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Visualization: Movies Are Getting Worse
- pclark 16y agoHuge Moki.TV fan (http://moki.tv/2481 http://moki.tv/2481). But also a huge movie fan. I entirely disagree. Think about this years movies: The Social Network The Kings Speech Inception Black Swan True Grit Will all almost certainly become classics.
- weego 16y agoDon't you feel this might be kind of a cognitive bias? Like when people poll for the best album of all time and it's always something that was released within the last 3 years of whenever the poll was. The social network is of it's time and will date really badly, to the point where no one will watch or mention it ever again. True Grit is a remake so specifically cannot be included as it had to be good enough to have been remade. Inception isn't ever going to be a classic a la The Matrix. The Kings Speech will definitely have longevity; Black Swan I'm not convinced will float above just being another film you can pick up for £3 in HMV in a couple of months but then think "well, will I ever watch it?"
- derleth 16y ago> True Grit is a remake So was the 1939 Wizard of Oz. > Inception isn't ever going to be a classic a la The Matrix. And you know this because...
- sigzero 16y agoHe is using his own subjectivity like the OP did. Just because they get Oscar's doesn't guarantee anything at all. True Grit while good was such a pale movie compared to the original John Wayne version.
- derleth 16y ago> True Grit while good was such a pale movie compared to the original John Wayne version. And in the reviews I read, it was better than the John Wayne movie, because it was more of an adult film.
- pclark 16y agoI chose these movies not necessarily because I felt they were superb (although I loved them all) but because they were critically acclaimed and all received lots of oscar nominations. Almost by definition, they are the best films of the year. If you compare it to nominated movies ten years ago, Braveheart, Apollo 13, I think they are comparably great. Additionally, box office returns seem to be at all time highs. Black Swan and True Grit are two films that typically would be destined for "niche" audiences, but have returned hundreds of millions for reasonably small budgets. Also, I think that Inception will be almost as influential as The Matrix, except in a smaller genre of films (eg: Matrix built upon action movies, whereas Inception was more of a psych thriller) - in my opinion.
- Gibbon 16y agoI never found Apollo 13 to be a compelling movie. It's so true to life that you could just watch the documentaries and get the exact same experience.
- Travis 16y agoBox office returns at an all time high? With or without adjusting for the increase in ticket prices (i.e., I seriously want to know how many tickets were sold per capita)?
- IDisposableHero 16y agoThe social network is of it's time and will date really badly, to the point where no one will watch or mention it ever again. I totally agree that The social network is of it's time but totally disagree that will date really badly. The social network is about its time, and has excellent structure and dialog too. Time will tell if it becomes a classic, but as a snapshot of .dot com boom era it's excellent, and will remain so. How can one write a social history of the years 2000-2010 without mentioning social networks and facebook in particular?
- light3 16y ago> The Social Network - Sort of knew the story and acting was pretty ordinary. > Inception - Cool story and nice effects, very captivating movie, made me think a little bit, but the ideas of the movie are too far fetched. > True Grit - I didn't see the original, couldn't work out whether it was fiction until near the middle, and then it just went downhill, for me the girl did the best acting. Worth watching? Definitely, become classics? Probably not, they're all missing the extra magic sauce.
- pg 16y agoInteresting. I'd just been thinking about this. The last two new releases I tried watching were so bad that I couldn't finish either of them. I know this is only 2 data points, but they were both bad in the same way: they were completely predictable. That's something you commonly see in a declining medium. People recycle old ideas instead of having new ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spolia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spolia
- anigbrowl 16y agoHow much of this is a failure of the medium, though, rather than of individuals' jaded palates coupled with the availability of almost all hit movies from the past for instant home viewing? We tend to glamorize earlier generations of the movie industry because some of their products have stood the test of time so well, while overlooking the abundance of terrible films that came out around the same time. I do think that plotting, which is only one element of a film, tends to get more predictable as viewers age. There are only so many basic dramatic situations, and nowadays genre tropes are so well-defined and well-known that almost anything is going to look familiar and derivative to somebody, and be blogged about in such terms. On the other hand, a good film can be enjoyed repeatedly, despite the element of surprise being gone after the first viewing; the pleasure is in the quality of the execution rather than in the novelty of the story development.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- larrik 16y agoI find most movies to be predictable. "Hero's Journey" and all that. But I assume you mean less structural, and more like knowing exactly what they are going to say (or what jokes they'll use for a situation). I hate that. But still, movies are (generally) business first, and art second. They don't even want to be "new"... just "fresh".
- gnaritas 16y agoNothing wrong with predictable, humans have been telling the same basic stories plot-wise for thousands of years. It's about how well you tell the story, not whether the story is original or not; originality is great, but it's too rare to be a requirement. You'd be crazy to make a movie, and not try and pull on the well known well loved plot lines. It'd be like trying to make music with chords no one has ever heard; it'd be terrible. People want something familiar.
- AndrewO 16y agoAlthough I agree with the statement in general, I have to ask: is polarization really a good measure of declining quality? With ticket prices these days, maybe a higher percentage of audiences are more likely to think it was good so they don't feel like they wasted money... Either way, nice visualization and it's always fun to read catty reviews about bad movies.
- bmelton 16y agoI'm not sure if I'm reading the visualizations correctly, but thankfully, they put Christopher Nolan on there, so I can have a reference as to whose work is best. ;-) I do have to agree with AndrewO though, there are many movies that I consider to be of the highest quality that I would consider as eliciting heavy polar reactions. Primer is perhaps the best geek example.
- larrik 16y agoThis article makes two huge assumptions: 1) Critical meta-ratings as THE measure of quality 2) The Top 20 popular movies per year as a representation of the entire year's quality. The author's final result seems to be that movie studios prefer to make movies that have a built-in audience (at least for big-budget blockbuster movies).
- notahacker 16y agoAssuming the ratings have been made since the launch of the site, there's also a massive systematic error introduced by people being inclined to forget films they considered to be pretty rubbish a decade ago, whilst being determined to challenge popular opinion on the stuff they wished they hadn't watched last year. Whilst people feel the need to use ranking systems to express their dismay at Avatar not being the experience they'd hoped for and correct their teenage daughter's friends' belief that the Twilight Saga is deep and insightful, it's mostly the people that actually consider themselves fans of Adam Sandler and Hugh Grant's stock characters that bother to go and rate Happy Gilmore and Four Weddings and a Funeral.
- earnubs 16y agoThe 80s was the greatest decade for movies. Sadly I cannot prove that from this graph.
- stop 16y agoI'm inclined to think the 70s was the golden age of American cinema (Scorcese, Copolla, Cassavetes, etc).
- jameskilton 16y agoIn other news, those damn kids have it too easy these days, had to walk 10 miles, bare foot, in 10 feet of snow, up hill... Sensationalist title and a data visualization that's useless. Try average Rotten Tomatoes score or something, not some random stat with no formula made up on the spot. Seriously, what does "polarizing" actually stand for? This kind of thing has been going on since the beginning of time and will continue until the end of it. Sorry, nothing to see here.
- CPlatypus 16y agoRTFA. "We looked at how polarizing each movie is by measuring the standard deviation of the ratings for each movie." That's pretty clear, even if it's still a bad measure. There are plenty of valid criticisms of this survey; you don't need to make stuff up based on skimming it before you post your predetermined conclusions.
- barrkel 16y agoTwo things: * I don't think polarization is a good signal for poor quality; I would rather suggest it means a more niche product, more highly focused. That the niche being served is largely adolescents is unfortunate. * I think big-budget movies have been getting more conservative and predictable, but I would hazard a guess that it's due to financial industry turmoil and consequently less desire for risk taking.
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago"That the niche being served is largely adolescents is unfortunate." That is the power of the high school date movie crowd at work.
- munificent 16y agoIt's more than just date movies. High school kids have lots of disposable income, few bills, plenty of time to kill, can't get into bars, and don't need get hire a babysitter. College kids have lots of other things to spend their money on, like booze and, uh, booze. Once you're past that age, the odds of having kids goes up and then going to a movie becomes a major outing. For my wife and I to see a movie in the theatre now, we'll have to shell out close to $80. It's just not worth it, especially as home theatres keep getting better and better.
- bingaman 16y agoYou don't have to buy the $60 popcorn.
- jacques_chester 16y agoYour kids expect to see the overpriced 3D version though. That'll be $20 per ticket, please.
- burgerbrain 16y agoLearn to say "No."?
- yarone 16y agoAnyone know how they created that really nice graph with the mouseovers, filtering, etc?
- huangm 16y agoWe heavily adapted http://moochart.coneri.se/ http://moochart.coneri.se/ for the graph.
- sliverstorm 16y agoIf you look closely at the graph, notice that while there are more poorly rated, highly polarizing films, there is also an increase in less polarizing, very highly rated films... They're just hidden because your eyes are drawn upwards to the red. If you only pay attention to the red, it's just a chart about polarization.
- foulmouthboy 16y agoWhy would extremely polarizing movies be an indicator that movies are getting worse? If anything, more polarization would seem to mean that critics are finding movies more difficult to come to consensus on, which could mean that movies are getting MORE complex and nuanced in their storytelling, which in tern could be taken to mean that movies are getting BETTER.
- haploid 16y agoGood point. Sparkly vampire movies produced and marketed with the express intent of playing on the hormones of teenage girls tend to be extremely complex and nuanced.
- Corvus 16y agoThe reason extremely polarizing movies are an indicator that movies are getting worse is because that is what Moki's data shows. Their graph shows that "polarizing" movies are strongly correlated with low ratings by Moki users (not just critics), and that both are increasing over time (i.e. getting worse). Moki does not claim one causes the other, or try to psychoanalyze users based on their ratings. They simply note that it does exist.
- foulmouthboy 16y agoThen I'm not understanding the definition of "polarizing". By my thinking, a polarizing movie would have distinctly good ratings to go alongside distinctly bad ratings, i.e. Twilight is not polarizing if everybody agrees it is bad.
- Splines 16y agoPeople recycle old ideas instead of having new ones. IMO this is a weak argument - you could say the same thing about startups. When it comes to creative work, it's all about the execution. Just because a story is being retold doesn't automatically make it bad. Similarly, just because a story has been told before doesn't mean you can't tell it again.
- commieneko 16y agoRobert Heinlein once wrote (On the Writing of Speculative Fiction) that, gimmicks aside, there were only 3 stories that were about people: Boy meets girl. The little tailor. The man who learned better.
- burgerbrain 16y agoWhich is Die Hard?
- commieneko 16y agoThe man who learned better.
- burgerbrain 16y agoHow so? Seems to me it's just "the man who kicked lots of ass". He certainly didn't learn better, since John McClane proceeded to find himself in similar situations 3 more times :P
- zeemonkee 16y agoOnly if you are referring to John McClane. "The man who learned better" could be Alan Rickman and all the other villains whose ass he kicked.
- commieneko 16y agoWatch the movie again and think really hard...
- bretthopper 16y agoOne explanation behind increasing polarization could be the internet. I would assume that there are more movie critics now, or at least critics are more visible. Thanks to sites like Rotten Tomatoes, even a local newspaper critic can have global reach. Due to this visibility, it's harder for critics to stand out. The easiest way to stand out is to be extreme or contrarian which would lead to more polarization.
- tpz 16y agoYour point is a very important one that I was surprised to find was not expressed by other commenters. It convinced me of something that was bouncing around my head while reading the article and the comments before yours: If, as everyone seems to agree, movies are becoming more 'safe', more 'lowest common denominator' on average, reviews should be becoming _less_ polarized in response, not more. That the opposite is happening suggests that reviews are progressively carrying less and less 'truth' than they once did, and this is likely the case even when they may be in general agreement on a given film.
- bostonpete 16y ago> The key, we think, is to look for movies that some love and some hate, which is the likely profile of a bad movie that's "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase. But according to the graph, Toy Story 3 was the least polarizing movie of 2010 and that seems like a prime example of a movie "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase.
- huangm 16y agoI'd argue that looking at polarization is a good way to detect such movies, but that not all such movies are polarizing.
- bostonpete 16y agoOK, then what about The Blair Witch Project? One of the most polarizing movies on the graph, but not exactly what you'd call "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase.
- rflrob 16y ago> not exactly what you'd call "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase. I'd say a film having a budget of $22k[1] is pretty safe, as far as the rest of the films on that list are concerned. While not a non-trivial amount of debt for a handful of people to take on, it's roughly in the same price range as a new car, which most people are capable of taking on. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project#Budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project#Budget
- rflrob 16y agoI think it's fair to say that the Toy Story movies (and possibly Pixar movies in general) is an exception to the Polarizing Sequels trend, similar to the Batman franchise. I'd be curious to see a filter that lets you select films by studio and/or distributor.
- JonnieCache 16y ago>But according to the graph, Toy Story 3 was the least polarizing movie of 2010 and that seems like a prime example of a movie "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase. I think this is likely due to that fact that Toy Story 3 was superior to Toy Story 2, leaving people pleasantly surprised. (It is actually unexpectedly complex. The first scene features the toys calmly discussing and preparing for their own deaths. It's quite stark.)
- rlmw 16y agoIts a really interesting article, but their methodology doesn't support their conclusion. I'm willing to accept critical rankings as a measure of quality, since I can't think of a better way of mapping the subjective notion of quality to a quantitative measure. There are still some dodgey things being done here though: 1. Polarization as a measure of quality 2. Choice of the top 20 movies as a selection measure. The article should really be title: "Popular movies are becoming more polarizing". Though I concede that blogs like this are written to attract hits and "Movies are getting worse" is probably more likely to achieve that.
- keeptrying 16y agoI think its more that no one is taking the time to write great and compelling stories. It takes time and patience and a lot of effort to create a story like the The Lord of the Rings. And the movies that are really good are ones with a great story behind them. Hollywood seems to be just mining stories from the past. Its gonna run out at some point and all we'll get are sequels. There needs to be some infusion of creativity. "Contemporary" creativity. Ie new but compelling and interesting stories. It seems to be a lost skill.
- gnaritas 16y ago> I think its more that no one is taking the time to write great and compelling stories. Seriously? Pick up a book, that's so far from true it isn't even funny. > It takes time and patience and a lot of effort to create a story like the The Lord of the Rings. Sure, and there's a ton of them already out there in the form of books. > Hollywood seems to be just mining stories from the past. Its gonna run out at some point and all we'll get are sequels. You can't run out of mining stories from the past; more great stories have already been written than will likely ever be able to be put on film. > There needs to be some infusion of creativity. "Contemporary" creativity. Ie new but compelling and interesting stories. It seems to be a lost skill. Or you're simply misdiagnosing the problem. Perhaps movies just suck more recently because exec's have gotten really good at shooting for the lowest common denominator to gain the largest audience and thus revenue. Making money is not a guarantee of a great movie and great movies are quite often box office failures because they're too niche, by necessity. The more the business folks pull the strings, the worse the movies will be artistically, but their goal is money, so they don't care, nor should they. Movies will become great again, when Avatar style technology drives down the cost of making one to the point that making cheaper niche movies can be profitable.
- light3 16y agoWatching old movies like Star wars, Indiana Jones, old Bond movies, you get the sense that a lot of work was put in to creating the scenes. It must have been very expensive to make, was it because revenue was very high back then?
- dawgr 16y agoSome recent good movies: -Animal Kingdom (Australian crime film) -True Grit (Western) -How to train your dragon (Pixar film)
- rexf 16y agoThe 3rd one is by DreamWorks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon_(film) Pixar is currently in the sequel game. Toy Story 3 last year, and Cars 2 scheduled for this year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pixar_films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pixar_films
- dawgr 16y agoYeah, you are right, I always confuse the two.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- gamble 16y agoThe appropriate measure is not whether bad movies are made; (or popular) it's whether good films are still produced. There is some room for concern - mid-budget films for adults like, for example, 'Master and Commander' are essentially dead. The economics of film push studios to make blockbusters or low-budget films. Still, there are enough good low-budget films still being produced that I won't give in to despair just yet.
- michaelty 16y agoIt probably hasn't helped that TV can now feature long-running complex shows (Lost, the Sopranos, the Wire, Dexter, Mad Men, the Office, etc) that 2 hour movies can't beat in terms of character exploration and plot depth.
- commieneko 16y agoIt's all relative, and trying to apply "scientific visualization" to literary criticism is not an especially useful activity. (Applying it to literary markets is another matter...) Interestingly, I liked the Matrix sequels, the 3rd Spiderman movie, and thought the Star Wars prequels were pretty good (though not as good as _Empire_). And having been around at the time depicted in the latest Indiana Jones movie, late 50s early 60s, I enjoyed it tremendously. I'm in my early 50s, and one of the things I've noticed over the years is that I become _less_ critical of movies and literature as I get older. That is to say I'm much more tolerant of elements in a movie or story that would drive me nuts when I was younger. When you are very young, everything is new and wonderful, then you become an adult and suddenly you start to notice that "hey, I've seen this type of story before. And I liked it better then!" Of course most likely the story wasn't all that new when you saw it first, but it was new to _you_. There are very few truly new storie. As you get older, though, you often start looking not at the flash and the surface of stories, but at the quality of execution, at the subtleties of exposition, and the nuance of character. You also can view the story in a larger context, both your own context, and the context of history. And, more importantly, you stop comparing the _qualities_ of works to the _feelings_ you had when you were twelve years old. I can tell you for sure, _nothing_ is ever going to be as much fun as whatever it was that was pushing your buttons when you were a kid. As they used to say in old school science fiction fandom, "the golden age is twelve." Sad, but true. In compensation, though, you do get a possibly deeper appreciation, and, if you let it happen, a broader range of tastes. If you had told me 30-40 years ago that one of my favorite genres would be josei anime and manga I would have laughed in your face; once you'd explained to me what that was... Having said all that, the vast bulk of movies at any given time follows Sturgeon's Law pretty closely. Mostly shit. We remember the gems of the past and in aggregate they seem to add up to a larger sum than the current year's turkeys. I seem to go to the movies about as much as I did in my 20s and seem to be enjoying them at about the same rate.
- yread 16y agoEh non-english speaking movies don't exist anymore?
- rottencupcakes 16y agoWhat specifically do you think is missing? Remember, it's only the 20 most popular films in a given year. Oldboy (Korea), City of God (Brazil), Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico), and Spirited Away (Japan) are all on those, and that's not an exhaustive list.
- JonnieCache 16y agoI think his point is that bollywood (for example) is bigger than hollywood by most measures (budget, gross etc.)
- InclinedPlane 16y agocitation needed By my research Bollywood's total annual revenues are barely a third of Hollywood revenues for theatrical releases alone (aside from dvd, broadcast, and digital distribution revenues).
- Sukotto 16y agoAs a bit of a tangent, I'd like to mention a movie ranking site I think is pretty underrated http://www.phi-phenomenon.org/ http://www.phi-phenomenon.org/ which uses some interesting statistical methods to aggregate "best of" lists
- andraz 16y agoWhen were those movie rated? Now or at the time of the release? If they were rated recently then there is obvious bias there. Yes/no?
- Gibbon 16y agoPolarization is a measure of the assertiveness of an artist.. the degree to which they have executed an opinionated concept for a specific audience. A niche film should be as highly opinionated as possible, with the objective of both catering to your chosen market and excluding all others intentionally. For example, the musical act Prodigy do not do TV performances. This is a mainstream marketing method that does not appeal to their audience. By avoiding it, they increase their appeal to their true fans, while ignoring uninterested listeners. Likewise, the singer Adele does not perform at music festivals for the same reason. The ideal niche product would repel exactly half the critics and attract the other half. This would create a core of hardcore evangelists, a bigger group of fans, a big group of uninterested bystanders and a small group of haters. The haters and bystanders can mostly be ignored, making marketing super-efficient. Lack of polarization is a measure of beauty and popularity. Beauty is a measure of average-ness and normality. The most beautiful person in a given society is the one that looks the most an average of all the people. The most popular movie is the one that everyone can relate to.. the most profoundly average. Case in point.. the Shawshank Redemption. This is a movie that is consistently voted one of the best ever made, but it's highly rated because of its familiarity. It's a near flawless execution of common mythologies that everyone can relate to: fall from grace, redemption, justice, freedom and so on. Toy Story is another example. Pixar's entire methodology is to distill the world's archetypes and mythologies down into the "perfect" movie with every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed. The result is profoundly familiar, yet kept fresh with just enough plot twists and humour to keep it interesting. Niche movies are just popular movies for specific groups instead of a general audience. Polarization is a measure of how effectively they achieved the goal.
- dadro 16y ago1992 was a good year in movies!
- petercooper 16y agoThe key, we think, is to look for movies that some love and some hate, which is the likely profile of a bad movie that's "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase. Some people love death metal and some hate it. Some people love classical music and some hate it. Polarization is hardly a quality indicator. Indeed, it seems more like an indicator of memorability.
- aaronbrethorst 16y agoThere was a great article about the decline in the quality of movies in GQ recently. http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201102/the-day-the-movies-died-mark-harris?printable=true http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201102/the-day...
- hammock 16y agoThe coolest thing about this is the visualizations. That's great work creating an interactive piece in HTML5.
- ootachi 16y agoMight want to mention that your chart works fine in Firefox 4 as well. The "Works best in Google Chrome" gives me eerie memories of the "Best Viewed in Internet Explorer" days.
- cafard 16y agoA bit over 25 years ago, I saw _Top Gun_ and told my girlfriend that people had forgotten how to make movies, though they did know how to make commercials and music videos. I don't think that I was wrong, but I may have implicitly given too much credit to the movie makers of years past.There were a lot of awful movies made during times that at least the film critics look back on with nostalgia.
- ovi256 16y agoOT: that website is horrible in Firefox, 100+ assets, 25 secs to the onload event, and afterwards it locks up periodically because of the chartbeat analytics ajax call. In Chrome, it's a breeze, fast load and then completely fluid. Chrome is magic. PS: the Firefox UI freeze on ajax calls seems to be a Mac specific problem.