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I am looking forward to seeing this, as while I really enjoy the aesthetic of Anderson, I increasingly wish someone would push him out of his comfort zone. His

I am looking forward to seeing this, as while I really enjoy the aesthetic of Anderson, I increasingly wish someone would push him out of his comfort zone. His films are the same thing repeated in different circumstances with different characters. Maybe he isn’t interested in doing anything other than what he’s doing, and at some level that’s all the justification he needs. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. But I do think the cinematic world as a whole would benefit from him experimenting a little more, trying a novel format, and so on.

ofalkaed 1y ago
>His films are the same thing repeated in different circumstances with different characters. I am not sure what you mean, Asteroid City with its complex structure utilizing metafiction to explore things mostly removed from the characters and the story does not have much in common with The Royal Tenenbaums other than aesthetic with its fairly simple and direct use of character to explore the individual and family. Do you want him to make a superhero or action movie or something?
- keiferski 1y ago
  When you go see an Anderson film, you have a pretty solid idea of what you’re going to get. The mood, character development, cinematography, quirkiness, and pretty much everything else is largely the same across his films. I think this is obvious (?) to most people. Yes, there are individual differences between films, but I don’t think my opinion is an uncommon one. There are more genres than action and superhero. A whole world of cinema, in fact. So it would be great if Anderson took his formidable skills and tried something new. A selfish request from a viewer, sure, but I just never feel like he’s trying to improve as a filmmaker and is merely doing what is comfortable to him.
  - mda 1y ago
    Just to add to your sentiment, I agree with you. The setup of his films became so similar to each other in many ways, same quirky (slightly insane) characters, same pastel colors, same textures. All subjective of course, but I found his later movies soulless and hard to watch.
  - ofalkaed 1y ago
    >The mood, character development, cinematography, quirkiness Other than character development those are all part of the aesthetic and in his last two he mostly extended that aesthetic directly to the characters, dropped the essentially realistic relatable characters and turned them into caricatures who don't really develop; devices of the story and theme instead of what drives the story and develops theme. I would say he was doing things uncomfortable for him with The French Dispatch, which is why he did not quite pull off the meta aspect. I think his interests are in improving on story and narrative and exploring what can be done with them within the medium and his aesthetic is a means to those ends, a way to push things out of the normal perspectives and give him more room to do things like make highly metafictional films without going all out experimental. I am perfectly aware there are other genres.
  - myth_drannon 1y ago
    Same for Nolan's movies.
    - awongh 1y ago
      I liked that in Oppenheimer, even though the plot of the movie was a similar sort of high stakes mystery heist movie, instead of the macguffin being a random piece of metal like it was in tenet, its the literal atom bomb. For that reason I enjoyed it more than some of his other movies. I would enjoy a Wes Anderson movie that just moved the whole aesthetic over to something new. It can still be a Wes Anderson movie but just different in one important new dimension.
      - myth_drannon 1y ago
        The Dark Knight Rises also had an atom bomb. Nolan has a thing for nuclear detonations.
        Barrin92 1y ago
        also, timers. What absolutely killed Nolan for me was when someone pointed out that he's virtually unable to create tension without a literal timer, be that bombs, watches, countdowns, what have you. Ever single damn movie. There's even a tick-tock sound from Nolan's stopwatch in the soundtrack of Dunkirk.
        rkomorn 1y ago
        For some reason, this made me think of the countdown timer in Galaxy Quest that counts down but stops before getting to zero because the ship's design is based on a TV show.
        rkomorn 1y ago
        "Spoiler alert", I guess, if you've not seen Galaxy Quest in the quarter century since it was released.
  - brookst 1y ago
    Agreed. He’s like those amazing musicians who keep using the same chords, instruments, arrangement, and lyrical content over and over. What I wouldn’t give to see Anderson tackle something really novel (for him). A period-piece tragedy; a college road trip; a horror film.
- colechristensen 1y ago
  There are many common factors to all of his films and not a lot of change in those common factors. Especially because many of them are rather unique to him the continued variation on the same artistic themes gets a bit tired.
- lou1306 1y ago
  Haven't seen Asteroid City, but metafiction and exploration of side-plots removed from the characters are absolutely present in Tenenbaums (presented as a book with chapters) and Grand Budapest Hotel. I guess to a lesser degree. Sure, most people trivialise his "quirkiness" in annoying ways (there is depth and poetry in some of his movies that go beyond eye-pleasing symmetry) but the guy could take a risk or two, artistically speaking. His Fantastic Mr Fox was charming, and switching to animation is not at all easy for a live-action director!
  - ofalkaed 1y ago
    Before The French Dispatch his use of meta was just a side effect of the style, it broke the fourth wall which you can call meta but it is sort of meaningless if all it does is break the forth wall. In the French Dispatch and Asteroid City he develops it and uses it towards theme, we can not fully understand them without taking in account the meta.
- apwell23 1y ago
  Honest Trailers - Every Wes Anderson Movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWLY6NrS2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWLY6NrS2Q
- mda 1y ago
  The remark "Do you want him to make a superhero or action movie or something?" implies that any desire for Anderson to evolve beyond his current style stems from a limited understanding of cinema, rather than a genuine wish for artistic expansion. Imo this rhetorical question can be seen as an attempt to dismiss the critique by framing it as unsophisticated. I found it a little condescending.
  - ofalkaed 1y ago
    You are making assumptions about my intent and my feelings regarding superhero and action movies. I am not sure I would call most of Anderson's output particularly sophisticated and absolutely would not write off entire genres as unsophisticated, many dramas offer nothing more than an emotional appeal and many action movies offer considerably more. There was nothing rhetorical about my question.
    - mda 1y ago
      It certainly didn't sound like it was an actual question.
      - ofalkaed 1y ago
        Can't think of any real consequence to taking it at face value, so why assume the worst?
detourdog 1y ago
He definitely has a unique voice but I think he does challenge himself. Switching to stop motion certainly seems like a challenge. Admittedly he now has a stop motion style.
ramesh31 1y ago
>But I do think the cinematic world as a whole would benefit from him experimenting a little more, trying a novel format, and so on. But his format is novel in the entire world of cinema right now, even if it doesn't change from film to film. People go to see a Wes Anderson film for the same reason Marvel fans line up for the next blockbuster; you know what you are going to get, and you want more of it. He takes it to the extreme in this one, where it works entirely visually as an almost homage to the days of silent film. We would benefit greatly from more filmmakers (and studios willing to take them on) who have such a defined aesthetic vision and are able to develop it over such a long a period, rather than just mashing together whatever expectations a focus group might have, or going off on flights of fancy that have little artistic continuity.
wk_end 1y ago
For better or for worse, Anderson is very much an auteur [0], like Godard or Woody Allen. Almost certainly in a self-conscious way. Complaining that Anderson movies feel like Anderson movies seems almost to miss the point: do we look at Picasso's works and complain about the consistent style he developed? The self-imposed constraints of his own style give him a framework to build his art from (it's often said that constraints foster creativity after all) and a particular craft to master. Conversely, the form might always be an Anderson movie, but the function of each film can be quite different. By sticking with and mastering a particular aesthetic he frees himself to explore things besides aesthetic wildly. What does The Royal Tenenbaums have in common with, say, The Grand Budapest Hotel, besides Futura? That said, I do feel like Asteroid City in particular was a stretch for him: there's nothing quite like "you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep" anywhere else in his filmography. It felt like along with the more extreme artifice came a more extreme intensity of feeling: to me it's a film that really came from a very anguished and grieving place. I haven't read the article or seen the new film yet, but based on the headline it sounds like this might be the overall direction his work is heading. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur
- keiferski 1y ago
  Both Picasso and Godard changed their style dramatically over their careers. I'm not familiar enough with Woody Allen's movies to comment on them. These are good examples to show how being an auteur doesn't mean you need to stick to the same stereotypical aesthetic. Anderson is still pretty young, so maybe he is shifting in one direction or another. But as far as his work goes as of today, the range of stylistic choices is far, far less than what Picasso or Godard did in their careers.
  - iainmerrick 1y ago
    I once walked into a room in a museum and felt proud for immediately spotting and identifying a Picasso. It was only a few minutes later that I realised that the entire room was Picassos, all in wildly varying styles, most of which I was completely unfamiliar with. Picasso had range.
  - 1y ago
Fricken 1y ago
He has put out 5 films in the last 7 years. Wes Anderson might just be a victim of his own productivity, his work could benefit from some scarcity. Anderson nonetheless is still quite inventive and experimental in his films, he's always doing new things, and usually those new things are in the details, and of course, those new things tend to play into his trademark style. Asteroid City played like an excuse to play around with clever camera movements. Isle of Dogs did weird things where the image and sound were providing diverging narratives that would come back together. Anderson's trademark style is annoying to me only when my interest in the characters and story is lacklustre, but for every Anderson film I'm not that into I know at least one person who loves it. I think it would be unreasonable to expect him to reinvent his filmmaking style dramatically. There are other filmmakers out there making movies for those who've had their fill of quirky Wes Anderson flicks.
kevinventullo 1y ago
In case you haven’t seen it, “Wes Anderson Horror Trailer”: https://youtu.be/gfDIAZCwHQE?si=EzoCvqsY70AcZI4u https://youtu.be/gfDIAZCwHQE?si=EzoCvqsY70AcZI4u

ofalkaed 1y ago

>His films are the same thing repeated in different circumstances with different characters. I am not sure what you mean, Asteroid City with its complex structure utilizing metafiction to explore things mostly removed from the characters and the story does not have much in common with The Royal Tenenbaums other than aesthetic with its fairly simple and direct use of character to explore the individual and family. Do you want him to make a superhero or action movie or something?

keiferski 1y ago
When you go see an Anderson film, you have a pretty solid idea of what you’re going to get. The mood, character development, cinematography, quirkiness, and pretty much everything else is largely the same across his films. I think this is obvious (?) to most people. Yes, there are individual differences between films, but I don’t think my opinion is an uncommon one. There are more genres than action and superhero. A whole world of cinema, in fact. So it would be great if Anderson took his formidable skills and tried something new. A selfish request from a viewer, sure, but I just never feel like he’s trying to improve as a filmmaker and is merely doing what is comfortable to him.
- mda 1y ago
  Just to add to your sentiment, I agree with you. The setup of his films became so similar to each other in many ways, same quirky (slightly insane) characters, same pastel colors, same textures. All subjective of course, but I found his later movies soulless and hard to watch.
- ofalkaed 1y ago
  >The mood, character development, cinematography, quirkiness Other than character development those are all part of the aesthetic and in his last two he mostly extended that aesthetic directly to the characters, dropped the essentially realistic relatable characters and turned them into caricatures who don't really develop; devices of the story and theme instead of what drives the story and develops theme. I would say he was doing things uncomfortable for him with The French Dispatch, which is why he did not quite pull off the meta aspect. I think his interests are in improving on story and narrative and exploring what can be done with them within the medium and his aesthetic is a means to those ends, a way to push things out of the normal perspectives and give him more room to do things like make highly metafictional films without going all out experimental. I am perfectly aware there are other genres.
- myth_drannon 1y ago
  Same for Nolan's movies.
  - awongh 1y ago
    I liked that in Oppenheimer, even though the plot of the movie was a similar sort of high stakes mystery heist movie, instead of the macguffin being a random piece of metal like it was in tenet, its the literal atom bomb. For that reason I enjoyed it more than some of his other movies. I would enjoy a Wes Anderson movie that just moved the whole aesthetic over to something new. It can still be a Wes Anderson movie but just different in one important new dimension.
    - myth_drannon 1y ago
      The Dark Knight Rises also had an atom bomb. Nolan has a thing for nuclear detonations.
      - Barrin92 1y ago
        also, timers. What absolutely killed Nolan for me was when someone pointed out that he's virtually unable to create tension without a literal timer, be that bombs, watches, countdowns, what have you. Ever single damn movie. There's even a tick-tock sound from Nolan's stopwatch in the soundtrack of Dunkirk.
        rkomorn 1y ago
        For some reason, this made me think of the countdown timer in Galaxy Quest that counts down but stops before getting to zero because the ship's design is based on a TV show.
        rkomorn 1y ago
        "Spoiler alert", I guess, if you've not seen Galaxy Quest in the quarter century since it was released.
- brookst 1y ago
  Agreed. He’s like those amazing musicians who keep using the same chords, instruments, arrangement, and lyrical content over and over. What I wouldn’t give to see Anderson tackle something really novel (for him). A period-piece tragedy; a college road trip; a horror film.
colechristensen 1y ago
There are many common factors to all of his films and not a lot of change in those common factors. Especially because many of them are rather unique to him the continued variation on the same artistic themes gets a bit tired.
lou1306 1y ago
Haven't seen Asteroid City, but metafiction and exploration of side-plots removed from the characters are absolutely present in Tenenbaums (presented as a book with chapters) and Grand Budapest Hotel. I guess to a lesser degree. Sure, most people trivialise his "quirkiness" in annoying ways (there is depth and poetry in some of his movies that go beyond eye-pleasing symmetry) but the guy could take a risk or two, artistically speaking. His Fantastic Mr Fox was charming, and switching to animation is not at all easy for a live-action director!
- ofalkaed 1y ago
  Before The French Dispatch his use of meta was just a side effect of the style, it broke the fourth wall which you can call meta but it is sort of meaningless if all it does is break the forth wall. In the French Dispatch and Asteroid City he develops it and uses it towards theme, we can not fully understand them without taking in account the meta.
apwell23 1y ago
Honest Trailers - Every Wes Anderson Movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWLY6NrS2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWLY6NrS2Q
mda 1y ago
The remark "Do you want him to make a superhero or action movie or something?" implies that any desire for Anderson to evolve beyond his current style stems from a limited understanding of cinema, rather than a genuine wish for artistic expansion. Imo this rhetorical question can be seen as an attempt to dismiss the critique by framing it as unsophisticated. I found it a little condescending.
- ofalkaed 1y ago
  You are making assumptions about my intent and my feelings regarding superhero and action movies. I am not sure I would call most of Anderson's output particularly sophisticated and absolutely would not write off entire genres as unsophisticated, many dramas offer nothing more than an emotional appeal and many action movies offer considerably more. There was nothing rhetorical about my question.
  - mda 1y ago
    It certainly didn't sound like it was an actual question.
    - ofalkaed 1y ago
      Can't think of any real consequence to taking it at face value, so why assume the worst?

detourdog 1y ago

He definitely has a unique voice but I think he does challenge himself. Switching to stop motion certainly seems like a challenge. Admittedly he now has a stop motion style.

ramesh31 1y ago

>But I do think the cinematic world as a whole would benefit from him experimenting a little more, trying a novel format, and so on. But his format is novel in the entire world of cinema right now, even if it doesn't change from film to film. People go to see a Wes Anderson film for the same reason Marvel fans line up for the next blockbuster; you know what you are going to get, and you want more of it. He takes it to the extreme in this one, where it works entirely visually as an almost homage to the days of silent film. We would benefit greatly from more filmmakers (and studios willing to take them on) who have such a defined aesthetic vision and are able to develop it over such a long a period, rather than just mashing together whatever expectations a focus group might have, or going off on flights of fancy that have little artistic continuity.

wk_end 1y ago

For better or for worse, Anderson is very much an auteur [0], like Godard or Woody Allen. Almost certainly in a self-conscious way. Complaining that Anderson movies feel like Anderson movies seems almost to miss the point: do we look at Picasso's works and complain about the consistent style he developed? The self-imposed constraints of his own style give him a framework to build his art from (it's often said that constraints foster creativity after all) and a particular craft to master. Conversely, the form might always be an Anderson movie, but the function of each film can be quite different. By sticking with and mastering a particular aesthetic he frees himself to explore things besides aesthetic wildly. What does The Royal Tenenbaums have in common with, say, The Grand Budapest Hotel, besides Futura? That said, I do feel like Asteroid City in particular was a stretch for him: there's nothing quite like "you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep" anywhere else in his filmography. It felt like along with the more extreme artifice came a more extreme intensity of feeling: to me it's a film that really came from a very anguished and grieving place. I haven't read the article or seen the new film yet, but based on the headline it sounds like this might be the overall direction his work is heading. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur

keiferski 1y ago
Both Picasso and Godard changed their style dramatically over their careers. I'm not familiar enough with Woody Allen's movies to comment on them. These are good examples to show how being an auteur doesn't mean you need to stick to the same stereotypical aesthetic. Anderson is still pretty young, so maybe he is shifting in one direction or another. But as far as his work goes as of today, the range of stylistic choices is far, far less than what Picasso or Godard did in their careers.
- iainmerrick 1y ago
  I once walked into a room in a museum and felt proud for immediately spotting and identifying a Picasso. It was only a few minutes later that I realised that the entire room was Picassos, all in wildly varying styles, most of which I was completely unfamiliar with. Picasso had range.
- 1y ago

Fricken 1y ago

He has put out 5 films in the last 7 years. Wes Anderson might just be a victim of his own productivity, his work could benefit from some scarcity. Anderson nonetheless is still quite inventive and experimental in his films, he's always doing new things, and usually those new things are in the details, and of course, those new things tend to play into his trademark style. Asteroid City played like an excuse to play around with clever camera movements. Isle of Dogs did weird things where the image and sound were providing diverging narratives that would come back together. Anderson's trademark style is annoying to me only when my interest in the characters and story is lacklustre, but for every Anderson film I'm not that into I know at least one person who loves it. I think it would be unreasonable to expect him to reinvent his filmmaking style dramatically. There are other filmmakers out there making movies for those who've had their fill of quirky Wes Anderson flicks.

kevinventullo 1y ago

In case you haven’t seen it, “Wes Anderson Horror Trailer”: https://youtu.be/gfDIAZCwHQE?si=EzoCvqsY70AcZI4u https://youtu.be/gfDIAZCwHQE?si=EzoCvqsY70AcZI4u