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I think the whole industry has degenerated to producing uninspiring grub. No wonder they have mastered it. Everything coming out of the company is CGI+emotional

I think the whole industry has degenerated to producing uninspiring grub. No wonder they have mastered it. Everything coming out of the company is CGI+emotional response maximization with little new themes. They should revert to making things that don’t scale, hire screenwriters with original ideas that are difficult to translate to movies, etc. A friend of mine regularly compares Quentin Tarantino’s early movies to today’s mass produced boredom. Calling it MBA filmmaking. It reminds me of an industry running on Amazon’s recommendation engine, only making derivatives of existing successes.

karp773 4y ago
100%. While we are at this, I am happy to share my heuristic for sifting "uninspiring grub" from quality shows. Two words: theme song. If the protagonists wander around in silence on a CGI generated background, that's a hard pass right away. Unfortunately, most of Netflix originals fall into this category.
- silvester23 4y ago
  Could you give an example of such an intro? I'm not entirely sure what style you are referring to and am quite curious.
  - moritonal 4y ago
    Dur dir duh, der der der. duh duh duh, dih dih dih dih dih! - Indiana Jones Duh.. Duh.. Dih dih dir! Dir Di dih dih dir dir du du duh! - Star Trek - Next Gen
  - bombcar 4y ago
    dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead aaaaaaaaaaaaant
  - karp773 4y ago
    The Bourne Identity, Skyfall, Game of Thrones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and so on. It does not have to be original. And I don't mean only the intro but the entire soundtrack. Often, the theme song is reused over and over during the film with many variations to set the tone of a scene. Bad movies skimp on soundtracks.
thebradbain 4y ago
As someone who lives in Los Angeles and is mostly surrounded by people in film/tv, the indie film industry is a LOT bigger than many people outside of the know realize. And I’m so thankful for that, because that’s where the “things that don’t scale, … original ideas that are difficult to translate to movies, etc” flourish. In a way, the indie movie scene is in better shape than it ever has been— with well-known big name actors even hopping in now and then. You could argue the indie scene is similar to the startup scene in SV. You have investors/producers pretty much funding these films based on team/talent and a pitch alone, with the festival circuit (could be considered an analog to SV demo-days or investor powows) essentially serving as a way to get bought by big studios for potential wide release, limited-release runs (which can still make a lot of money for those involved), or teams hired/screenplays bought and adapted by other studios. You can even make it big right out of college (or in college) [1] with little-to-no connections, though of course even more-so than SV a name and pedigree gets you further faster. There’s so much in LA (and NYC) that gets released in theaters only locally, and the city is better for it. It’s the wide-release that, almost by definition, must serve lowest common denominator in order to make its 8/9-figure budget back in a span of months (tech companies get years!!). It’s sad that SF and LA, so close geographically, have industries so socially polarized to each other in every way, since there’s really a lot of overlap when you get down to it (and each industry could definitely learn things from the other) [1] https://variety.com/2022/film/news/apple-cha-cha-real-smooth-sundance-cooper-raiff-dakota-johnson-1235163370/ https://variety.com/2022/film/news/apple-cha-cha-real-smooth...
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  > There’s so much in LA (and NYC) that gets released in theaters only locally, and the city is better for it. There are arthouse movie theaters throughout that play the same movies that you think are only locally shown in LA/NYC. You just need the right context (near a university, for example).
  - thebradbain 4y ago
    Yes! Exactly. You can find glimpses of the indie scene in many places, if you know where to look for it. But they’re not as pervasive/all-encompassing outside those two cities. Chicago/Austin have scenes, but they’re smaller; Georgia sort of does, too, but it’s more corporate/extensions of big Hollywood studios than an independent community.
jtwaleson 4y ago
To clarify: Does your friend mean that Tarantino’s early movies are also mass produced boredom or the opposite?
- karp773 4y ago
  Tarantino movies are anything but mass produced, really.
  - jtwaleson 4y ago
    I agree but the sentence could be read either way. It’s early morning here and I was confused about the point that GP was making.
- lokimedes 4y ago
  No, he uses them as examples of how quality storytelling on a budget outcompetes the opposite. The problem with the “MBA thinking” is that it can’t quantify that quality beforehand, and makes the safer but more expensive bet on incremental development.
sundvor 4y ago
Yes. I showed my 12 year old son Die Hard for the first time the other day. He absolutely (...) loved it. Unprompted, he talked about how good all the effects were - they didn't look like the bland CGI he is used to. And he absolutely loved the movie. Zero political correctness. So incredibly liberating. (A few scenes had me question the parenting choice of showing DH to a 12 year old, but it'd been at least a decade since I saw it last).
- samwillis 4y ago
  I think watching DieHard with your kid is a good choice. The journey to adulthood isn't instantaneous at 18, parents should help to guide the kids there. Introducing them to adult cultural experiences at home, and then talking about it, is an awesome thing to do. Plus DieHard is one of the best movies ever made! (Have an 8th so not reached that stage myself yet)
  - sundvor 4y ago
    It was an amazing bonding time actually, so yes very good points. There were quite a few things to explain. All the best for the journey ahead!
    - b112 4y ago
      Back to the Future seems to resonate well with modern youth too.
      - r00fus 4y ago
        Showed BTTF and BTTF2 to my 9 year old twins a few years ago. They loved the films. Not sure what they didn't get - even the concept of alternate timelines seemed fairly well absorbed.
        bombcar 4y ago
        The main things missed are probably all the various in-jokes, but that's not really important to the story. Also "we'll travel to the FAR FUTURE" being when they were two years old has to be amusing (and sobering, to us olds).
scarface74 4y ago
It’s often been posited that there are only seven plots that all stories are based on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots That being said, I just saw Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I thought it dealt with personal issues very well. She Hulk as much as it was derided, was also a different type of MCU show and it was self aware enough to know that Marvel had gotten too formulaic.
jfengel 4y ago
I find singling out Tarantino kind of odd here. He's an indie-style filmmaker who attracted a lot of attention and now makes big-budget movies with very big stars. Which is great, for those who like his particular films. But there are literally thousands of other filmmakers making films every year who don't attract the kind of attention Tarantino does. His films aren't better than theirs -- he's just famous enough that we've all heard of him, and he continues to produce exactly the kinds of thing that you specifically like. There are tons of things to dig into if you want. Netflix does a better job than most of surfacing small filmmakers (because they can get them cheaply). Film festivals have even more -- more than you can possibly watch in ten lifetimes. Most of it, of course, is dreck -- same as everything else. I'm glad your friend likes Tarantino, but it just feels a bit like saying, "Gosh, I wish they made more stuff like Tarantino." What I want is an alternative to both Tarantino and the major studios -- and it exists. It just takes more effort.

karp773 4y ago

100%. While we are at this, I am happy to share my heuristic for sifting "uninspiring grub" from quality shows. Two words: theme song. If the protagonists wander around in silence on a CGI generated background, that's a hard pass right away. Unfortunately, most of Netflix originals fall into this category.

silvester23 4y ago
Could you give an example of such an intro? I'm not entirely sure what style you are referring to and am quite curious.
- moritonal 4y ago
  Dur dir duh, der der der. duh duh duh, dih dih dih dih dih! - Indiana Jones Duh.. Duh.. Dih dih dir! Dir Di dih dih dir dir du du duh! - Star Trek - Next Gen
- bombcar 4y ago
  dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead aaaaaaaaaaaaant
- karp773 4y ago
  The Bourne Identity, Skyfall, Game of Thrones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and so on. It does not have to be original. And I don't mean only the intro but the entire soundtrack. Often, the theme song is reused over and over during the film with many variations to set the tone of a scene. Bad movies skimp on soundtracks.

thebradbain 4y ago

As someone who lives in Los Angeles and is mostly surrounded by people in film/tv, the indie film industry is a LOT bigger than many people outside of the know realize. And I’m so thankful for that, because that’s where the “things that don’t scale, … original ideas that are difficult to translate to movies, etc” flourish. In a way, the indie movie scene is in better shape than it ever has been— with well-known big name actors even hopping in now and then. You could argue the indie scene is similar to the startup scene in SV. You have investors/producers pretty much funding these films based on team/talent and a pitch alone, with the festival circuit (could be considered an analog to SV demo-days or investor powows) essentially serving as a way to get bought by big studios for potential wide release, limited-release runs (which can still make a lot of money for those involved), or teams hired/screenplays bought and adapted by other studios. You can even make it big right out of college (or in college) [1] with little-to-no connections, though of course even more-so than SV a name and pedigree gets you further faster. There’s so much in LA (and NYC) that gets released in theaters only locally, and the city is better for it. It’s the wide-release that, almost by definition, must serve lowest common denominator in order to make its 8/9-figure budget back in a span of months (tech companies get years!!). It’s sad that SF and LA, so close geographically, have industries so socially polarized to each other in every way, since there’s really a lot of overlap when you get down to it (and each industry could definitely learn things from the other) [1] https://variety.com/2022/film/news/apple-cha-cha-real-smooth-sundance-cooper-raiff-dakota-johnson-1235163370/ https://variety.com/2022/film/news/apple-cha-cha-real-smooth...

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
> There’s so much in LA (and NYC) that gets released in theaters only locally, and the city is better for it. There are arthouse movie theaters throughout that play the same movies that you think are only locally shown in LA/NYC. You just need the right context (near a university, for example).
- thebradbain 4y ago
  Yes! Exactly. You can find glimpses of the indie scene in many places, if you know where to look for it. But they’re not as pervasive/all-encompassing outside those two cities. Chicago/Austin have scenes, but they’re smaller; Georgia sort of does, too, but it’s more corporate/extensions of big Hollywood studios than an independent community.

jtwaleson 4y ago

To clarify: Does your friend mean that Tarantino’s early movies are also mass produced boredom or the opposite?

karp773 4y ago
Tarantino movies are anything but mass produced, really.
- jtwaleson 4y ago
  I agree but the sentence could be read either way. It’s early morning here and I was confused about the point that GP was making.
lokimedes 4y ago
No, he uses them as examples of how quality storytelling on a budget outcompetes the opposite. The problem with the “MBA thinking” is that it can’t quantify that quality beforehand, and makes the safer but more expensive bet on incremental development.

sundvor 4y ago

Yes. I showed my 12 year old son Die Hard for the first time the other day. He absolutely (...) loved it. Unprompted, he talked about how good all the effects were - they didn't look like the bland CGI he is used to. And he absolutely loved the movie. Zero political correctness. So incredibly liberating. (A few scenes had me question the parenting choice of showing DH to a 12 year old, but it'd been at least a decade since I saw it last).

samwillis 4y ago
I think watching DieHard with your kid is a good choice. The journey to adulthood isn't instantaneous at 18, parents should help to guide the kids there. Introducing them to adult cultural experiences at home, and then talking about it, is an awesome thing to do. Plus DieHard is one of the best movies ever made! (Have an 8th so not reached that stage myself yet)
- sundvor 4y ago
  It was an amazing bonding time actually, so yes very good points. There were quite a few things to explain. All the best for the journey ahead!
  - b112 4y ago
    Back to the Future seems to resonate well with modern youth too.
    - r00fus 4y ago
      Showed BTTF and BTTF2 to my 9 year old twins a few years ago. They loved the films. Not sure what they didn't get - even the concept of alternate timelines seemed fairly well absorbed.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        The main things missed are probably all the various in-jokes, but that's not really important to the story. Also "we'll travel to the FAR FUTURE" being when they were two years old has to be amusing (and sobering, to us olds).

scarface74 4y ago

It’s often been posited that there are only seven plots that all stories are based on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots That being said, I just saw Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I thought it dealt with personal issues very well. She Hulk as much as it was derided, was also a different type of MCU show and it was self aware enough to know that Marvel had gotten too formulaic.

jfengel 4y ago

I find singling out Tarantino kind of odd here. He's an indie-style filmmaker who attracted a lot of attention and now makes big-budget movies with very big stars. Which is great, for those who like his particular films. But there are literally thousands of other filmmakers making films every year who don't attract the kind of attention Tarantino does. His films aren't better than theirs -- he's just famous enough that we've all heard of him, and he continues to produce exactly the kinds of thing that you specifically like. There are tons of things to dig into if you want. Netflix does a better job than most of surfacing small filmmakers (because they can get them cheaply). Film festivals have even more -- more than you can possibly watch in ten lifetimes. Most of it, of course, is dreck -- same as everything else. I'm glad your friend likes Tarantino, but it just feels a bit like saying, "Gosh, I wish they made more stuff like Tarantino." What I want is an alternative to both Tarantino and the major studios -- and it exists. It just takes more effort.