6 ms·

> there’s a modern homogeneity in big budget films A lot of that is due to the nature of studios milking franchise properties like the MCU or SW. Directors of

> there’s a modern homogeneity in big budget films A lot of that is due to the nature of studios milking franchise properties like the MCU or SW. Directors of big budget films are now often selected to be a caretaker of one franchise episode. They inherit a pre-existing style from the franchise while also having a bunch more 'input' (aka supervision) from an army of executive producers who work across more than one film and are focused on "don't fuck up the franchise." Another part of the modern decline in the diversity of cinematic looks is from the economics of streaming. Streamers like Netflix, Apple and Prime are focused on risk reduction by funding either "big name star" properties where the stars make more by being their own executive producers or "big name IP" properties with built-in audiences from books, games, etc. In neither instance is the director usually a central element in packaging the deal. The role of these directors is to be more of a journeymen shepherd like Marquand than a visionary like Lynch, Kubrick or Coppola. It's a worrying trend because many "bankable name" directors like Lynch whose name at the top of the movie poster could guarantee an audience are dying and not being replaced by new directors that have broad name recognition.

Fricken 2y ago
As it turns out, having just one blockbuster sci-fi franchise wherein Anya Taylor Joy fights Milk Boys in the sand is not enough for the 21st century. Villeneuve needed an Anya Taylor Joy Milk Boy sand fight sci-fi blockbuster he could call his own.
guappa 2y ago
> "don't fuck up the franchise." Were they asleep while filming the more recent star wars films?
- ghaff 2y ago
  For me the nadir was the prequel series although I also think The Phantom Menace poisoned the well for the other two which weren't terrible. The more recent films have been a mixed bag with them generally being better the further they are from the original story arc. For me at least, there's also a certain fatigue factor. While I like The Mandalorian and Rogue One, I'm pretty much done with the franchise. See also Star Trek and MCU. That said, I know that there are a lot of fans who will take pretty much anything you throw out even if they like to belly-ache about it.
  - guappa 2y ago
    Well I was phantom menace as a kid and I liked it :D
    - triceratops 2y ago
      > I was phantom menace as a kid That's good. Most kids are menaces to your face /s
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  That's a great example of each director being given too much freedom, or alternatively, creating a trilogy sequel without writing the story beforehand. I have no idea how they managed or allowed to mess that up so bad. It feels like they were just winging it, a creative outlet more than making up for the interesting choices they made in the prequels or the backdrop of the next decade of a multi-billion merchandise franchise.
  - WorldMaker 2y ago
    To be fair, the original trilogy winged it just as much, including a very similar pattern of writer and director shifts with the original director coming back for the third part as a last minute fill-in, and a lot of people at the time complained Empire Strikes Back to Ewoks was a tonal shift as bad or worse than people complain about Last Jedi and Return of the Jedi. Contrary to all of George's talk of a "grand plan", Star Wars was always an adventure serial where winging it was the plan. (Also, George's "grand plan" itself still cracks me up as a kid who guessed to much of it reading the weird novelization, especially since Ars Technica got him to admit to it. Have you heard about the Whills?)
    - guappa 2y ago
      At least that was before those studio guys even existed. No excuse now though.
xeonmc 2y ago
I wonder if it might also be tech related. Like how aaa games these days all have the same “default unreal engine look” thanks to its out-of-box settings being good enough to not motivate further tinkering, your run-of-the-mill Hollywood big budget action films also use the same de-facto default equipment and out-of-box setups?
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  I think there is a lot to be said about the technology factor to it. On the movie side special effects heavy stuff is still largely the wall-to-wall green or blue screen sound stages. Motion capture and motion tracking tools have all got insanely good so studios can do a lot more than say in the days of Lucas' Star Wars prequels (which were notorious wall-to-wall green screen films of their era), but also the budgets and time constraints and "crunch" still provide a lot of barriers to how well the digital/analog integration is and the overall look of all the effects. Also, there's only so many ways to light a green or blue soundstage so that things are readable and you don't get extra ugly color spill that the special effects have to work even harder to remove. (I think the base lighting options being so mostly homogeneous is a subtle but huge factor in the overall things always feeling that way. Differences in lighting have always been one of the biggest "cinematic languages".) Special Effects houses working on those sorts of movies are probably using heavier, slower renderers than Unreal Engine today, but given the average life span of an effects house is still appallingly close to 2 years and scenes scattered across 1.5 movies, those renderers are still generally off-the-shelf or borrowed from other companies. Industrial Light and Magic is about the only effects house that no one wants to kill, so also becomes something of a homogenizing factor in whatever tools it white labels for sale/rents to other effects houses. Disney owning ILM seems to be like an obvious factor that almost everyone working on an MCU film is trying to rent or ape the ILM house style at all times. It's also interesting that right now TV can't afford as much time with the motion tracking/motion capture tools and studio spaces of wall-to-wall green screen, so in the effects heavy shows we're seeing a lot more experimentation, some of which I'd argue look better than the movies currently. For big instances, right now ILM's TV efforts with The Volume (and CBS Paramount's copycat AR Wall and other studios have copycats now too) are fast changing the look of TV. Because these LED walls are their own light source which dynamically reflects what the background should be doing it seems like there's a ton more options for lighting scenes in these rooms/volumes/spaces or doing shots that would be tricky or expensive even with how great motion tracking and motion capture have gotten. Of course the trade-off there is that the real-time background rendering requires a rendering engine more in the vein of Unreal Engine, and allegedly in most cases is definitely Unreal Engine, so "default unreal engine look" starts to apply literally to background elements in TV shows.

Fricken 2y ago

As it turns out, having just one blockbuster sci-fi franchise wherein Anya Taylor Joy fights Milk Boys in the sand is not enough for the 21st century. Villeneuve needed an Anya Taylor Joy Milk Boy sand fight sci-fi blockbuster he could call his own.

guappa 2y ago

> "don't fuck up the franchise." Were they asleep while filming the more recent star wars films?

ghaff 2y ago
For me the nadir was the prequel series although I also think The Phantom Menace poisoned the well for the other two which weren't terrible. The more recent films have been a mixed bag with them generally being better the further they are from the original story arc. For me at least, there's also a certain fatigue factor. While I like The Mandalorian and Rogue One, I'm pretty much done with the franchise. See also Star Trek and MCU. That said, I know that there are a lot of fans who will take pretty much anything you throw out even if they like to belly-ache about it.
- guappa 2y ago
  Well I was phantom menace as a kid and I liked it :D
  - triceratops 2y ago
    > I was phantom menace as a kid That's good. Most kids are menaces to your face /s
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
That's a great example of each director being given too much freedom, or alternatively, creating a trilogy sequel without writing the story beforehand. I have no idea how they managed or allowed to mess that up so bad. It feels like they were just winging it, a creative outlet more than making up for the interesting choices they made in the prequels or the backdrop of the next decade of a multi-billion merchandise franchise.
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  To be fair, the original trilogy winged it just as much, including a very similar pattern of writer and director shifts with the original director coming back for the third part as a last minute fill-in, and a lot of people at the time complained Empire Strikes Back to Ewoks was a tonal shift as bad or worse than people complain about Last Jedi and Return of the Jedi. Contrary to all of George's talk of a "grand plan", Star Wars was always an adventure serial where winging it was the plan. (Also, George's "grand plan" itself still cracks me up as a kid who guessed to much of it reading the weird novelization, especially since Ars Technica got him to admit to it. Have you heard about the Whills?)
  - guappa 2y ago
    At least that was before those studio guys even existed. No excuse now though.

xeonmc 2y ago

I wonder if it might also be tech related. Like how aaa games these days all have the same “default unreal engine look” thanks to its out-of-box settings being good enough to not motivate further tinkering, your run-of-the-mill Hollywood big budget action films also use the same de-facto default equipment and out-of-box setups?

WorldMaker 2y ago
I think there is a lot to be said about the technology factor to it. On the movie side special effects heavy stuff is still largely the wall-to-wall green or blue screen sound stages. Motion capture and motion tracking tools have all got insanely good so studios can do a lot more than say in the days of Lucas' Star Wars prequels (which were notorious wall-to-wall green screen films of their era), but also the budgets and time constraints and "crunch" still provide a lot of barriers to how well the digital/analog integration is and the overall look of all the effects. Also, there's only so many ways to light a green or blue soundstage so that things are readable and you don't get extra ugly color spill that the special effects have to work even harder to remove. (I think the base lighting options being so mostly homogeneous is a subtle but huge factor in the overall things always feeling that way. Differences in lighting have always been one of the biggest "cinematic languages".) Special Effects houses working on those sorts of movies are probably using heavier, slower renderers than Unreal Engine today, but given the average life span of an effects house is still appallingly close to 2 years and scenes scattered across 1.5 movies, those renderers are still generally off-the-shelf or borrowed from other companies. Industrial Light and Magic is about the only effects house that no one wants to kill, so also becomes something of a homogenizing factor in whatever tools it white labels for sale/rents to other effects houses. Disney owning ILM seems to be like an obvious factor that almost everyone working on an MCU film is trying to rent or ape the ILM house style at all times. It's also interesting that right now TV can't afford as much time with the motion tracking/motion capture tools and studio spaces of wall-to-wall green screen, so in the effects heavy shows we're seeing a lot more experimentation, some of which I'd argue look better than the movies currently. For big instances, right now ILM's TV efforts with The Volume (and CBS Paramount's copycat AR Wall and other studios have copycats now too) are fast changing the look of TV. Because these LED walls are their own light source which dynamically reflects what the background should be doing it seems like there's a ton more options for lighting scenes in these rooms/volumes/spaces or doing shots that would be tricky or expensive even with how great motion tracking and motion capture have gotten. Of course the trade-off there is that the real-time background rendering requires a rendering engine more in the vein of Unreal Engine, and allegedly in most cases is definitely Unreal Engine, so "default unreal engine look" starts to apply literally to background elements in TV shows.