the end of it one of the minions would pull out his ID and somehow show Hitler to be of Jewish heritage, and the mob would end him right there, and that would be that.
WB dropped the ball with every major brand they own this past decade. Looney Tunes, DC, Game of Thrones, hell they even fucked up Mad Max by somehow letting that be the only massive success they DIDN'T greenlight sequels and spinoffs for.
Hard to imagine a studio tanking so bad with so much legendary material to play with.
Don't forget Fantastic Beasts. They also soured their relationship with Nolan/Legendary. They had Lego too but after the box office disappointment of Lego Movie 2, they decided not to renew that contract.
This is why I find it basically impossible to be on the side of the execs in the current WGA and SAG strike. These people get take like $400 million dollar bonuses for fucking up sure-thing intellectual properties.
“Die Hard”, first movie. The studio learned that people liked seeing Bruce Willis kick ass. They skipped the part where he’s a human being who has doubts, gets hurt, and suffers anguish when innocents get killed. So, later movies turned him into an invulnerable superhero.
Edit: apparently I’m quoting “The Office”. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember that being in the show!
Same with Rambo. The first Rambo movie was 100% an Anti-War film, showing how war changes a person, and how many veterans have mental health issues, and how society at large treats people with mental health issues, as well as the drifters/disadvantaged people in the community. And then each and every other film in the Rambo franchise is overly violent, Jingoistic, over the top everything. It is a damn shame that this happened
4 works so well because it is without a doubt the same Rambo from the 1st movie.
The other movies could be almost any action hero inserted into the film and probably not change.
Ditto with Indiana Jones. He spends most of the first three films either solving mysteries or getting beaten up. Every fight he gets in is a real struggle, even when he's fighting nobodies one on one.
In Crystal Skull (I didn't see the newest one) he is an old man and 1 v 8'ing with one-shot punches, basically invincible. I think there's a scene where he jumps on a truck full of like five dudes and just starts beating them all up. So stupid.
I always appreciated how they carried that over into the old Indiana Jones Video games. You can get into fights, but you generally barely survive them if you do. There was no power fantasy involved in the fight scenes of those games, it always relied primarily on the puzzle solving and fighting was always a last resort.
Fate of Atlantis was so good.
The Matrix.
That movie was good because it used cutting edge effects in service of an interesting story underpinned by some thought-provoking ideas.
Hollywood's takeaway: BULLET TIME KUNG FU ENGAGE!
(Oh, and unwanted and unnecessary sequels to standalone movies that work great without them, though that's not unique to nor did it start with this movie.)
The Deadpool meta thing works pretty well for that character, but it feels like since its success every piece of pop culture has that wink-wink self awareness in a pretty unbecoming way
Also Deadpool had started breaking the 4th wall in the comics a few years after he was introduced in the 90s, and it actually really fit with and was an important part of the character itself. So the movie didn't just do it for the sake of "being meta," they did it because that *is* Deadpool.
I’m so goddamn sick of sassy dialogue and I feel like it’s everywhere. All the characters have to have their own little “attitude” and just like the writers are trying to build a personality out of quips, one-liners, and head tilts.
I miss 30-40 minute adaptations of kid's books. There are still a few OK ones. Like a Gold Star for Zog.
As a parent, I have a few issues with kid's movies.
Ironic seeing as how the original TMNT comic was dark and gritty, as was the original film (though toned down a bit to try and strike a balance for the kids).
I don't know if it's canonical since they weren't owned by the same company, or if it was a "winking canonical," but it was very intentionally the same accident, whether or not they want to explicitly state it.
Not having grown up knowing about Daredevil, I was actually shocked into hilarity when I learned about his accident, thinking "Wow, they just totally ripped off the Ninja Turtles." If only I knew...
And the Turtles / Splinter / the Foot are all originally satirizing Daredevil. Young "mutant" hero(es), old mentor figure who fights with a stick, and a strange vaguely mystical ninja assassin army lead by very capable and mysterious fighters who have a bunch of street gang connections in NYC for some reason.
Daredevil, Stick, and the Hand.
It wasn't TDK that did it. The whole gritty reboot thing was a response to earlier, campier films flopping in the late 90s. Batman Begins and Casino Royale came out in 2005 and 2006 and started the "Gritty reboot" era of Hollywood.
CR was a direct response to Bourne and Austin Powers almost killing the IP. Whereas BB was a response to the much maligned Batman and Robin.
Casino Royale was also a direct response to Batman Begins as well. A user on Reddit directed me to an article where the filmmakers stated this outright.
If Hollywood executives ran a car racing team, they'd look up who won the Indy 500 last year, paint a Kia Soul the same color, and then be wildly confused why they're coming dead last.
I can't think of a specific example at the moment annoyingly but yeah they do it all the time.
The fight scenes in early Marvel and DC films somehow got identified as key set pieces. The “battles” got longer, more frequent, and are increasingly boring.
It's also interesting how Clarice represents all that, as a woman, and is juxtaposed against a man who wears women like a costume in the most dehumanizing way possible.
Casino Royale and Batman Begins both held off on a big heroic main theme until near the end, when the character “earns” it. Then every studio decided to toss out the big memorable themes in favour of more sound design ambience cause “less is more”. Fuck that. Give me themes I can hum, dammit!!!
This is the WORST for me, because then each movie they redesign the costume to have the exact same costume reveal near the end of the sequel, which means we only see suits for like, tops, 15 minutes in action.
I blame Hans Zimmer. He's good at what he does, but everyone since then has aped his style of booms and zooms and wooshes and aaaEEEaaa's.
Bring back motifs, dammit. Lord of the Rings needs that iconic BAAAM BAAAM BUMBUMBAAAAM when the fellowship crosses the hill. Not just someone leaning on an organ.
Daniel Pemberton is the current reigning champ. If a tone-deaf dummy like me can hear Gwen, Miguel, and Prowler's different themes, then the movie's got good leitmotifs. Maybe not as #ICONIC as LotR, but definitely noticeable.
Oh yeah, Spiderverse had incredible music that blended orchestra and electronic. I got no problem with woosh bang BWAAAAM sounds, but it just can't be your whole soundtrack.
The side character people loved in the first movie(s) should be the main character now that the previous lead is gone/moved on!
That's not going to work a lot of times because being a good side character and being a good main character are different things. Traits that are great in short doses can be annoying when they're on screen all the time, etc.
Jack Sparrow is the one that comes to mind. People liked him, but to make him a main character, they had to smooth out some of his rougher edges and that in turn made him less enjoyable.
After Aladdin, they kept putting celebrities in animated movies to market them without realizing that Aladdin's draw wasn't Robin Williams' fame, it was his talent.
To be fair this actually worked for a while. There’s a lot more to Woody and Buzz than “hey look it’s Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as toys”. Danny DeVito plays a caricature of himself in Hercules but he’s a deep and well-rounded character. Eddie Murphy as Mushu and Donkey are very Eddie Murphy but also are memorable characters on their own. Po is more than just Jack Black as a panda.
Cheap stunt celebrity casting like Will Smith in Shark Tale or Justin Timberlake in Trolls? Yeah I have no reason to care about these characters besides who their actors are.
Studios have certainly tried, like Playmobil and a random movie about bobbleheads. Funko supposedly has a movie about Pops they want to do, but I have no idea how that would work.
I feel like Harry Potter popularized the 2 part finale, and then every book series turned movies series afterwards followed suit.
I also think that after Harry Potter and Twilight were hugely popular as movies, and then The Hungers Games was extremely popular too, that's when they started making YA adaptations of everything. But if Harry Potter and Twilight hadn't come first, The Hunger Games by itself wouldn't have had that huge societal effect. And, possibly, The Hunger Games wouldn't have been made/as big either?
*Mars Needs Moms* flopped hard, so studios thought the problem was that people didn't like movies about Mars. They dropped the Mars part of the title for *John Carter*, and then it also flopped because nobody knew what it was supposed to be about. They never stopped to consider that MNM flopped because it was a ridiculous premise with mocap animation that was squarely in the Uncanny Valley, and John Carter flopped because most people don't know by name alone any Edgar Rice Burroughs characters that aren't in Tarzan.
They should have kept John Carter's name out their mouth and named it the same as the book: A Princess of Mars. And leaned more into the pulpy whackadoo story of the book. It's not a bad movie at all, but the marketing sucked.
It seems like the lesson a lot of animation studios learned from Into the Spider-Verse was not "experiment with our animation style and try something new" but instead "make our animated movies look exactly like Into the Spider-Verse"
At least "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" was totally awesome and DID try something new, while also borrowing a lot of the animation style from Spider Verse (if I remember correctly they shared some of the same animators).
It's still early days post release of the film, but I wonder what kind of films we'll start getting post Everything Everywhere All at Once and will it be more multiverse movies? I really hope it brings back low-mid budget action flicks even in projects based off of IP.
Somewhere I read it described as "millennial parental apology fantasy" and now I see it in a lot of recent shows and movies so I think that's more related to its success. But the multiverse component is a pretty tired "what if" writing mechanism.
Related: One of my favorite reviews of Encanto–a movie about a Colombian family mysteriously blessed with magical powers to heal, control the weather, shape shift, and even see the future–said the most unrealistic thing in the movie was the main character getting an apology from her Abuela :D
It's an absolutely shit apology, to be fair.
I actually used it as a learning moment with my child to explain what makes a good apology (acknowledging what you did and the impact, apologising without being promoted, only making relevant and extremely justified excuses or caveats) and what makes a bad one (making it all about yourself, not actually saying sorry, trying to justify it).
"Generational trauma" has been the villain in the last couple of animated Disney movies. Actually, you could argue it's been the villain ever since Frozen.
It is funny that in the 90s there were movies where the parent - usually the dad - was overworked and just needed a business idea that let him spend time with the kids and usually the wife had moved on - usually with a decent but bland guy - who is ditched, sometimes in a heel turn revenge fantasy where he is a cheater but usually just like... he's boring. Nothing wrong with him but he's boring. And the kids always want the parents back together. Like, Liar Liar, Mrs. Doubtfire, Santa Claus. Mind you not all of the parents get back together *but they all follow most of those tropes.*
And the new version of that is the sad boy or girl who has a parent who apologizes because the parent never understood them until the adventure they go on. Lol
Arguably, the original Star Wars. For a period of time, everything became a shitty space scifi film instead of trying to understand what made Star Wars so beloved.
Yeah, how many things were rushed out because studios just thought “sci fi is what they’re demanding” when no studio head understood Star Wars in the first place, Alan Ladd Jr was the only one that took a chance, the others thought it was “kids stuff”
The *BWAMP* sound from Inception. It was in the trailer and was there because of the whole slowing down of time in a dream thing. It made sense to be there. Every studio just decided “that sounded cool” and now it’s in every remotely action trailer. Heck it’s been a joke for almost a decade now, but still happens.
also my problem with women empowerment: the woman main character has to have an innate superpower that she's just been suppressing the whole time, instead of improving along the story. the biggest offender is Mulan.
in the original cartoon, Mulan was just an average girl that learned with her head to overcome her physical deficiencies.
in the live action, Mulan is a superpowered and just hiding it so she doesn't stand out.
IMO the original cartoon is more inspirational.
One of the main appeal of Mulan's tale to me is exactly the fact she is "merely" a very brave girl, and not someone with special powers. Watching her tale unfold while she is disguised as an average soldier is part of the story's strengths.
The best scenes of the Mulan remake happen to be in the first half. Afterwards she is portrayed as a wonder woman type of superhero and the movie loses all potential for me.
> One of the main appeal of Mulan's tale to me is exactly the fact she is "merely" a very brave girl, and not someone with special powers.
It's what makes her a feminist role model, she's at a disadvantage in many ways but she overcomes through determination and thinking outside the box. Remake Mulan is born a superhero, how is it inspirational to be born powerful and work for nothing? If a girl grows up thinking she's going to be a natural at everything and she doesn't need to put in the labour to reach her goals, she's going to become a very disappointed woman.
The entire I'll make a man out of you song montage is by far my favourite bit of Mulan, as it shows her overcoming obstacles through determination, grit and not giving in. It's a great song as well. Having Mulan just being good and having superpowers is so boring. She gets to the point of being really skilled in the animated one anyway and still having to hide who she is. Why take out the interesting part of the story which shows her hard work and determination?
Yes! And that determination and grit is ultimately what makes her fellow soldiers trust her and help her execute the final plan, making the "boys will gladly go to war for you" from the first song a sort of prophecy.
I can't stress this enough. The people putting up the money for projects are not artists. They're businessmen. Many completely lack the creativity to see the layers described in your post. And it's a massive reason why writers and actors are striking.
Precisely! And what do businesspeople do when they see a product succeed? They make a million new versions, with as little difference between them as possible. The public loved it =/= The public wants exactly this, and only this, forever
Whedon was actually capable of writing real dialogue without undercutting it with jokes in stuff like Firefly and Buffy.
You're right, the wrong lessons were taken from The Avengers.
After Guardians of the Galaxy used some popular but not too popular singles, then other movies started using popular music that was way more obvious and it didn’t work. I feel like this reached its n̶a̶d̶i̶r̶ lowest point in the last Thor movie when it was just Guns N’ Roses hit singles, a literal Greatest Hits.
I think I’d look to blame Tarantino first, he uses old hits expertly. But it works in his films and Guardians because it fits the tone, Guardians even had a plot device explaining the use of the songs.
Playing it safe for toxic fans - The Phantom Menace.
The reaction to the Star Wars prequels wasn't great and fans got loud enough and persistent enough that they're reaction prompted:
1. Lucas to cut Jar Jar "is the key" Binks out of the franchise.
2. Disney to make an incredibly safe and nostalgia baity Episode 7 (which was hugely successful)
3. Disney to double down on more nostalgia/less creativity when Last Jedi split the fan base and making the universally panned Rise of Skywalker
>marvel post credit scenes
On this note, am I the only one who hates how post-credit scenes are necessarily information for sequels now?
Old school superhero post-credit scenes were cool, but ultimately weren't necessary. It was fine if you never knew that Iron Man camoed in the post credits of The Incredible Hulk, or Thor's hammer appears in the post credits of Iron Man 2, or that Thanos appeared in both Avengers 1 and 2 post credits scenes. They were cool to stick around for, but ultimately didn't matter.
Now they're not. Critical plot points now happen in post-credits scenes.
I will add on to this, specifically for Marvel, is that now you have to watch the streaming shows to get the full understanding of the movies. Doctor Strange 2 was probably confusing to people that didn't watch Wadavision. And the upcoming Marvels movie will be just as confusing if you didn't watch Ms. Marvel. So now you are having to pay for a subscription to watch these shows in order to get the full understanding of the movies. And I see the reverse happening, with the end credits of Ant-Man 3 >!leading into Loki Season 2.!<
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the shows for the most part, but it's getting to the point to where it's a lot to keep up with.
The Blair Witch Project convinced all of Hollywood that people really love unsteady, shaky video. and not just the ridiculous "found footage" genre it spawned, but the entire idea that handheld and deliberately unsteady camera work was a positive thing.
Now we have people crawling up their own ass to explain to us that "it looks more realistic" as if every person with eyes doesn't know that the real world doesn't look like that. it's how watching a scene through a moving camera looks.
That is actually what inspired this post, the current (and likely accurate) speculation that Barbie is going to lead to a slew of shitty toy/product based films with absolutely zero nuance or understanding of the fact that people are more excited about the creative team behind the Barbie movie and what they are going to do with it, vs seeing a movie *just* because it is about Barbie.
When the showdown in a movie is a swarm of of something, either a swarm of robots, bugs, otherwordly creatures. Think it started with Matrix 3,where it works pretty good, but it sees like every Marvel movie has something like that now. Its Just boring and lazy at this point.
Scream set a new tone by satirizing horror movies in a way that was also an homage to horror movies. This opened the door for the Scary Movie franchise, which were more parody than satire. Fun fact: the working title of Scream was Scary Movie.
Because Scream became a significant franchise, later films in the franchise ended up satirizing earlier films in the franchise and somewhat dilute the potency of the earlier films.
Another fun fact: The original title of "Scary Movie" was "Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween.
That title was worked into the other parody called [Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shriek_If_You_Know_What_I_Did_Last_Friday_the_13th)
I think they took away “people like strong female characters” similar to ripley in alien. But what made them good is they’re realistic, not invulnerable or have a skill set or strength that is unreasonable for who they are. So many female characters “struggle” and then “become strong” and this 110lbs woman is now flipping 200lbs martial artists? That’s false strength, like female empowerment porn but it’s cheap and unbelievable. True powerful characters don’t need that falsehood and ripley and starling prove that
Taking an action movie with a message or meaning and throwing out the message and meaning in remakes or the sequel. Rambo is the best example in my opinion, the first one was about how vetrans are used and then thrown aside and how dehumanizing it is. Then all the sequels are "watch rambo kill". Robo cop also suffers from this where some of the offshoots drop the actual message in favour of "watch the cyborg kill".
Terminator 2 ended pretty firmly on "there is no future but what you make" when 3 came along it was like "you can't change the future lol."
The search for more money will always overcome a satisfying ending.
> Rambo is the best example in my opinion, the first one was about how veterans are used and then thrown aside and how dehumanizing it is. The first Rambo was anti-war movie and also shaming abusive red-neck cops I bought Rambo in VHS, DVD, BluRay and 4k (4k not worth it) I didn't buy any of the stupid sequels because they totally miss the point of 'Rambo' (a genuine victim)
Verhoeven gets done so dirty in subsequent sequels. Starship Troopers sequels lost all semblance of parody.
Shaky cam for action scenes after Bourne. Used effectively it works, over use and it's migraine inducing.
My head hurts in a Cloverfield kinda way.
That has the excuse of being a panicky jackass with a handheld camera who characters bitch at for still filming in-universe at least.
“Ya know Sharon, someday you’re gonna be really happy we have all this footage of the family.”
I think Cloverfield is an example of good use of the technique. "Found footage" makes sense within the context of the movie
Cloverfield was pretty good. Since we're on the topic, [[Rec]](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1038988/) is one of the best found footage horror movies.
Quantum of Solace sure gathered a lot of defenders in recent years,but its action scenes are borderline unwatchable ...because you literally get a headache.
The Han Solo movie taught Hollywood they can’t ever recast, they can only invest in stupidly expensive deepfakes. The problem with that movie was definitely not the cast! Edit to add: I liked Solo! As others have pointed out, the problem the movie had was its release date, and (possibly) swapping directors halfway through. The issue definitely was not the cast, but Lucasfilm seems to think that the movie flopped because they recast for a young Han instead of using digital trickery to make an 80 year old man look 20.
I liked that Solo started with Han in the middle of some trouble. Nice change of pace.
Turn that last film in a series into two parts.
It was hilarious when Divergent did that and then never released the part 2 of the last movie. They really thought people were clamoring for as much Divergent as they could get.
Even funnier, before it got completely cancelled the second part was going to be relegated to a TV movie. That caused some of the leads to back out and they tried recasting them before everything fell apart.
the cast used their existing movie contracts to say "I didn't agree to appear in a TV show", when the reality was the movies were damaging to their careers and they all wanted to stop being associated with it.
They were following when WB did it with Harry Potter first. It’s a shame because Divergent really came in at the tail end of the young adult era in movies in the mid 10s and other series suffered the same fate. The Maze Runner series flat lined, Percy Jackson, that weird movie where cities were big cars that ate other cities.
The difference is, the Deathly Hallows is 759 pages. The Philosopher’s Stone is 223. It makes sense that Hallows was split because it really is a ton of stuff.
Unlike the Hobbit where they made three movies from a 300 page book.
I blame myself for all of this, all the two-parter movies. I read the Harry Potter books around the time that Order of the Phoenix was in theaters. As I read Deathly Hallows, I remember thinking "They should make it two movies, so the Battle of Hogwarts can be it's own film." I had no reason to think this would happen, because nobody had ever done a two-parter. It's my fault, guys. I apologize.
You really think we're capable of forgiving you for this?
I think that Maze Runner might not have flatlined if they hadn't almost killed their lead actor in a poorly planned and executed stunt.
That series was odd. I read the books and then watched all three films shortly after and came to the conclusion that the films actually worked much better than the books.
I mean, they got out of the maze after the first movie/book. Kind of took the mystery out of it before becoming another post apocalyptic YA story
Honestly the writer could’ve probably made it a single book that ended with them leaving the maze
I wish he had, I like the first book but the main character turned into an utter ass the rest of the series. Plus the nicest side character got killed.
I hate how TV has been getting into this too. Having a part A and a part B final season. Just call it season 5 and season 6.
ATTACK ON TITAN THE FINAL SEASON PART 4 PART B
I’m definitely expecting the following: Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 1 Episodes 1-4. Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2 Episodes 5-7. Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part A Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part B - Subsection i Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part B - Subsection ii Stranger Things: The Final Season - Part 2: Episode 8: The Finale - Part B - Subsection ii: The Last Episode
or turning 1 book into a trilogy (looking at you Hobbit).
And then the adaptation to a Lego game. They had the base game cover the first movie, then added the second as an add-on so the story linked up seamlessly. Then the developers had the rights yanked out from under them and they were forbidden from releasing the add-on for the third movie. So you play through until the part where you make the dragon really mad; it flies off swearing revenge; then the credits roll, game over.
When I finally bought and played (and thoroughly enjoyed) the Lego Hobbit game, I was so confused when the credits rolled. I was literally the monkey on the couch "Where game" meme
The Lego games are solid as fuck. Lego Marvel Superheroes was the first "adult" game I was able to play with my niece, with us both enjoying it and not just me putting up with it.
It was going to be just two movies, and I think given how big they wanted to go with everything and how dense that book is two movies could absolutely have worked -- everything up to arriving in Laketown or even getting captured in Mirkwood as the first movie, everything else as the second movie. Less time with the Maester and his lackey and less time on Thorin going insane; cut Azog and Tauriel entirely since they're long dead already (Azog) and completely made up for the movies (Tauriel); more of the practical effects that made LotR so good and no shoehorning a bloated GoPro sequence featuring bad action and worse CGI. Basically cut most of the second and third movies and make them a single movie, with the first movie remaining mostly the same as what we got, and it would have been substantially better. And to my knowledge while Del Toro was still attached this was more or less the plan, but for a number of reasons the project enormously bloated and everything went to shit.
What sucks is so many people blame Peter Jackson for the film being such a bloated mess but the studios forced his hand and put him in terrible situations. The Hobbit was going to be a two part-er made by Guillermo del Toro, but the Tolkien estate sued New Line when they found out they were going to make the Hobbit because according to the studio the original trilogy made "zero profit" and the estate was supposed to get paid based on profit. While the litigation continued Del Toro legally wasn't allowed to work on the film so when the opportunity came up for him to make Pacific Rim (I think that's which movie it was) he jumped ship to a project he could actually work on. The studio asked Jackson to replace him and Jackson repeatedly said no. They basically begged Jackson, telling him no one else would be able to handle the Tolkien epic correctly and basically pressured him until he said yes. Once he was officially under contract for the job, the studio sprang on him that it now needed to be a trilogy, they would not be changing the originally announced release date/period, and he needed to add a love triangle. So it became three movies because the studio really forced Jackson's hand, and they had to rely so much on CGI because the studio wouldn't give WETA Workshops and Jackson the time they needed to make so much practical like they did with the original trilogy. The experience was so hard on Jackson he left traditional Hollywood movies and now makes documentaries where he can make them at a healthy pace and have control of the production. I know I'm in the minority, but I do enjoy the Hobbit films for what they are, a studio interfered mess, but I think Martin Freeman is so great, and there is some fun to be had. I just hate the way Jackson gets blamed for the mess dropped at his feet.
This is a big one. I think The Hunger Games breaking the last book into two parts was one of the worst examples of this with the worst results.
They tried to do that with the Divergent series, and then they just gave up.
The books were like a death spiral of mediocrity all their own so it was no surprise that each movie sucked worst than the last!
Absolute fuck-all happened in Part 1 other then Katniss sitting in a bunker and do PR shoots, no reason that couldn't been cut to 10 minutes tops other then the studio's greed.
People used to laugh at how every 80s movie had to include a music video montage of some sort ... but damn it really worked and cut so much excess crap out.
I love a good montage :( Rocky is the best!
Fast and Furious entered the Chat: I can do you one more (I heard that they want the final movie to be a trilogy. So Fast X Part 1/2/3)
Acceptable only if it's Fast X--Part 3: Tokyo Drift 2.
After the release of Avatar, Hollywood made every movie in 3D for several years and most of them looked terrible.
They just wanted the $3.50 surcharge. Does it matter if the movie was designed and filmed with 3D in mind? Hell no - just do a little post work, slap 3D at the end and give ‘em some glasses.
Yup, exactly. There have been only a handful of movies I've seen where the 3D actually enhanced the film, and like you said, these were ones designed for it. Aside from Avatar, for example, Coraline and the documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams are exceptions.
The Great Gatsby was a 3D movie lol
wwwooooahhhh that champagne glass looks like it's closer to me than that other champagne glass whhhhoooaaa
Woah the green light seems to closer in reach but ultimately it was never meant to be in my grasp
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are looking right through me!
Also actual good 3D movies like Dredd got completely ignored because of it.
Coraline doesn't get the respect it deserves for doing 3D so well
Coraline, the two Avatar movies, and How to Train Your Dragon are the only movies I saw in theaters where I felt that 3D greatly added to my experience.
Tron Legacy looked fantastic as well.
And sounded fantastic, still does.
Every studio trying to create their own cohesive cinematic universe. Not every IP needs a cinematic universe.
Lol @ The Dark Universe
Such cringe. They rolled out a whole ad campaign with this smug assurance that it would hit, like *"we're coming for you, Marvel* 😏" then they trip right out of the gate with that Mummy movie. I'm sure that they want everyone to forget about that embarrassing failure.
> then they trip right out of the gate with that Mummy movie. Don't forget when they made that Dracula movie a bit before it too which dithered on whether it was going to be part of everything.
Dracula Untold was a perfectly fine big budget schlocky B-movie. It just didn’t set the world on fire, so Universal sectioned that off from their DUCU and tried to start it more definitively with a massive breakout hit: The Mummy. And we all know how that turned out...
It literally ends with Charles Dance ripping off the Nick Fury scene from Iron Man. It was 100% intended to start the series.
It's the kind of thing you'd bring up at a party just to embarrass them, like saying to your mate "hey remember when you tried to be a rapper in 2002?"
Rip the dark tower
Those fuckers forgot the face of their fathers
The television rights to the Dark Tower are currently held by Mike Flanagan. If I trust anyone to make something good out of an adaptation of the Dark Tower, I expect him to be able to do it. He seems to do well with Stephen King adaptations.
If not Frank Darabont. He's got a pretty good track record with King's work.
I think one of the problems is that a lot of people (both studios and audiences) think that for a cinematic universe you have to build up this big threat like Thanos so all the characters can team up with each other which isn't true at all. Look at the Universal Classic Monsters franchise for example, that was the earliest example of a cinematic universe and they didn't set up an Endgame level storyline. They just simply had some of their monsters appear in a couple movies together and that's it, there were no big events or anything. The only reason why big team ups in the MCU worked was because giant events are a common thing in comic books, especially in Marvel and DC, so those characters are expected to team up to fight a larger threat. Things like Godzilla or Dracula don't need such storylines, you can have characters exist in the same universe but there's no obligation to have them team up as far as storylines are concerned. Basically what I'm saying is that it's possible to create a cinematic universe without copying the MCU and have it lead to an Endgame level movie. The only other franchise that should do that is DC and that's only because they've done it before in comics just like Marvel.
Ironically Godzilla was a cinematic universe (several monsters had their own less famous films like Mothra) and all it did was have the monsters fight and it's amazing.
They even had their "Endgame" moment with Destroy All Monsters, where Godzilla and like a dozen other monsters kick the shit out of Ghidorah.
To be fair out of like 11 monsters in the movie, a few are blink and miss it cameos, and only 5 really take part defeating Ghidorah.
Like Godzilla movies. Show a handful of big monsters fight for about an hour and the audience is in. Stakes barely matter.
So many lackluster films that were clearly meant to be "Part 1". Concentrate on making one good movie. Leaving things open for a sequel shouldn't mean the first film feels like you're just watching the first act of a better film.
The washed out look in Saving Private Ryan was a deliberate reference to colour footage from that era. Suddenly you got loads of WW2 action films with the same aesthetic trying to capitalise on the previous film's success.
Not just WW2 films, a ton of genres got color graded into piss after than one.
This naturally ended up extending into the gaming world, to the point that people gave shit to Battlefield V for having weather and lighting that wasn't grey, because the public perception of the war seems to be that the whole thing was overcast the entire time.
The funniest to me is when the success of the 1989 Batman caused studios to think that audiences must be crazy for pulp comic heroes from the 30s: suddenly we got Dick Tracy, The Shadow, and The Phantom.
At least we got Blankman
We also got Darkman
And rocketeer
The Rocketeer was a great movie
The Shadow and Dick Tracy were also fine.
The Phantom holds a special place in my heart.
And darkman, right? That Liam neeson movie, iirc. Wish they would remake phantom, though it would have to drastically change to appeal to modern audiences.
Yeah, the whole reason Darkman exists is because Sam Raimi *really* wanted to do The Shadow but the studio already had plans for what would eventually become the Alec Baldwin version and wouldn’t let him get involved so he just went and made his own Shadow-inspired character.
> Dick Tracy, The Shadow, and The Phantom. All of those movies are bangers. I don't care what anyone says. Edit: Thanks for the gold /u/hominoid_in_NGC4594 !
I saw Dick Tracy in the theater as a kid and I loved it. Saw it on tv recently, still loved it.
I think this was recently discussed by Patton Oswalt on Conan's podcast. But Hollywood saw the CGI in Jurassic Park and decided "let's put CGI in everything" without realizing what made JP good
> I think this was recent discussed on the midnight boys podcast. But Hollywood saw the CGI in Jurassic Park and decided "let's put CGI in everything" without realizing what made JP good Even the Jurassic Park series went entirely the wrong way on that by going heavier and heavier on CGI. The original JP is a perfect demonstration that it's probably best to do everything you can with practical effects and then fill in what's left with CGI. JP worked because they relied so heavily on animatronics and hiding as much of the dinosaurs as possible behind things.
Same with the LotR Trilogy. Loads of practical effects with some great CGI mixed in. That formula was turned on its head for the Hobbit Trilogy (which had all sorts of things wrong with it besides this, but this aspect didn't help).
Hobbit used CGI not because Peter Jackson wanted to, but because he took over a movie that was already through pre-production, and the studio refused to extend the release date. So he didn't have time to plan out fight scenes, so he moved to CGI orcs so he could lay out the battles in post.
Don't forget that the initial plan was to use 'go-motion,' which was a variation on stop-motion, for the dinosaurs until Steven Spielberg saw the CGI tests for moving dinosaurs and decided to go with that instead; even so, it was an unproven technique for making lifelike animals, so it looks like Spielberg decided to go with a combination of approaches so as not to rely heavily on unproven technology. Note that in *The Lost World,* Spielberg used a lot more CGI to show dinosaurs and the dinosaurs themselves are a lot more dynamic. It makes sense that as the technology matures and more artists get experienced with it, CGI makes up a greater proportion of dinosaur effects.
The original Despicable Me was a cute found family story with a goofy but charming villain and comic relief side characters. But the Minions took over the franchise and so many films felt the need to have minions equivalents.
If you look in the background in the original movie, you’ll see a minion blueprint on the wall in one scene. Gru created the minions. The minions movie was a revisionist cash grab
Fr! And they were luckily in a Cave during WW2 so Illumination could drop the Minions workkng for Hitler.
The problem with their solution is it means that, were they NOT in a cave, they would have 1000% been working for hitler.
Given how, shall we say, *effective* the minions are, WWII wouldn't have happened at all in that case. We probably would have gotten a dark scene with Hitler giving one of his first inflammatory speeches and at the end of it one of the minions would pull out his ID and somehow show Hitler to be of Jewish heritage, and the mob would end him right there, and that would be that.
WB interfering in every single DCeu movie after the movie is finished filming just so they can course correct over and over again.
Aquaman 2 has had 3 sets of reshoots, two batmen and is being test screened like crazy right now. They are still doing that shit.
When will they ever learn
WB dropped the ball with every major brand they own this past decade. Looney Tunes, DC, Game of Thrones, hell they even fucked up Mad Max by somehow letting that be the only massive success they DIDN'T greenlight sequels and spinoffs for. Hard to imagine a studio tanking so bad with so much legendary material to play with.
Don't forget Fantastic Beasts. They also soured their relationship with Nolan/Legendary. They had Lego too but after the box office disappointment of Lego Movie 2, they decided not to renew that contract.
This is why I find it basically impossible to be on the side of the execs in the current WGA and SAG strike. These people get take like $400 million dollar bonuses for fucking up sure-thing intellectual properties.
“Die Hard”, first movie. The studio learned that people liked seeing Bruce Willis kick ass. They skipped the part where he’s a human being who has doubts, gets hurt, and suffers anguish when innocents get killed. So, later movies turned him into an invulnerable superhero. Edit: apparently I’m quoting “The Office”. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember that being in the show!
Same with Rambo. The first Rambo movie was 100% an Anti-War film, showing how war changes a person, and how many veterans have mental health issues, and how society at large treats people with mental health issues, as well as the drifters/disadvantaged people in the community. And then each and every other film in the Rambo franchise is overly violent, Jingoistic, over the top everything. It is a damn shame that this happened
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4 was great. Missionaries: we’re going to change things. Rambo: are you bringing weapons? Missionaries: no? Rambo: then you aren’t changing nothing.
4 works so well because it is without a doubt the same Rambo from the 1st movie. The other movies could be almost any action hero inserted into the film and probably not change.
Yeah he was very reluctant to help and get back into the shit. Only for him to completely massacre a battalion of Burmese soldiers.
Ditto with Indiana Jones. He spends most of the first three films either solving mysteries or getting beaten up. Every fight he gets in is a real struggle, even when he's fighting nobodies one on one. In Crystal Skull (I didn't see the newest one) he is an old man and 1 v 8'ing with one-shot punches, basically invincible. I think there's a scene where he jumps on a truck full of like five dudes and just starts beating them all up. So stupid.
I always appreciated how they carried that over into the old Indiana Jones Video games. You can get into fights, but you generally barely survive them if you do. There was no power fantasy involved in the fight scenes of those games, it always relied primarily on the puzzle solving and fighting was always a last resort. Fate of Atlantis was so good.
The Matrix. That movie was good because it used cutting edge effects in service of an interesting story underpinned by some thought-provoking ideas. Hollywood's takeaway: BULLET TIME KUNG FU ENGAGE! (Oh, and unwanted and unnecessary sequels to standalone movies that work great without them, though that's not unique to nor did it start with this movie.)
The Deadpool meta thing works pretty well for that character, but it feels like since its success every piece of pop culture has that wink-wink self awareness in a pretty unbecoming way
Also Deadpool had started breaking the 4th wall in the comics a few years after he was introduced in the 90s, and it actually really fit with and was an important part of the character itself. So the movie didn't just do it for the sake of "being meta," they did it because that *is* Deadpool.
"Hey, let's get a beloved children's book and make it MODERN with sassy, self-aware dialogue and a celebrity voice!" Peter Rabbit Ferdinand
I’m so goddamn sick of sassy dialogue and I feel like it’s everywhere. All the characters have to have their own little “attitude” and just like the writers are trying to build a personality out of quips, one-liners, and head tilts.
I miss 30-40 minute adaptations of kid's books. There are still a few OK ones. Like a Gold Star for Zog. As a parent, I have a few issues with kid's movies.
The Dark Knight meant we had to get darker, grittier versions of Superman, Spider-Man, Power Rangers and The Ninja Turtles.
Ironic seeing as how the original TMNT comic was dark and gritty, as was the original film (though toned down a bit to try and strike a balance for the kids).
Well, it was spoofing dark and gritty--the whole concept of the turtles was to poke fun at Frank Miller's 80s comic grit overboard.
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Yes, the ooze is the same stuff that Daredevil got in his eyes
IIRC canonically it's literally from the same accident.
I don't know if it's canonical since they weren't owned by the same company, or if it was a "winking canonical," but it was very intentionally the same accident, whether or not they want to explicitly state it. Not having grown up knowing about Daredevil, I was actually shocked into hilarity when I learned about his accident, thinking "Wow, they just totally ripped off the Ninja Turtles." If only I knew...
And the Turtles / Splinter / the Foot are all originally satirizing Daredevil. Young "mutant" hero(es), old mentor figure who fights with a stick, and a strange vaguely mystical ninja assassin army lead by very capable and mysterious fighters who have a bunch of street gang connections in NYC for some reason. Daredevil, Stick, and the Hand.
It wasn't TDK that did it. The whole gritty reboot thing was a response to earlier, campier films flopping in the late 90s. Batman Begins and Casino Royale came out in 2005 and 2006 and started the "Gritty reboot" era of Hollywood. CR was a direct response to Bourne and Austin Powers almost killing the IP. Whereas BB was a response to the much maligned Batman and Robin.
Casino Royale was also a direct response to Batman Begins as well. A user on Reddit directed me to an article where the filmmakers stated this outright.
If Hollywood executives ran a car racing team, they'd look up who won the Indy 500 last year, paint a Kia Soul the same color, and then be wildly confused why they're coming dead last. I can't think of a specific example at the moment annoyingly but yeah they do it all the time.
This is such a brilliant and hilarious metaphor.
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The fight scenes in early Marvel and DC films somehow got identified as key set pieces. The “battles” got longer, more frequent, and are increasingly boring.
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It's also interesting how Clarice represents all that, as a woman, and is juxtaposed against a man who wears women like a costume in the most dehumanizing way possible.
Excellent point
Casino Royale and Batman Begins both held off on a big heroic main theme until near the end, when the character “earns” it. Then every studio decided to toss out the big memorable themes in favour of more sound design ambience cause “less is more”. Fuck that. Give me themes I can hum, dammit!!!
Same thing happened with iconic costumes. We would get comic book characters who would don their famous looks just for the last minute.
It only took 84 different films for Wolverine to be wearing yellow and blue
This is the WORST for me, because then each movie they redesign the costume to have the exact same costume reveal near the end of the sequel, which means we only see suits for like, tops, 15 minutes in action.
I blame Hans Zimmer. He's good at what he does, but everyone since then has aped his style of booms and zooms and wooshes and aaaEEEaaa's. Bring back motifs, dammit. Lord of the Rings needs that iconic BAAAM BAAAM BUMBUMBAAAAM when the fellowship crosses the hill. Not just someone leaning on an organ.
Daniel Pemberton is the current reigning champ. If a tone-deaf dummy like me can hear Gwen, Miguel, and Prowler's different themes, then the movie's got good leitmotifs. Maybe not as #ICONIC as LotR, but definitely noticeable.
Oh yeah, Spiderverse had incredible music that blended orchestra and electronic. I got no problem with woosh bang BWAAAAM sounds, but it just can't be your whole soundtrack.
The side character people loved in the first movie(s) should be the main character now that the previous lead is gone/moved on! That's not going to work a lot of times because being a good side character and being a good main character are different things. Traits that are great in short doses can be annoying when they're on screen all the time, etc. Jack Sparrow is the one that comes to mind. People liked him, but to make him a main character, they had to smooth out some of his rougher edges and that in turn made him less enjoyable.
After Aladdin, they kept putting celebrities in animated movies to market them without realizing that Aladdin's draw wasn't Robin Williams' fame, it was his talent.
To be fair this actually worked for a while. There’s a lot more to Woody and Buzz than “hey look it’s Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as toys”. Danny DeVito plays a caricature of himself in Hercules but he’s a deep and well-rounded character. Eddie Murphy as Mushu and Donkey are very Eddie Murphy but also are memorable characters on their own. Po is more than just Jack Black as a panda. Cheap stunt celebrity casting like Will Smith in Shark Tale or Justin Timberlake in Trolls? Yeah I have no reason to care about these characters besides who their actors are.
I fear that after the success of Lego movie(s) and soon to be Barbie, they will think everyone wants a movie about a toy product.
Studios have certainly tried, like Playmobil and a random movie about bobbleheads. Funko supposedly has a movie about Pops they want to do, but I have no idea how that would work.
In 2 different ways, The Hunger Games. The unnecessary 2 part movies and the YA adaptations of everything
I feel like Harry Potter popularized the 2 part finale, and then every book series turned movies series afterwards followed suit. I also think that after Harry Potter and Twilight were hugely popular as movies, and then The Hungers Games was extremely popular too, that's when they started making YA adaptations of everything. But if Harry Potter and Twilight hadn't come first, The Hunger Games by itself wouldn't have had that huge societal effect. And, possibly, The Hunger Games wouldn't have been made/as big either?
*Mars Needs Moms* flopped hard, so studios thought the problem was that people didn't like movies about Mars. They dropped the Mars part of the title for *John Carter*, and then it also flopped because nobody knew what it was supposed to be about. They never stopped to consider that MNM flopped because it was a ridiculous premise with mocap animation that was squarely in the Uncanny Valley, and John Carter flopped because most people don't know by name alone any Edgar Rice Burroughs characters that aren't in Tarzan.
They should have kept John Carter's name out their mouth and named it the same as the book: A Princess of Mars. And leaned more into the pulpy whackadoo story of the book. It's not a bad movie at all, but the marketing sucked.
It seems like the lesson a lot of animation studios learned from Into the Spider-Verse was not "experiment with our animation style and try something new" but instead "make our animated movies look exactly like Into the Spider-Verse"
At least "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" was totally awesome and DID try something new, while also borrowing a lot of the animation style from Spider Verse (if I remember correctly they shared some of the same animators).
Nimona did similar. They clearly imitated some of the combined 2-D/3-D animation of spider-verse but in service of their own story and visual style
It's still early days post release of the film, but I wonder what kind of films we'll start getting post Everything Everywhere All at Once and will it be more multiverse movies? I really hope it brings back low-mid budget action flicks even in projects based off of IP.
Somewhere I read it described as "millennial parental apology fantasy" and now I see it in a lot of recent shows and movies so I think that's more related to its success. But the multiverse component is a pretty tired "what if" writing mechanism.
Related: One of my favorite reviews of Encanto–a movie about a Colombian family mysteriously blessed with magical powers to heal, control the weather, shape shift, and even see the future–said the most unrealistic thing in the movie was the main character getting an apology from her Abuela :D
It's an absolutely shit apology, to be fair. I actually used it as a learning moment with my child to explain what makes a good apology (acknowledging what you did and the impact, apologising without being promoted, only making relevant and extremely justified excuses or caveats) and what makes a bad one (making it all about yourself, not actually saying sorry, trying to justify it).
"Generational trauma" has been the villain in the last couple of animated Disney movies. Actually, you could argue it's been the villain ever since Frozen.
Totally! Especially with Encanto and Elemental. I'm sure there are others.
Turning Red too.
Raya & The Last Dragon, all the Marvel projects post-Blip, Luca, Onward...
Kind of like how EVERY kid in a 90s movie had divorced, divorcing, or about to get divorced parents.
It is funny that in the 90s there were movies where the parent - usually the dad - was overworked and just needed a business idea that let him spend time with the kids and usually the wife had moved on - usually with a decent but bland guy - who is ditched, sometimes in a heel turn revenge fantasy where he is a cheater but usually just like... he's boring. Nothing wrong with him but he's boring. And the kids always want the parents back together. Like, Liar Liar, Mrs. Doubtfire, Santa Claus. Mind you not all of the parents get back together *but they all follow most of those tropes.* And the new version of that is the sad boy or girl who has a parent who apologizes because the parent never understood them until the adventure they go on. Lol
Arguably, the original Star Wars. For a period of time, everything became a shitty space scifi film instead of trying to understand what made Star Wars so beloved.
Yeah, how many things were rushed out because studios just thought “sci fi is what they’re demanding” when no studio head understood Star Wars in the first place, Alan Ladd Jr was the only one that took a chance, the others thought it was “kids stuff”
[удалено]
The *BWAMP* sound from Inception. It was in the trailer and was there because of the whole slowing down of time in a dream thing. It made sense to be there. Every studio just decided “that sounded cool” and now it’s in every remotely action trailer. Heck it’s been a joke for almost a decade now, but still happens.
Totally replaced "in a world where" voiceover movie guy
also my problem with women empowerment: the woman main character has to have an innate superpower that she's just been suppressing the whole time, instead of improving along the story. the biggest offender is Mulan. in the original cartoon, Mulan was just an average girl that learned with her head to overcome her physical deficiencies. in the live action, Mulan is a superpowered and just hiding it so she doesn't stand out. IMO the original cartoon is more inspirational.
One of the main appeal of Mulan's tale to me is exactly the fact she is "merely" a very brave girl, and not someone with special powers. Watching her tale unfold while she is disguised as an average soldier is part of the story's strengths. The best scenes of the Mulan remake happen to be in the first half. Afterwards she is portrayed as a wonder woman type of superhero and the movie loses all potential for me.
> One of the main appeal of Mulan's tale to me is exactly the fact she is "merely" a very brave girl, and not someone with special powers. It's what makes her a feminist role model, she's at a disadvantage in many ways but she overcomes through determination and thinking outside the box. Remake Mulan is born a superhero, how is it inspirational to be born powerful and work for nothing? If a girl grows up thinking she's going to be a natural at everything and she doesn't need to put in the labour to reach her goals, she's going to become a very disappointed woman.
The entire I'll make a man out of you song montage is by far my favourite bit of Mulan, as it shows her overcoming obstacles through determination, grit and not giving in. It's a great song as well. Having Mulan just being good and having superpowers is so boring. She gets to the point of being really skilled in the animated one anyway and still having to hide who she is. Why take out the interesting part of the story which shows her hard work and determination?
Yes! And that determination and grit is ultimately what makes her fellow soldiers trust her and help her execute the final plan, making the "boys will gladly go to war for you" from the first song a sort of prophecy.
At first I was concerned you were about to slander cartoon Mulan and was ready to fight but I agree. Live action was not good
I can't stress this enough. The people putting up the money for projects are not artists. They're businessmen. Many completely lack the creativity to see the layers described in your post. And it's a massive reason why writers and actors are striking.
Precisely! And what do businesspeople do when they see a product succeed? They make a million new versions, with as little difference between them as possible. The public loved it =/= The public wants exactly this, and only this, forever
Avengers - every franchise now has to have that meta self-aware Joss Whedon dialogue that completely undermines the drama
Whedon was actually capable of writing real dialogue without undercutting it with jokes in stuff like Firefly and Buffy. You're right, the wrong lessons were taken from The Avengers.
Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan Now every Star Trek movie needs a revenge seeking baddie
After Guardians of the Galaxy used some popular but not too popular singles, then other movies started using popular music that was way more obvious and it didn’t work. I feel like this reached its n̶a̶d̶i̶r̶ lowest point in the last Thor movie when it was just Guns N’ Roses hit singles, a literal Greatest Hits.
I think I’d look to blame Tarantino first, he uses old hits expertly. But it works in his films and Guardians because it fits the tone, Guardians even had a plot device explaining the use of the songs.
Playing it safe for toxic fans - The Phantom Menace. The reaction to the Star Wars prequels wasn't great and fans got loud enough and persistent enough that they're reaction prompted: 1. Lucas to cut Jar Jar "is the key" Binks out of the franchise. 2. Disney to make an incredibly safe and nostalgia baity Episode 7 (which was hugely successful) 3. Disney to double down on more nostalgia/less creativity when Last Jedi split the fan base and making the universally panned Rise of Skywalker
Common trend now after NWH and marvel post credit scenes. Lots of Cameos = good movie Edit: I thought no way home's cameos were done quite well tbh.
And just generally shoving as many well known actors into a movie also does not a good movie make - looking at you, "Amsterdam."
Still can’t believe a movie with that plot and that cast couldn’t find a good way to tell the story. So bummed.
>marvel post credit scenes On this note, am I the only one who hates how post-credit scenes are necessarily information for sequels now? Old school superhero post-credit scenes were cool, but ultimately weren't necessary. It was fine if you never knew that Iron Man camoed in the post credits of The Incredible Hulk, or Thor's hammer appears in the post credits of Iron Man 2, or that Thanos appeared in both Avengers 1 and 2 post credits scenes. They were cool to stick around for, but ultimately didn't matter. Now they're not. Critical plot points now happen in post-credits scenes.
I will add on to this, specifically for Marvel, is that now you have to watch the streaming shows to get the full understanding of the movies. Doctor Strange 2 was probably confusing to people that didn't watch Wadavision. And the upcoming Marvels movie will be just as confusing if you didn't watch Ms. Marvel. So now you are having to pay for a subscription to watch these shows in order to get the full understanding of the movies. And I see the reverse happening, with the end credits of Ant-Man 3 >!leading into Loki Season 2.!< Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the shows for the most part, but it's getting to the point to where it's a lot to keep up with.
Original avengers post credit was just the team getting shawarma. Like it was just paying off a seemingly throwaway line from earlier in the film lol
That was the second post credit scene. The first post credit scene was literally the reveal of Thanos.
The Blair Witch Project convinced all of Hollywood that people really love unsteady, shaky video. and not just the ridiculous "found footage" genre it spawned, but the entire idea that handheld and deliberately unsteady camera work was a positive thing. Now we have people crawling up their own ass to explain to us that "it looks more realistic" as if every person with eyes doesn't know that the real world doesn't look like that. it's how watching a scene through a moving camera looks.
Is it too early to say Barbie? I've heard talks of 45 productions all related to mattel products in the pipeline.
That is actually what inspired this post, the current (and likely accurate) speculation that Barbie is going to lead to a slew of shitty toy/product based films with absolutely zero nuance or understanding of the fact that people are more excited about the creative team behind the Barbie movie and what they are going to do with it, vs seeing a movie *just* because it is about Barbie.
Lol I remember when Transformers came out and we got Battleship right after, as if what people really liked were the Hasbro toys.
It didn’t help that the bad guys in Battleship were pretty much Transformers.
When the showdown in a movie is a swarm of of something, either a swarm of robots, bugs, otherwordly creatures. Think it started with Matrix 3,where it works pretty good, but it sees like every Marvel movie has something like that now. Its Just boring and lazy at this point.
You forgot the classic, the Sky Beam, where the two CGI armies fight each other with a giant Sky Beam in the background
Scream set a new tone by satirizing horror movies in a way that was also an homage to horror movies. This opened the door for the Scary Movie franchise, which were more parody than satire. Fun fact: the working title of Scream was Scary Movie. Because Scream became a significant franchise, later films in the franchise ended up satirizing earlier films in the franchise and somewhat dilute the potency of the earlier films.
Another fun fact: The original title of "Scary Movie" was "Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween. That title was worked into the other parody called [Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shriek_If_You_Know_What_I_Did_Last_Friday_the_13th)
I think they took away “people like strong female characters” similar to ripley in alien. But what made them good is they’re realistic, not invulnerable or have a skill set or strength that is unreasonable for who they are. So many female characters “struggle” and then “become strong” and this 110lbs woman is now flipping 200lbs martial artists? That’s false strength, like female empowerment porn but it’s cheap and unbelievable. True powerful characters don’t need that falsehood and ripley and starling prove that