I think it's the profit motive that has ruined this medium. Most movies are just investment vehicles for the studios -- it's telling that when they're mentioned

I think it's the profit motive that has ruined this medium. Most movies are just investment vehicles for the studios -- it's telling that when they're mentioned in the news, it's rarely the plot / storyline, but almost always the budget and ticket sales that are talked about. Seems like most of the big blockbusters are extremely formulaic -- the studios take what made money before, and rehash it over and over again until it stops making money. A really good example of that was one of the silly superhero movies - the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Somehow, a fresh take on the tired genre made it to production, and audiences reacted enthusiastically, because it was somewhat new -- and what followed? Two carbon-copy sequels that didn't work nearly as well as the first one. Of course that's within the constraints of big-budget studios that make movies as a high-return investment vehicles. Where else could you throw a hundred million dollars and get a 200% return? I'm sure art films still exist, independent films still exist. People still make movies because they have something to say, and that's the medium they want to speak through. Maybe the way to encourage that is to fund more art schools and subsidize independent filmmakers.