why are movies so sterile now? (a rant)
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- new style of videooo let me know your thoughts!!!
lots of new vids coming and I tried out a new visual intro moment i think its cool. hope you're well!
ALSO SORRY FOR THE BAD MIC
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ANYDAY
The pleasure is all mine!
Can you read and edit my screenplay for me? I’ll pay you for your feedback and help with editing my grammar😂
The difference of feeling to me is like watching a product vs a project. Lots of things these days feel like a product.
I feel like the animation industry is a prime example of having everything at your disposal. Pixars films in the 90s/2000s like Toy Story pushed the boundaries on 3d animation and this was something new and never seen before, but now it feels like the industries come to a stand still because there using a formula that they know will work (and Disney repressing creative freedom). I hope this changes because I really respect the animators who care for these films and I hope that films like the new Spiderman pushes the film industries to do better.
The film industry is already moving beyond the 3D uberrealistic model. The success of the latest "Puss in Boots" and the first "Spiderverse" is encouraging animators to try something different.
I'm only a couple of minutes in but I completely agree. At this point, they're so formulated and there's this inherent problem with people pushing to add so much social commentary that it ends up feeling like quiet propaganda instead of enjoyable content. They feel so generic like they're all just AI generated :/
I think another major problem is honestly just the decline in public education in our country. So few writers even know how to write a coherent story that even makes sense. There are a ridiculous amount of otherwise good movies I’ve seen lately that pulled me straight out of the story due to dumb and avoidable plot holes or conveniences.
Not in the industry, but I agree! I think a lot of characters have become so simplistic it's painful. I already know our protagonist will be uncompromising in their morals, until they are met with their Achilles heel about halfway through the story. I already know the antagonist will be despicable until we eventually relate to their emotional backstory. And of course the side character will help the protagonist in their moment of need. It feels like I've already seen every movie there is, but it's just bad writing.
It's worth pointing out that there is good content being made, but it seems to be on the fringe of the industry. Things like A Quiet Place, Sorry to Bother You, Get Out, and Squid Game come to mind.
This resonated with me!! I used to love movies, and I think “sterile” is a great way to describe what the industry is putting out now. I miss ART. Dude, if yours makes it to the screen I will be THERE for it. You are so genuine and real and the industry needs your voice❤
Im an animation student and I’m so into 2d animation. I wish the style on classic movies like Bambi or 101d came back cause you are able to see the animators hand draw and the cg seems so washed out to me it lacks that human like emotion because nothing it’s handmade anymore
I know I’m going to work on a bunch of projects that I may not like cause I have to pay my bills but if I could get to work on my own project it will be made as pure and human as possible.
As you said before you make better art with less supplies and I think less supplies in animation means going back to the origins of 2d
listening to people talk about something that they're passionate about (especially movies/ storytelling/art) is something i will never get tired of, hearing you spill your thoughts about movies was very interesting to listen to, thank you for the amazing vid Leah!!
It feels like most movies are scared of taking chances or just trying something new. That is really sad.
It's been a problem for a while. The major movie producers will bank on what will make the most money, so reboots and franchises get the backing. You end up with a lot of mediocre fan service. Many stories do not and should not require multiple sequels. Those teats are dry ffs. Leave the cow be.
There's also the issue with crowd sourcing to please the largest number of consumers possible. We saw it with GOT. It creates an inauthentic experience. When it outpaced the books, there were too many fans speculating and the writers were pressured to please the everyone and as a result, we got a disappointing finale on an otherwise good and engrossing show.
I have to say you are the most refreshing and authentic, Unapologetic self that I’ve seen on RUclips in decades. Please never change. Like… you will be famous one day…. But PLEASE NEVER CHANGE.
Edit: typos
I feel that stories from the last 8-10 years movies are empty. I don't feel the emotions I used to have when watching a movie 10-15 years ago.
“Don’t tell me who you are, show me who you are”. Film, tv, books… there is a lot of dumbing down, a lot of narratives which try to supplant the role that visual and acting is meant to have. We don’t need to be told explicitly. It’s ok to leave questions
this was posted 11 seconds ago? i just randomly found this in my subscribed list. hi. first?
hahah thank u for being here :D
For me, the new movies lack SPARK ✨ they are so dull, boring and empty and it is just sad.. 😔
Change the industry from the inside! I know it's far more complicated than that, but you, your contemporaries are where improvement begins. I've been in a few movies and tv shows (mostly extra work) and your rant is the basis for the perfect foray into far better cinema. Make movies for less $$$, IMPROVISE and barely get it done on time! THAT is where genius films come from. From Blood Simple (filmed in my hometown) to John Wick 4, make it happen!
BTW i just realized that you’re the channel whom i’v just subscribed to a couple of days ago because i love your handwriting analysis.
This really resonates with me! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It’s disappointing to see people compromising their art for money, but watching videos like this one is so encouraging! Best of luck with your screenplay!
The root cause is that tentpole movies have become very, very expensive to make. If a studio spends $200M on a movie only to watch it earn back $30M at the box office, then some executive is going to have a lot of explaining to do. To reduce financial risk, films must appeal to as many people as possible, which often translates into being as bland or predictable as possible. Before the blockbuster era, most major mainstream pictures just required you to hire a bankable "name" actor and build some sets that looked like real-life locations; there was no major stunt or VFX budgets. Since a flop film wouldn't sink a studio, they felt more willing to take risks and do interesting things. If we went back to the small-scale, more intimate style of film, you'd have fewer $900+ grossing films that everyone sees, but lots of distinctive films that appeal to subsets of the public. ([0:17] -- BTW, if you're wearing a dress then technically you *aren't* wearing pants.)
You just explained the reason why I don't like movies to me. Before I just didn't like them. Now I know why.
Love those little humans hugging each other they are so cute
I don't watch a lot of movies for exactly that reason. So many movies are just replacable. It is sad, I totally agree with you.
I would love to see more movies made from inspiration and human desires instead of... $$.
i have a lot of trouble finding things that i like frequently, whether that be movies, shows, books, food, or basically anything. i’ve given up on watching most things at this point, and now i’m writing my own book and play/screenplay. world building is so fun when you motivate yourself to do it and make it something you’d like, and now i’m reworking some old stuff to see if i can pull any inspiration from those into my newer projects. i hope some better things come out soon, but i’m currently processing asteroid city, which i really don’t know how to feel about. it’s a really good movie, with a good cast, and it didn’t feel like it relied on much, but i also feel like because it didn’t rely on much i didn’t understand the purpose of it. it could be a step in the right direction or a step back and i really don’t know which one :/
Ooo or when you like play old movie from let's say nineties and there is heavy traffic and you can HEAR it, every sound, and when there is traffic in new movies, it feels repetitive and way too quiet. Similiar with other background noises - in newer movies they feel so fake
Leah, it's not only the mainstream movies - but mainstream music too.
Leah, usually your videos make me pick up my pen and notebook for a different reason than this, but I'm always happy for the inspiration to get writing. 😊
I forget who it was, but I saw a video where someone explained the current issue with films in terms of how we evaluate them. We rank the success of films by their financial success or ticket sales. The absolutely OVERWHELMING majority of ticket sales in movies is children with their parents. So the artistic films like Black Swan are never going to happen in the first place because "kids won't want to watch this." The stories that push the envelope or try something brand new are too risky. If the sfx aren't at least MCU grade the film is ignored.
The only exception to that is animated films because they, by virtue of being animated, already check that marketing box of "kid-appealing" so the story, artistic creativity, etc can actually be the focus of the film. But we look down on animation so much in how we evaluate it's value - we lump every animated film into the same category for awards, regardless of audience or genre.
Yeh its like movies feel a lot more copy and paste now a days its just the same plot different names :(
Didn't know how to feel abt the harry potter segment... But I honestly *agree*. Back when I first watched harry potter, I saw that dragon, it was majestic.
Now I see a movie such as... Maleficent (the sequel), and *yes* I love the maleficent live action, it is amazing in my eyes (others may have different opinions ofc), and the phoenix scene...
It felt hollow. It felt like I was looking at a *CG animated animal*, not at a *mythical creature in a movie*... Get what im saying? The industry is somehow obsessed with 'realism' (lion king live action...eugh) to the point that it becomes void of actual art. And even then it isnt even REALISTIC, it is awfully CG regardless. Instead it is a carbon copy of what one would deem 'realistic', 'ideal', not... 'cool'.
It does sound rather childish to use the word 'cool', but what comes to mind when you see Smaug? when you watch the first Jurassic Park and see the raptor puppets?
My god... dont get me started on jurassic park. (JP rant incoming fr)
From a franchise of deep philosophical questions to whatever shitty action remake it became... Questions of death and birth, evolution and nature... Hell, even religious themes with the whole 'god' aspect of some of the character's ponderings. The characters. THE CHARACTERS.
UGH. The first movie had two archeologists and a mathematician as their leading characters, and you got a POV into their way of thinking, their world! They were not played for laughs or sterotypical 'haha nerdy guy' archetypes, they were CHARACTERS! They had personalities, ofc it didnt always 100% align with who they were 'supposed' to be (Ian Malcolm). BUT THATS WHAT MADE THEM GREAT. *THEY. FELT. REAL.* Not with 'funnyhaha' quips and witty jokes, but *depth*. They knew when to joke, when to freak the fuck out because *oh-my-god-the-abomination-escaped-and-we-are-gonna-fucking-die*, when to be vulnerable, when to be loveable, when to be *deep.*
I could write a whole essay on this.
And now back to the puppets for a moment, the damn CGI. Ofc, jurassic park was never accurate, it branded itself as accurate but over the years it deteriorated into this 'innacurate, old 90s movie' of sorts. Making it look like it aged badly, like spoiled milk... But I think thats what really adds to the entire philosophical debate, if you see the movie as portraying theme park abominations instead of accurate living creatures, then this fucking 90s movie aged like prized wine. But enough of the movie's portrayal of an existencial dillema aging like a fine drink with it's outdated dinosaur models. Because the models felt *real.*
If you look at a bird of prey, a cassowary, sure it won't have the same texture as the JP raptors because those were made of plastic/rubber, *but they move so similarly*. They didn't feel like puppets being controlled around in a kitchen scene, they felt like fictional animals hunting. They felt real. They were *scary*, not because they were necessarily horrors, but because they felt **real.** Because JP plays into human fear, human existencial issues, human dread.
It is not scary because it is a monster chasing you or a killer, it is scary because it is a predator looking for prey.
And even then, it is more suspense than anything else. But at the top of it all? What the 3 JP movies truly reflect on is how powerless humans are compared to nature, a critique that puts us in a *realistic. fictional. scenario.* and shows us that we should *reflect*.
And then you have Owen Grady in JW with the lifeless domesticated raptor running around in a motorcycle (how does that not scare the??? dinosaurs??? huh???) and shooting shit cuz *america* or whatever... What a shitshow it is to witness movies nowadays.
*I COULD go on but this comment is already too long and I feel like no one wants to read an entire essay on a comment section.*
Anyways, good video Leah :)
I think you're pretty much spot on about everything you said and especially about the pendulum thing. like, for example, it's weird to think about because the 80s sprouted so many iconic movies, but it's not an unpopular opinion to think that the 80s was a really bad time for movies (and hypercalitalist reaganist state of society at the time explains a lot of the reasons why movies got to that point) and then the 90s came along and it was like a breath of fresh air. if you really think about it, more challenging mid-list movies solidified themselves within the cultural zeitgeist in the 90s than franchises, which is arguably the opposite of the 80s. so I think right now we're on the brink of a big swing because I _know_ people are tired of franchises and lifeless remakes and movies cooked up to be as marketable as possible but which have no soul.
the rising popularity of a24 to me signals this hunger that viewers have for just…different fucking movies. I'd much rather watch a bad movie that has a soul than a soulless cash grab.
I think I know some of the answers to your questions. I was in film school for a time. One of the things explained to us outright was that we could all forget about having a major movie studio take our screenplay or stories and make them into a blockbuster movie. It's the Madison Avenue, Wall Street bastards that did this.
They will not invest in a movie without a proven profit-making track record. That is the reason why there are so many remakes and sequels. Investors do not want to take a risk on an untested, original movie with unknown actors. You could in the 1970s and early 80s which is where most original movies went to die. The exact same thing happened in music.
When MTV came out, how you looked became more important which is why Christopher Cross was canceled and Madonna promoted. Many didn't even have to write their own music. When they age, they get replaced by a younger, more beautiful person (which is really the special effects). Lady Gaga is really Madonna the sequel. Madonna is really a Marilyn Monroe remake. When Lady Gaga is replaced by a younger person, that is the special effects or fancy CGI analogue.
Here's some good movies from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s you should watch: Invasion of the Body-Snatchers (1978), The Car (1977), Carrie (1976), Night of the Living Dead (1968), They Live (starring Roddy Piper), and The Exorcist (1973). Charly (1968) is a good one based on Flowers of Algernon. Take notes for your writing.
Another thing I might add has to do with "color" in TV shows. Some of the TV shows seem to have lighting that's too dim. In the Original Star Trek TV series, unlike Star Trek: The Next Generation and the rest, they had more brightly lit sets and a lot of color. It turns out that when color TV came into being, TV shows marketed and showed off the color in their shows, so they over did it. They started to invest in TV shows that would be great in color. That's why Star Trek in the 60s had a lot of greens, purples, etc. The Munsters were a top show but got cancelled because of the competition from color shows. It was too expensive to convert the props and sets to color. They painted the faces of the actors and actresses in I think black and white to focus on contrast for B&W shows. The investors with their pathological greed have a stranglehold on creative, original stories. They're considered too risky.
In music, they started to nationalize the playlists in the 80s so to get your music on the radio, it became harder and harder to do. The program manager would get chewed out. Again, Wall Street and Madison Avenue are to blame. They used to "develop" the artist or band. Now they want the special effects of youth right off the bat. It's worse than that. If you don't go woke to make up for your aging, you will get dropped by your label. Probably, if you don't go woke in big movies today, they will struggle to be made.
Yes, things become formulaic.
This is everywhere.
Music, theater, movies, manufacturing...
The first cars were custom built by hand in workshops by the person who designed it.
Now cars are built on assembly lines by robots, and you can hardly work on them without a shit-ton of computer diagnostic equipment.
When metal started out it wasn't even called metal.
It was played by angry kids with no money who wanted to break the formula of cliche blues/rock.
Then metal became what it most despised - a formula. Then grunge happened, and on and on and on.
So maybe it's high time for something new in film to come along and break the formula??
You are quite literally living my dream right now-
Here to recommend some movies: Kubo and the Two Strings, Parasite, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Hereditary, The Half of It, and Appropriate Behavior. Also I recommend slice of life movies because they tend to feel and look more realistic.
I think the problem with metrics is two fold. On the one hand it does feel very formulaic and boring but because we’re already familiar with the plot and characters, I guess there’s a comfort in that and we know more or less what we’re going to be spending our money on at the movies. Movies with more original plots have a harder time gaining traction with audiences because we’re not familiar with anything about it so we’re more hesitant to spend our hard earned money to go see it even if it does turn out to be better than the formulaic one.
We as movie goers need to speak with our feet and go see the movies with more originality IN THE THEATERS! Stop waiting for stuff to come out on streaming services.
I want as much as anyone else to see filmmakers go back to caring about the artistry of it, not this CGI garbage. But in the end it is a business and they have to be able to make their money back. Show them that they can do that with riskier stories.
For example, I’ve heard that Pixar’s Elemental has gotten good ratings and yet it’s not doing very well at the box office. Why? They think it’s because audiences have been trained to wait till these movies come out on streaming services because of their changed policy during the pandemic and also because it’s original and people don’t know what exactly they’d be paying for. Take a risk and spend your money because that’s the only way it’s going to change.
elemental’s poor performance might also be due to the fact that it’s currently competing with spiderman atsv (which is absolutely amazing, the visuals and the storyline and-) whereas the story for elemental is pretty much something that has already been done before.
Characters be like: "oh hello Jeff, my ex aunt by marriage from Louisiana! How's your job at the grocery store going and does your cute daughter still live with you?"
"Why yes, ex nephew who I once punched in the face and now we're no longer close, my cute daughter just broke up with a real 🍑hole"
YES WRITE ONE. You could totally do this as a series: livestreams while you write and get us to help you with your writers block or plot holes! That would be so fun
I understand the feeling, and I completely see where it's coming from, and I agree that a lot of movies today feel rather limited in what they can show. but good, well made movies with good stories AND a good use of CGI/VFX still exist (Blade Runner 2049, Birdman, The Nice Guys and Knives Out come to mind, but there's plenty more!). and that's without counting animation, where people go absolutely nuts in terms of visual storytelling all the time!!
for me the problem is that good stories come out all the time, but very few have even the opportunity to become mainstream in the way they used to (bc of corporate cowardice, metrics, profit and all of that)
I agree that the high budget movies and TV shows aren't always better. I've been a fan of Star Trek the original series since I was a kid. They almost always had budget issues. But they still made great TV most of the time because they wrote great stories. Contrast that to the first three seasons of Star Trek Discovery that had huge budgets, but they were so boring!
There are many reasons for movies sucking lately.
The biggest and most glaring issue for bad movies is the writing. A lot of people will disagree with me on this point, but writing is objective and measurable, and you can look at things in the story that just don't make sense, either with the rest of the story or in general. Writing has standards, and writers who ignore those standards often times churn out crap because they don't care or understand that a movie is just a glorified story. The writer for Doctor Strange 2 is quoted saying "That's just a case of me not knowing what to do with the script." They wrote, shot, and released the movie without any planning whatsoever, and it shows. If your story sucks, then your movie will suck 9 times out of 10.
Some movie makers are lazy and don't want to shoot on set. They have the money and the manpower, but they instead rely almost entirely on CG, sometimes even for movies that don't require it. Plinkett once said "you wouldn't shoot a romantic comedy on a green screen", but some people are getting very close to that, shooting even board meetings or dinner scenes on a green screen for no reason other than.... idk why, they just don't want to use a set, so it comes out looking fake.
Similar to point 1, but agendas and messages are playing a huge role in the fall of quality cinema. Often times, the message or the moral comes before the story, and when the story takes a backseat to anything else, ESPECIALLY something not related to the actual movie (characters, settings, story themes), the story will suffer, and so will the movie. I know Disney hires people with no writing credits to their name or basically no writing talent at all because they share the same agenda. Then, this untalented writer focuses on shoving their message in wherever they can, regardless of how it impacts the story. Not only is stuff like this incredibly irritating to a lot of people but... as I said before, it impacts the story heavily.
Similarly to points 1 and 3, Character is part of the writing, but is different from story and setting. Characters should behave like real people who behave in a mostly intelligent manner and make choices that don't cause the audience to facepalm. Of course, that last sentence requires a lot of qualification, but everyone's aware of the trope where the character in the horror movie decides to hide in a closet they can't escape or run into a dangerous situation without any backup. If the agenda being shoved in our faces is given to us via the characters, then usually the characters become one-note, stale, retarded, and unlikeable.
Lastly, related to all the previous issues, some film makers don't care. They get projects pushed on them, they lose passion halfway through, they become complacent or negligent, or many other things. Point is, care about what you're working on, and it'll often show in the final product.
So, to wrap up: The story sucks and is written by hacks, the hacks writing the story have no talent or passion for the projects, the most important thing for some of them is their agenda, and these writers have no passion for the story, world, or characters they're creating. That's why movies suck nowadays.
absolutely an issue rooted in capitalism and consumerism. so-and-so film structure has been proven to make money and not as much effort is needed for it, therefore we should make more of them. so-and-so topic is proven to draw in viewers and increase discussion, therefore we should include it. your point about movies failing in their roles as visual art is completely true, and most evident in the live action remakes of animated films that we have been seeing. there is no appreciation, understanding or love for the reason why those films were so adored to begin with, which was largely in the vibrant and expressive visuals. they make money, so they get made, but the intentionality of the art has been completely desecrated. it is very very discouraging. i am going into animation school this coming september. i hope things change.
I agree that so much of media is feeling stale and derivative. I'm trying to deliberately branch out. Maybe "the industry" (all industries?) needs more people like us who are dissatisfied and willing to dig deeper and push more creative boundaries. I've heard that Skinamarink is novel, but I haven't watched it yet myself.
Jumped the gun by commenting with two minutes left in the video lol. If you want someone to look at your work, I'm an editor. Just putting it out there. :)
Yeah I agree. I think movies today generally lack originality, that is why there are so many sequels. You see very few truly inspired movies with something totally new and fresh to offer. A lot of movies are so predictable. I think technology has made movie effects easier requiring less creativity, and thus lack luster. People need to slow down and tap into their creativity that requires time and hard work and pain even.
i miss the old movies:(
8:40 i'm a musician and i want to compose songs but suck at lyrics, however i don't think anyone could replicate my vision so i have to write those damn lyrics myself. it's a struggle oh my! you must be in a similar boaty mcboatface so sending you lots of strength leah!
This is so relatable, I am an animation student but I don't like watching movies in theater anymore -﹏- the more I animate and learn, the less I like most of today's movies
they don't feel real because the worldview expressed in the writing isn't congruent with reality.
Woahh, I'm not that into movies but I really relate in terms of comics and books, I read stuff like Alice in Wonderland and I'm like how the HECK did they think of that it's SO unique, what are the stories in this age?? In the shoujo genre, so many of the characters just don't have personalities anymore and you can't tell what kind of person they are, incredibly forgetful
The anime from pre 2000s is all so ridiculously unique because nobody knew what was popular, stories hadn't been really created, but now everyone is creating these stories because they know that a different story of the same genre was popular, not anything groundbreaking and tragic, which is SO sad because those are the best
Therefore me too, I'm not a writer but I'm writing my own comic xD (with a friend, we're illustrating it together)
When films were made like stage plays, it was still theater of the mind. Now, it's just visual gratification. ❤🔥🍻
I COMPLETELY AGREE!! everything has become so clean cut and structured and I partially think its because of a majority of special effects being used now have transformed to digital and CGI etc, etc rather than the actual work put in to have something you imagine in you head depicted IRL without tech, which isn't saying it's *bad*, but it definitely has changed things.
ONE THING that has ruined MY personal movie watching experience is the transition from the blue, fake, artificial, blinding with spark physical practical effect explosion you saw everywhere in old films to the new cleaner, realistic, CGI, after-effects flames and explosions there are nowadays seen in film. I just don't like it, and those blinding blue explosions with those sparks that definitely aren't "real" firey explosions are my home
I totally agree! I do think that not *all* movies nowadays are bad, but definitely a lot of them. Also that the plots have become too predictable. Like now, it’s basically main character has a problem/is determined to do something, then lots of dead space before something happens, dead space again, before the movie climaxes towards the late-middle/early-end where MC’s problem gets solved/they get the thing done finally. Yes, this was used plenty of times before in lots of other movies, but without nearly so much dead space, and with far more excitement with an ending that yes, might not be as exciting as the rest, however, it is a good, satisfying ending that follows the formula but isn’t overly boring. For example (spoilers up ahead): at the ending of everyone’s cliché movie “Mean Girls”, the clique slowly breaks up (because the old queen bee gets kicked out, gets replaced by the protagonist, and then she becomes basically a carbon copy of the old queen bee) before the old queen bee finds out about the plan to ruin her from the protagonist and her friends, and then everything just goes crazy and the clique truly breaks up. We see an ending where everyone does what they want to do: Cady sticks to her group of friends (Janis & Damian), Karen does the weather, Gretchen serves a different queen bee, and Regina does lacrosse, joins a good group of friends, and becomes a better person while recovering from her injuries. Going back to the beginning, Cady goes from home-school in Africa (because her parents were studied animals) to public high school in the US. She meets some friends who help her get accustomed, when she meets “The Plastics”, who invite her into the clique despite how new she was. Her friends outside of the clique convince her to stay and mess with them to ruin the clique, while she develops a crush on Ms. Queen Bee’s (Regina’s) ex-boyfriend. Slowly but surely, she ruins the clique, while also learning about the rules of “girl world”. She then sees Regina and Cady’s crush get back together through a long kiss, which ruins Cady, and makes it her life mission to ruin Regina’s life. They then start feeding Regina bars to make her gain weight, her nightmare. Beyond that, Regina gets kicked out of the clique, and this is where the ending begins. That was made in the early 2000s, and I think it is a great, interesting movie. Now, take a look at something more modern, something like “Turning Red”. Yes, I do understand that these are completely different movies made by completely different people with completely different target audiences and characters (the diversity is good though), but just hear me out. Also just note I am not saying it is a bad movie, just that it is far more predictable and is more in the middle in terms of how good it is (oh and spoilers, of course). It starts out with a girl in a Chinese family who wants to go to a concert hosted by a fictional band. Her mother says no, the girl goes to her room, and wakes up as a red panda. Her mother thinks something else happened, and helps her with that, because the girl hid the red panda thing. Later she discovers what gets her back in form, and how to control the panda, and she also discovers her family’s curse involving the red panda thing. The girl also discovers how to make money off of it and sneak off to the concert she wanted to go to, only it is on the same night as a ritual to get rid of the red panda thing. Come the night, the ritual fails, and she runs off to the concert. Her mother chases her and they end up in a fight in their panda forms, cause a lot of damage, and repair it while making a profit off of the girl’s red panda thing. Sounds predictable if you ask me. Again, I am not saying this movie is meaningless and all bad, it did have a younger audience than I am and it did have a moral lesson about sticking to your true self and don’t change for anyone, but still. The writer’s strike doesn’t help matter, since there is a shortage of people, especially *good* people writing scripts and everything for these movies.
So sorry for the long rant, by the way, I never meant it to be this long. Also TL;DR: New movies *usually* bad, old ones good w/ examples.
Edit: Congrats on 100 videos, Leah! I hope you get 100k subs soon, you deserve it and more for all of the amazing stuff you create and the amount of work you put into it!
Completely agree
You're a very wise person. Hate is a destructive act and love is the opposite. You're absolutely right about the current situation in the move industry. (I'm gonna add a little - this "trend" is also the same for modern books and them being published to just be SELLABLE and simple.)
Art is art and should be separated from thirst for profit and trade.
I am loving the new topic of your channel 🥰 It makes me wanna go and see American Gangster, yes, for the first time, and yes, in my late thirties, yes.. 👀
Also, the difference between “negativity” in conversations is they leave you feeling bad and drained and without a will to do something good.. unlike this one which made me wanna go and do something good 🙂and your energy comes from a place of warmth, and, yes, there is fire in there, because what’s a heart without fire in it ❤️🔥
Ps. Pixar is still holding up 😉
I'm a writer, not nostalgic at all either just desperate for good story, 100% agree with everything here. Good luck with the screenplay!
Loved this video! Never liked movies much, but maybe I just don’t like modern movies.
An example of how a story and visuals interact in movies.
"Dark Star" released 1975 a movie by Dan O'Bannon made as a graduate project with John Carpenter. O'Bannon went on to the first "Aliens" with Ridley Scott. Spoiler: the beach ball pet morphed into the Alien. Dan O'Bannon worked with Jean Moebius "Gir" Giraud on the Heavy Metal story "The Long Tomorrow". Giraud worked on the movie "The Fifth Element". Ridley Scott went on to "Blade Runner" with Philip K. Dick and H.R. Giger.
And it goes on and on.*
*Point* is the interweaving of various writers and visual artists one passing the creative baton to another. If you want to study how that happened to make some memorable movies it'll take time to unravel or reverse engineer.
For example, Jean Moebius Giraud's line quality can be said goes back to the Clear Line (Ligne CLaire) of the 1920s/30s franco-begian comics like Herge. It was a combination of cartoonish characters against a realistic background. Moebius helped develop it into Heavy Metal graphic novels. Later movies bought in Computer Graphics.
* Vincent Ward made the movie "The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey" a great movie. He tried working on one of the "Aliens" franchise movies but it was a fail. Too many screenwriters. The formula was already set in stone.
Mike Mignola started "Hell Boy" with a simple line and the color red.
Walt Disney based its characters on *Heinrich Kley* . RIip-off would be a better word.
Again, it takes a team working together. Now quick, who directed "Ice Age" ? The animation ? The cinematography ?
How does that anywhere explain today's stale movies ? Could be they're too quickly throw together like replicas for the dumbing down of its audiences ?
I think that this is exactly what happened with the Jurassic Park/World franchise. The first movie was amazing, the second was great, the third was still pretty good. But then it changed to Jurassic World, and they brought in Chris Pratt and everything changed and now it sucks. I think that if you introduce Chris Pratt into a franchise, then there’s this certain element that makes the producers automatically turn the show into an action movie, and I hate it. And the more movies they make, the more of THAT appeal is shown. So yeah, I get what you mean.
You are right. We need to make more writer-ly, character based movies. Movies today are so formulaic and over-the-top with violence and action, shock value and eye candy. Watch some old movies instead.
About Fantastic Beast, I think it's not about the CG ruining the movie. I think it's more about them wanting to do too much and not taking the time to do that visual story telling you talk about. We want to get to know these creatures a little more. Everything is moving too fast and we don't get the opportunity to invest in the characters and the story.
I'm really loving your videos. This weekend I watched Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba in "3000 Years of Longing." Just wonderful story telling. I watched it twice and plan to rewatch it again tonight. It was that well done. Have you seen it? If you haven't, I think you might enjoy it. Get all your snacks before you push play. There's a hidden story to discover and the clues are in the beginning of the movie.
and also another thingi wanna mention is writers are treated like shit in the industry and there are fewer and fewer writers these days in writers rooms. This is because big production companies wanna pinch pennies like most capitalists but it causes things like the current writers strike happening right now, as bad as the education system is people who write amazing stories arent going to go away but right now we're living in a time where most of our media is going to put profit above literally anything else and unfortunately it doesn't stop with art but the same goes for healthcare, food, shelter, literally anything.. But capitalism is the best system right
Pls make more like this, I really enjoyed this video! 💝
i always feel the capitalism bleeding through movies, i think movies just feel so empty and formulaic because people aren't creating art for the purpose of telling stories and bringing them to life they are creating art _for profit_
honestly making art just for the sake of art, something ur passionate about is revolutionary nowadays. I mean look what happens w shows like the owl house.
I know you've probably heard abt all the drama so I'm just gonna say it, you should analyse Colleen ballingers handwriting. I wanna see what it says about the whole situation
I felt this exact way for a bit now- and this video makes me happy hehe
I think Tom Hnaks voiced the same topic maybe 5 years ago. Where the CGI and computers will make the actor/human condition non-existant.
I disagree with some of your points but I get where you are coming from and there is a lot of truth in what you are saying. I ll tell you in my opinion some great movies that I ve seen lately:
Missing (2023)
You Hurt my Feelings
3000 Years of Longing
Bones and All
The Menu
Barbarian
A Quiet Place
Nope
Ready or not
See How They Run
Uncut Gems
The last Guardians of the Galaxy movie was a pretty good one. Didn't felt like the last Marvel films.
Spiderman into the Spiderverse and Across the Spiderverse. (Really good stuff if you can like animation)
And in shows
Dark (a German show in Netflix probably the best time travel show I ve seen)
Devs
Arcane
Ozark
The Boys
The Last of Us
Castlevania
Peacemaker
Severance
A lot of great movies and shows have been made in the past 5 to 8 years.
I just wanted give a list so you can check some out instead of disagreeing with you.
I think you might enjoy William Duryea's video about Wonder! It came out a day or two ago
I loved the movie Wonder, talk about great story telling & characters!
I'm a writer. People don't listen to me when I tell them that Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Suicide Squad 2, Across The Spider-verse, The King's Man, or Glass Onion for that matter, suck enormously. I could write a lengthy essay here in the comments, dissecting how poorly executed the scripts are, how you can't have a 30-minute or 1-hour long introduction with nothing happening, that you need to use your Chekhov's guns, that just because you think a fart joke is hilarious doesn't mean your audience will agree, that two people looking at each other for ten seconds and kissing at the end of the film will not sell them being in love to the audience, that people don't want to watch an unenjoyable dickhead of a main character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, that your characters are deep and complicated and human, not caricatures or cardboard cutouts with speakers. I am tired. I left the theatre so pissed off after Across The Spider-verse, because some asshole decided to make a film that is epic and marketable 100% of the time, pacing and tension gone, with constant emotional monologues and vomit of bright animation that makes you feel like you're on an acid trip because there's no damn outline of the background in action scenes so you have no idea what's going on, and nobody bothered to put some plot in it. But it still has high ratings on Letterboxd, you know why? Because the majority of people only care that it's pretty and shiny.
Personally I feel it is the writing - it is now crap.
$$$ aside, pre-2010 scripts actually followed story beats and made sense even when the plots were terrible
What you do on this channel is already good writing, i believe in your writing skill, go! Even if you don't like it it can teach you a lot of valuable things.
Hi Leah, thank you for this video, I agree with you and love your content ❤ keep going!!
yes but ATSV and guardians of the galaxy vol. 3 are AMAZING
Watch Willem Dafoe, in Vincent. There still is captivating performances made, just not as many .
i feel that anyone with a creative intellect can see through the formulaic productions.
unfortunately, the masses are the sheep these things are made for. (if you agree with leah, you are not a sheep)
Here are some films I would recommend. The Grifters, Hard Eight, Walkabout, nothing made in the last 20 years. (I'll find some more)
I feel ya. But im 47, and some of the movies you find great to me feels like too much cgi. But now, its like you said, lets make fast movies for fast money. Its not this story needs to be told, or this dude’s passion is monsters or super heroes. And for Marvel, well i pretty sure i know the problem, its been ripped out of the original owner’s hands and the Clintons (yes the Clintons) played a nasty part in that. Im afraid to tell you that its only gonna get worse for you. I simply stopped watching movies.
That 's why I'm watching indians movies (AKA Bollywood) lately. Yeah, there's alot of music and dancing but at least the seem to have fun (and we can SEE THE MOVIE LIGHT AND COLOURS!!! Not everything is black and depressive). Oh, and no politics in the script. 😄
YES, thank you. They are sterile. I thought it was just me with my overly compressed handwriting. I have two main hypotheses for this: 1) Business is now so in control of all artistic media production that we have moved from the situation that used to exist of trying out different voices and perspectives to see which chime with the public and succeed at the box office, to manufacturing artistic media to formulas and market research to simply maximise the return on financial investment. This may entail appealing to the lowest common denominator, and avoiding offending anyone by avoiding being too definite about anything. The point is that art no longer does what it should do, which is to allow individuals to share their own entirely subjective experiences and viewpoints of the world and of life, with others whose experiences are different. Art deals with the subjective, science deals wiith the objective. Business in control of art tries to design it according to objective principles. 2) The sub-culture from which the writers, directors and others involved in artistic production of media are drawn is a 'sterile society'. In other words once upon a time artists in literary and dramatic forms were driven to produce a work to express something they felt they needed to say. Today people coming from a sterile, anodyne, subculture have nothing to say. In this absence they must simply entertain vaccuously.
this is off topic but u are really pretty
Let us know when it’s out!
ooh content other than handwriting exciting
The answer is streaming. The answer is streaming. The answer is streaming.
short answer: feminism
Good luck with writing your screenplay! Story craft is not easy. Make room for yourself at the table. That's how Sylvester Stalone created Rocky.
I am a writer, and I stumbled across an article earlier today about fairy tales that are no longer suitable for children. I realized this is a big issue facing story telling today. They included things like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Beauty and the Beast. They described the base message of each and every one of these stories as being the problem. The author of the article is an idiot. The reason these tales exist is because they were used as cautionary stories. In each of these stories a moral is given through the series of dilemmas the character faces on their journey.
It is the actual removal of the character's journey that is the problem. It's the challenges characters face and how they grow are why we root for them.
Characters no longer are given a journey or an accurate starting point. They don't grow or are too perfect, which is why they feel unrelatable.
When you write a complete story, the MC's starting and end point should be at the same place, but that character has changed or grown in such a way that they cannot go back to the status quo.
funny you mention comic book movies and list early marvel movies as something special compared to later entries in their series and over reliance on cg sets.
funny you didn't mention bvs, a beautiful, fresh, poetic, ambitious film
You should definitely write!
This video is just based on your perspective. It's not true either. Seems like you loss interest in movies but it doesn't mean movies changed over year.
Sterile is the complete opposite of
Raw. Movies today are SO generic and formulaic and lacking in raw gritty intensity! Movies used to be a source of spiritual inspiration even in to the most basic of movies. I’m the 80s and 90s films were full of magic and inspiration. They try making movies for every audience and they end up making a movie for nobody. The movies are politically correct woke garbage.
The west has fallen
Excuse me, Movies aren't fake, it's just another world, it's fantasy and please don't complain about Marvel movies...
You have pulled up the curtain a little bit .
Are you an INFJ?
Greetings Leah,
Life or Something Like It (2002) by Herek, Shutter Island (2010) by Scorsese, Midnight in Paris (2011) by Allen, The Big Short (2015) by McKay, Glass Onion (2022) by Johnson, The Bubble (2022) by Apatow, were addressing sensitive subjects sometimes via comedic techniques, and sometimes allow the catharsis to happen.
The "problem" does not reside in the "industry" but rather in the shallowness of the general population. People watch TikTok and RUclips because of the short span they require; not to much emotional/psychological content risking confronting their very own existence, but empty calories. They do not want insights to touch their "core issue" and unconscious behavioural patterns that ruin their Life, they "wanna have fun"!
I am also coming from Love, and if you have a psychological 2X4 stuck in your belly, I have to take it out, and it will hurt like f**k. But some people would rather be stoned out of their wits with medication (nice euphemism isn't it) or stories telling them about a superhero with a magic "stick" who saves the World!
If an egg breaks from the outside, a Life is taken; if the egg is broken from the inside, a new Life emerges.
Patience and compassion my friend...
In Peace and Friendship,
Pierre iieweras
100% agree