No. Nostalgia is an emotion that actualizes in the observer of a reference to another text. You cannot copy an emotion, just a text. There is a lot of overlap in the two concepts, but since all of the Nerdwriter's examples were intertextual, but not all used to incite nostalgia, I think 'weaponized intertextuality' is more appropriate. Still, I can't see why you would call it 'weaponized'.
I suppose that the two terms are so interchangeable in my mind, so I tend to conceptualize intertextuality as an intentional reference of a past body of work to elicit an emotional longing of a previous time when that work was presented in the current property. For example, bringing up Sauron in the Hobbit trilogy doesn't make sense in context of the films, but it provokes an emotion to make a LOTR fan say, "Hey, I remember Sauron from the LOTR films. He was such a scary dude, wasn't he?" See, if it is intentionally used to elicit emotion where there would have been none in a very boring scene, that would make it "weaponized" in my mind. Similarly, if the viewer was acquainted with the past reference that was intentionally injected into the current frame of work which relates very closely to the past body of work, the emotional response is more likely to be incited. However, if someone was oblivious to or was never been previously exposed to the reference, it fails to elicit the emotional response that is demanded by the producer/director of the current body of work. That's why I viewed it as "weaponized nostalgia" instead of generally viewing it as "weaponized intertextuality." I like it when like minds have different perspectives on the same topic.
Redlettermedia tackled this a while back. Intertextuality is used more often now because it's perceived as a way of attracting viewers that now have hundreds of choices for their entertainment dollars. The studios figure that even when used in excess it draws in more viewers ($$$) than it repels. Just when I thought this notion had jumped the shark, they rebooted Star Wars rather blatantly and everyone lapped it up. We may have to live with it for a while.
damn it, i read the title as intersexuality and i though it was gonna be about how hollywood likes to have humans be in relationships with non humans like in beauty and the beast
People are misinterpreting some of the words here and what he is talking about. Some say these are just allusions but allusions are a type of intertextuality. Intertextuality is basically just a relationship between two literary works, as a very broad definition. Also intertextuality isn't necessarily nostalgia and nostalgia isn't necessarily intertextual. You can have something be intertextual without it being an appeal to nostalgia. The best example I can think of is the marvel movies, in Thor when Colson brings up Tony Stark, that's intertextuality but it's not really nostalgia, it's simply a reference to another work in that universe that can sort of excite viewers when they hear it. Nostalgia is more of a phenomenon which allows a certain type of intertextuality to be very effective.
MaxSnow24 This is how conversations take place. You make a statement, then I refute. Then you say explain. This is my explanation, or the support for my claim. "You can have something be intertextual without it being an appeal to nostalgia. The best example I can think of is the marvel movies, in Thor when Colson brings up Tony Stark, that's intertextuality but it's not really nostalgia, it's simply a reference to another work in that universe that can sort of excite viewers when they hear it." The question is, why did the viewer get excited? Isn't their pleasure stemming from a memory in the past, triggered by what was mentioned in the present? Which is the basis of nostalgia
bob polo I wouldn't consider a movie that's a year or two old to be nostalgic, when I get milk out of my fridge I'm not nostalgic for when I went to the grocery store yesterday. Most people would consider nostalgia as being something farther back in time. Even if I concede to your point, you can still have intertextuality without nostalgia, and nostalgia without intertextuality. Sitting down and playing ocarina of time can be nostalgic but there's nothing intertextual about that experience. All the little interextual elements of the MCU and the Marvel Netflix series are far too close together for me to consider them "nostalgic" apart from the references to comic books, references to the other shows within the universe are not nostalgic imo. Even if you disagree with my point that those things are nostalgic it still doesn't have anything to do with intertextuality. Intertextuality is simply a relationship between two texts, nostalgia is a human experience of having sentimental affection for the past. There could be something that is intertextual that plays off of the nostalgia that people experience, but that doesn't mean intertextuality is intrinsically nostalgic. You could argue that technically speaking, there is intertextuality between a video game manual and the game it is paired with, however they would typically be sold at the same time, so there would be no nostalgia. Even if you say that specific example I gave is something nostalgic, it's not a contradiction because my point was always about distinguishing between nostalgia and intertextuality, since some people seem to think they are basically synonyms. Lets be dumb and say when colson brings up tony stark that's nostalgic for some people. The intertextuality is the actual relationship that exists between those works, the nostalgia is the emotion evoked in the audience by that intertextual dialogue. A specific literary device is not synonymous with the emotions it may or may not evoke. Even if you feel that was a bad example it's not a contradiction, it's just that, a bad example. Also this isn't a conventional conversation, if you were sitting in front of me, that would be fine, but in the medium of a comments section, it seems pretty silly to act like you're literally talking to someone. I would never go into a conversation on youtube the way you did, I really don't see the point of not providing your evidence upfront The discourse of "you contradicted yourself" "how did I contradict myself?" does nothing and adds nothing to the discussion, just get to the point, and there's really no reason you couldn't have included all of that in your first comment. It's not like had you just said all you wanted to say it would have been rude. Plus even when just having a normal verbal conversation if someone makes a claim that I disagree with I don't think I would EVER just say "you're wrong" and just sit there waiting for them to ask me why I think that instead of just going into why I think they are wrong.
MaxSnow24 You're right, I should conduct my conversations on youtube the way you instruct me to. Any other lessons, father? Parental instruction aside, I defined intertextuality in one of my posts on this same video. If you want, you can scroll through and find it. You're right about everything you said. I fully agree
Please don't get me wrong, I genuinely enjoyed this video and overall love the content! But if I'm being honest (not trying to be a dick) ... I kinda feel this was a VERY jarring and convoluted way to describe was is essentially the formal concept of 'fan service'. This video feels like taking a casual opinion or observation and attempting to add a rather overbearing academic spin to it where it's not really needed. That said, this was a very mature and structured way to present the current trend in Hollywood productions. Better than an incoherent rant, haha!
The mistake he made, in my opinion, is that he confused Intertextuality and fan service as being the same thing. He basically stated the pros and cons of referencing past films within a film series, but that's actually a distortion of how proper intertextuality works.
I don't know much about the concept of intertextuality. I literally only know it as the relationship or reshaping of one text to another text (which could be totally wrong). For example, I assume if a film takes an original source and changes it's meaning or interprets it differently, that might fit the concept like maybe a David Fincher adaptation? I'm completely ignorant to the subject matter so I won't attempt to get ahead of myself.
Ryan Hollinger You actually have a good understanding of intertextuality. You used it effectively in the beginning of your Little Miss Sunshine video. I posted my thoughts on nerdwriter's interpretation at the top. Meet me up there, tell me what you think.
+Ryan Hollinger that's one form of intertextuality. Film student here. All in all intertextuality is just when one text uses another text to inform the narrative. It's not just a moment of fan service. Its when your story depends on another story for your audience to understand the full meaning. However it only works when the story itself stands on its own, and new watchers can still basically understand the text without having seen what the the new text is referencing. The problem, and what this video is getting at, is when a movie uses an intertextual relationship between two films as the emotional pay off itself, where the new audience would be completely unable to derive meaning from the text because the reference would be meaningless to them.
Yea, how he described intertextuality is different from what I was taught it is, which was it's the relationship between texts. Here he described it as films reference other films, which I guess works. But how I learned it was related to art criticism and how intertextuality relates to that in terms of analysing and critiquing a work of art based on and in comparison to other works of art in the same style/genre or by the same artist or which deal with the same theme or subject matter or are from the same time period. Something like that. Not art reference other art (art here meaning any art/art form). Basically how it was described to me in uni was that it is a text's relation[ship] to other texts. In light of THAT understanding of intertextuality I agree that what he described here is fan service and not necessarily intertextuality.
goodness. i was embarassed of myself like i am a fucking moron for thinking the same. like my mind is officially degraded. now i know hundreds of other minds are too. i mean, now i know its not
True and there were lots of films about Holmes, Dracula, etc etc. But there is a huge difference between then and now. There were vastly more feature films made in the golden age of the studios and there was a much greater variety of genre overall so there was no shortage of alternative choices. Secondly most of the sequels and remakes were inexpensive programmers. They were not the major releases of major studios sucking up most of the available finances and resources of those studios. . Their individual success or failure had almost zero impact on the overall financial success of the studio. They were not dominating the media and cultural scene, they were simply a modest way of eking a bit more money out of unassuming entertainment and filling out the studio roster.
Proper intertextuality is the referencing of an external work within the current film . The reference to the external work intensifies or modifies the meaning or specific themes in the current work. Your examples of Hollywood movies that use intertextuality were Star Wars, Star Trek, 007, Mission Impossible, and Disney remakes. All of these Hollywood movies do use a system of referencing, true; but it's not exactly proper intertextuality because they're basically referencing themselves oppose, to say, referencing another movie that literally has nothing to do with their franchise. Like, if the 007 series chose to reference Groundhog Day because they had a plot where Bond is experiencing the same day over and over. That's intertextuality! These Hollywood franchises that reference their own films within the series is basically an intertextual loop, meaning they reference themselves opposed to external works outside of their franchises. That's a perfect example of how infinite regression works, but that's another conversation. Another commenter called it "Weaponized Nostalgia." That's a more appropriate label.
Nice Bob, the Groundhog Day example completely refreshes intertextuality for me because I never learnt the specific wording of the concept even if I know how it's used. So I've clearly been subconsciously using it, but that's what makes discovering new ideas or insight from others so interesting and essential.
Intertextuality is a term that was used by this guy named Roland Barthes and it means a reciprocity between texts and ideas, like one takes parts from another idea and makes new one. English is not my first language so I'll set an example...the Hunger games are an intertextuality of war news and a reality show. That's were the idea came from and you can go back and forward with it because they complement each other. Internet is a great great grand child of the library of Alexandria. It is not a reference but a generator. But this video is about emotions that are generated by a symbol, not so much about a reference or nostalgia. Lots of kids can watch TFA without knowing who Han Solo is and still get exited. Because Han Solo is a symbol to pop culture. It's a weird term...and I hate school....
Hunger games using war and news as correlations is more of a rendering of real world counterparts. That's not exactly intertextuality. I don't wish to be so restrictive with a term's definition, but if you define words anyway you like, you lose the meaning of their essential functions.
bob polo That was Barthes problem, his theory didn't have a limit. If it is not limited to text, intertextuality could reach every single thing that we define as culture.
That's true. We see intertextuality not just in movies but in novels as well, like Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, evoking Moby Dick; or Winslow Homer's painting The Gulf Stream, referencing the work of John Singleton Copley. But intertextuality works better for an artist when they use it intentionally. Sure, you can make connections between works that seem familiar to something in the past, but that's not the same as an artist intentionally pulling your emotional and intellectual strings to elicit a significantly better response.
I highly recommend the comic. The movie was very good, and in my opinion actually made some positive changes, but the comic dives a lot deeper into the lore of the universe so if that's something you're interested in you should enjoy the comic.
The comic is amazing! It was written, I heard, to show what comics can do that books, film, and music cannot. Therefore it is impossible to totally translate on the screen. If you are a big fan of the movie, and book will blow your mind(though the plot is spoiled).
Everything will become more and more meta until the center is nowhere and the circumference is everywhere. I make no judgement, I just observe the novelty. "Thought is the thought of though" - James Joyce
The Hobbit was a bad example... the Unfinished Tales explain that the Necromancer (Sauron) was the mastermind of the entire orc/goblin attack, wishing to wipe out the last of Durin's line and kill off the men of Dale so that they would be unable to assist in the war of the Ring... it backfired, but the plan was partially successful.
I agree, there were many better examples in the Hobbit like the moth going to get the eagles, Galadriel going crazy moment or Frodo picking up an Orc weapon in Bilbo's house at the beginning.
That scene in the hobbit screw up all the Lotr saga!!By cronological order Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel see Sauron in that scene and for 58 years Gandalf have no idea that the one ring was in possession of Bilbo, even after when the ring go to Frodo it took him a lot to realize that even if he already met and knew that Sauron was alive and he was gathering an army.That scene isn´t really intertextuality, the whole hobbits trilogy is, but yeah he did better examples
pathofoblivion That's not inter-text... that is the text on which the film is based... The watchmen example is also bad, it's a direct adaptation of the base work, not an allusion to a previous work.
Judge Fredd Sauron doesn't appear in the original text though, so him being there is just an intertextual reference to Peter Jacksons films. Watchmen is a good example, it can be argued that it is an allusion to the graphic novel (which is a previous work) when it adapts certain comic visuals into the film, because it will give people who have read the novel a sense of self-gratification in knowing that the visuals are straight from the graphic novel.
+Mike Blackney I didn't say intertextual it doesn't exist.. I'm saying that it does exist and it isn't what he's describing. He is misinterpreting it and using it as a fancy sounding word to describe continuity and allusion for the sake of marketable familiarity.
Lorespade it was okay but was so much better than the book. I don’t think I can read the book again without losing a couple braincells every time the author makes a giant list of pop culture references.
the first 3 seconds of this video are beautiful. I love the usage of a soft wind and string section holding a single steady note, the strings slightly building vibrato as the milk falls into the cup of coffee, only for the piano arpeggio to begin the moment the last droplet of milk impacts on the surface. 10/10 artistic detail.
Or: The Problem With Modern Film-Making. Too much focus on nostalgia for money-making reasons at the consequence of telling a good story. Don't get me wrong - good stories still come through the morass, even in remake form, but they are exceptions to the rule. Most movies are pretty weak, and for no reason. They can be better, but they are not. The film-makers focus instead on getting butts in seats, because we pay for films *before* viewing them. I understand the need for profit, but I don't believe that must come solely through poorly written stories as evidenced by the onslaught of sequels and remakes that fail to live up to their original counterparts 99% of the time. I think more effort should go into crafting a quality story to give new films longevity. Nobody is going to watch Jurassic World in 20 years because Jurassic Park is so much better. Nobody is going to watch Terminator: Gyenisiys when T1 and T2 are vastly more entertaining due to their nature of simply being well-made movies. I long for the day Hollywood realizes they are leaving money on the table, because that's the only way things will change on a macro level for the better. The entertainment business is a business first, make no mistake. Sometimes, we get entertained. Other times, we get swindled.
One of my favorite recent examples of intertextuality was the piano cover of a certain song playing during a certain scene of the TV show Mr. Robot. It might have been a little on the nose, and the reference it established was at that point pretty much obvious to everyone familiar with it - but it hit hard nevertheless.
It also works well on its own without the intertextual context because it's a nice mood-setting piece. Not like a closeup of Cumberbatch saying "Khan" and making a funny face, or Waltz going "Ernst... Stavro... Blofeld" like his goofy name has inherent dramatic weight.
You can't just blame the studios for this. It's the fandom culture that lets fan service succeed. If people better distanced themselves from properties they liked, studios wouldn't be able to play them like a drum. As long as they keep their favorite stories or characters on an altar and use them to define their own identity, studios will be able to trigger this kind of emotional response with nostalgia and in-jokes far more easily than by creating a unique and compelling product.
+pathofoblivion I thought all of his films just took place in the same world? Or did the fans make that up to explain why he keeps referencing himself?
Jason Williams No, he says his films take place in the same universe (like Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction and Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs being brothers), he hasn't elaborated where his other films fit into it but fans have come up with theories about it. I think though you misinterpreted what intertexulaity means, it means the presence of a text within another text. He references films constantly in his films both subtly and obviously - that's intertextulaity. Example: The opening of Jackie Brown is an intertexual reference to The Graduate (shot by shot pretty much). The showdown between The Bride and O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill vol 1 is an intertexual reference to Lady Snowblood (shot by shot as well). Tarantino is a cinephile, he watches films from all over the world and he references them in his films, that's why he's the King of intertexulaity.
pathofoblivion Yeah, but he goes over the top in his films to the point that it stops being intertextuality, and becomes a greatest hits buffet of his favorite films.
There was no other way to tell the Watchmen story than frame-by-frame. That is the only thing I disagree with. The comic book followed a cinematic flow, so to adapt it purely from its original form was the right decision--in my opinion.
I agree. I read the comic book only after I've watched the movie a few times and loved it although I dislike most superheroes movies. This is actually the only comic book I've ever read...
There's was a shit ton of non-linear plot progression in Watchmen (the book). Rorschach's journal, the news articles, the comic book the kid was reading, etc. There's no way they could've included it all, but I still think Watchmen is easily the best graphic novel adaptation ever. I remember always hearing about it, and saw all the hype when the movie was about to come out, so I read the book before seeing it. Afterwards, I was able to truly appreciate how true it was to the original, and point out what they clearly changed (for plot and pacing reasons, which all movies must do).
Seems to me that the Force Awakens was nothing but pure high-grade weaponized intertextuality. I still liked it, because of course I did, Star Wars episode 4 was a very fun ride so I can't imagine Star Wars episode 4.1 being any less fun. If any of you watch Moviebob he pretty much called this from the day JJ Abrams was picked as director, that despite being a pretty good technical director he was the safe choice, and that means we were robbed of a possible risky, visionary choice.
Force Awakens was in a very unique spot in that, after the prequels, many fans felt Star Wars lost its way, and by its very own creator. The reason it used fanservice, and in ways that made sense for the story and the film itself, was because it was smarter, or at least, safer to bring the old feel and look of Star Wars back. And then you get Rogue One, the single most different Star Wars film of all time, but that's neither here nor there. The Force Awakens did it well, but like I've said for years, Episodes 8 and 9 need to be their own things. Episode 7 is a return to form, but if it goes the Hollywood route, where they're just the Original Trilogy redux, then they won't be remembered down the line. At least the prequels are still remembered for how bad they are.
The "intertextuality" in Watchman works for me. I have never read the comic book (on my todo list), but the frames you showed were just memorable and visually impressive scenes from the movie. On the whole I didn't get the feeling that I was missing out on something, that I needed some extra information for this and that scene to invoke something in me. Watchman just sounds like an adaptation that decided to stay very true to the source material, and in this case it worked!
If that's what you took away from this video, then you probably already felt that way going into it. Because that certainly isn't what he said. There are great movies that use intertextuality (like The Shawshank Redemption). It's just one of many cinematic tools. It, on its own, isn't inherently good or bad. It's about how a film maker uses it. You should really enter these videos and discussions with a more open mind. Same goes for you people thumb upping this guy's shallow comment.
+Lord Tippington the Wise - Atheist Knight of Le Reddit Gentlesirs But Shawshank didn't use intertextuality in a "weaponized" form, which is what this video was addressing, so the OP wasn't really incorrect
He's not saying that's all intertexuality is. He's saying that it describes the more recent trend and reliance on intertexuality in place of doing interesting, original work in film. You shouldn't assume that a person's criticism is all encompassing or the extent of their opinion on a topic.
That's a great point to make, this guy's obviously coming into the video with that sort of mindset and it appears as a horrible generalization. But I think he's got somewhat of a point that's pretty important and speaks volumes about the direction this industry is headed towards. Obviously intertextuality can be seen from a macro and micro level, but I think what this person is going off of is the idea that what we see a lot of happening today in the industry (at least what seems to garnering the most success) are movies that are playing off of other stories. You don't see many Chaplins rising up anymore who write their own work. And it's not necessarily a bad thing because directors like Nolan do it well, and demonstrate as well that they have the capacity to illustrate revolutionary techniques in cinematography in other work, and can write their own work. But at least from what i can see, there is a great deal of lazy directing going on in Hollywood for the sake of money. This could be because we're introduced to an increasingly larger sector of entertainment (the gaming industry) i don't know how much those two are related and i haven't done any census work to figure this out, but from the surface it's easy to make the argument that the use of intertextuality and nostalgia is being abused a lot more than it should. Think of it this way, you can apply intertextuality as a tool based on target audiences, if you look into what generation you're hoping to speak to you can obviously do research into what the media was heavily suggesting to them as children, and construct symbols based on a similar dialectic, or you could hit them on an even more intimate level by playing around with psychological symbols and symbols based on music, unfortunately, you just see lazy reboots of movies instead of actual synthetic use of symbols in organic work. But I don't wanna overshadow your point, obviously at the micro level, with subliminal stimulation and the use of symbolic reference, it goes a much longer way that ought not be neglected. I like to think that directors above anything else must understand the monolithic importance of symbols in order to be successful at any level. I don't know if you've seen The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, but it illustrates this from a very psychoanalytic perspective, and does a pretty good job from what i can see. Once again though, I respect the point you're making!
It'd be interesting to hear you talk about intertextuality in film that exists between entirely separate films. Things like the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin being used in Brazil and The Untouchables, the shot of the desks from The Crowd being reused in The Apartment, music from Vertigo used in The Artist, or how Blow-up The Conversation and Blow-Out are all in direct conversation with one another. I think these are more interesting and effective examples of intertextuality than their more 'fan-service-y' brethren, and they more closely resemble the intertextuality that is a staple of modern and post-modern literature.
Maybe it's because I've seen so much intertextual references, but I seem to be feeling less and less nostalgia and more and more annoyance. Dare I say the word, cringe-y. It's lazy and further catering to the mass demographic. "Durrrr I know that thing!" Granted we also have moments where whatever we get that's new is terrible (cough-starwarsprequels-cough).
+Henry Harvey memes? References? Throwbacks? Callbacks? Homages? Sorry if this is all too pedestrian but I don't see why we need another term for a thing we've all known about
+Henry Harvey well not really, he simply pointed out the reoccurring use of "safe" material in an eloquent manner. And besides there is such a thing as nuance, you fucking pleb.
+Henry Harvey well not really, he simply pointed out the reoccurring use of "safe" material in an eloquent manner. And besides there is such a thing as nuance, you fucking pleb.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said so many of these movies are hundred-million dollar risks that they HAVE to rely on aggressive intertextuality just to get people to see the damn things. We are officially done with self-contained movies. Everything has to be a franchise. Everyone has to have seen all the movies, read all the books, watched the spin off TV show... even family movies and comedies, my two favorite kinds, rely way too much on giving the audience lip service. A movie can't just be it's own thing any more because they're too expensive. We NEED small movies again, and I hope that happens soon.
THANK YOU for making this video! There a good number of reasons of why I don't like many Hollywood films, particularly how they try to manipulate us emotionally. I always realized Intertextuality was a thing, but I never had the right words to describe it.
I discovered your channel for the first time today and I can tell I will be devouring much of your videos. Thank you for bringing so much great semiotic analysis to pop culture. I love it!
from what you say i understand that every sequel to a movie, book story that continues with the same characters or the story line is made for intertextuality or generates it. i think it is more nuanced then that. There is basically no way to have Han solo or any of the other character in ep7 without it being "aggressive intertextuality". I think that you cluster all the types of references, nods, fan services, or whatever you call it unrightfully together but I also have no clear definition of intertextuallity for myself either.
a reference can be to anything whereas intertextuality is a reference to your own series or franchise intertextuality often provokes the feeling that you're still there in the same series that you were in decades ago while a reference is usually just a throwaway joke or a wink and a nod
Steak Bentley Wikipedia's definition: Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. Oxford definition: The relationship between texts, especially literary ones. Intertextuality doesn't have to be a reference to your own work.
Intertextuality is a term that was used by this guy named Roland Barthes and it means a reciprocity between texts and ideas, like one takes parts from another idea and makes new one. English is not my first language so I'll set an example...the Hunger games are an intertextuality of war news and a reality show. That's were the idea came from and you can go back and forward with it because they complement each other. Internet is a great great grand child of the library of Alexandria. It is not a reference but a generator. But this video is about emotions that are generated by a symbol, not so much about a reference or nostalgia. Lots of kids can watch TFA without knowing who Han Solo is and still get exited. Because Han Solo is a symbol to pop culture. I hope I cleared your doubts :D
Hey, just found your channel. Super into it. I literally have a trunk full of Marvel comics I'm about to re-read through to see where I loved & didn't love certain aspects. But you nailed the authenticity factor right here. Love it. I'm trying to hold to the standard of 'no martyrs' in my own stories, so... it's hard to find what matters outside that with dignity for my stronger characters but... it's so worth the explore. Thank you! Can't wait to binge you videos!
"...seems like these are a kind of unicorn's blood; they'll keep your story alive, but only with half a soul" Oooh....You just went inter-textual on us dude. :D
lmao @ not mentioning marvel in this until you say it's "not all bad" especially when the entirety of the MCU is built on this to a FAULT. heck, marvel does this to the point that it ignores the rules of its own universe just so that it can have big "OH the heroes are fighting side by side or EACH OTHER" moments. like are we pretending that the ENTIRE appeal of the first Avengers movie wasn't that "oh the heroes are with each other" cut Micheal Bay style? or in Civil War the whole "government is going to nuke all of NYC" thing is dropped in order to play alongside an idea first spelled out in the comic strips? how SpiderMan in CW was there just for the sole purpose of this, and could have been omitted 100% without changing the story? how every single Joss Whedon joke in AoU was based on this? Black Widow in the MCU literally doesn't have a character. (try to describe BW in the movies consistently using the Star Wars prequel character rules). go on and be critical about things like this but holy shit PLEASE be consistent with criticism! because intertextuality wasn't the biggest issue with BvS as a film by any stretch (imo the main issue is the movie's misprioritization of what needed to be text and what needed to be subtext in the script). and of course humans are not objective but when a critic has massive blind spots to what exists in media that they genuinely enjoy then they become critics not worth listening to.
Totally agree with you. I thought the exact same thing while watching one of his earlier videos. Simply liking the marvel universe/comics shouldn't completely excuse all the trash that's been recently produced lol. I'm not entirely familiar with the comics etc. but from what I can see, the content of the movies has gone completely downhill since the disney purchase. Pretty clear that Disney just wants to milk as many cows as possible (star wars reboot - boring garbage aimed exclusively at people already obsessed with the franchise), so the fact that fans are completely ignoring the poor quality and just eating it all up is truly disturbing.
thank you for this. Civil War was entirely intertextuality and fanservice, everything from spider-man to the fact that they changed it into Civil War from what Cap 3 was originally supposed to be. Also I'm curious, what are the Star Wars prequel character rules?
theres a pretty internet famous review of the star wars prequel and in the episode 1 review the guy is talking about characters and challenges people to describe a Star Wars character without saying what they look like, what costume they wore, or what profession or role they had in the movie. so you can describe han solo and C3PO well but not Qui-Jon or the princess. you can't do that at all for Black Widow in any of the movies.
reverberate10 oh yea I saw that. I think with black widow, you could do that if you tried hard enough, but the problem with her is that that description changes every movie.
Cosmic Spectrum i think the prequel star wars films (rogue one) are focused more on those die hard fans while the 7,8,and 9 are doing more interesting things. and most fans as far as i can tell don't really care about quality, which is why they're making a FIFTH Bay transformers movie.i don't hate bay but the fourth movie is TRASH and theyre making ANOTHER ONE
There's always been a motivation in art to deal with the unknown from the comforting vantage point of the known. This is where reocurring elements and story lines have their merit. Thinking about how greek tragedy employed familarity to much greater extent. Yet, that was 2500 years ago. And the Greeks seemed to have a point.
One of the things that made the scene of Obi Wan talking about Anakin in the first Star Wars movie to one of my favourite scenes of all time is because of the way intertextuality was used in that situation. The film took events we as the audience knew nothing about and stated them as facts, as events which you don't need to explain. In this scene, intertextuality connected to something unknown. That is such an incredible stong concept that made the Star Wars universe in its beginning as strong as it was. But today no one dares something like that anymore, instead intertextuality has fallen back to where it already was in the world of the anicent greece. It simply connects to things we all know far too well at this point.
Watchmen is a terrible example. It´s not meant to incite nostalgia, because it was not directed at those who have read the graphic novel because, popular as the novel was, it´s still a relatively small group. Watchem is merely a faithful (as faithful as one can get in cinema) adaptation of a good story with amazing visuals and atmosphere.
I'm not convinced your use of intertextuality here has any weight, considering of course these things are reminiscent of their own franchises, sequels, etc.
I find it really funny that when we were learning about screenwriting for experimental films one of the guidelines given to us by a textbook was using a form of intertextuality. It said that part of breaking from dominant cinema was in referencing and building off of existing works. And of course dominant cinema quite regularly uses it now, as you said.
Nerdwriter1, I would like to point out that the extraneous material you referenced in The Hobbit trilogy was not exclusively for intertextual recall purposes. Though I'm sure Peter Jackson did have it in mind when he added Galadriel, Saruman, and Sauron into the final mix, there is a textual basis for his decision. Before his death, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien began rewriting The Hobbit in the context of the much darker Lord of the Rings trilogy and setting it up to be a more compelling prequel. In the original Hobbit, Dol Guldûr and the Necromancer are referenced (this is what we find that Gandalf was up to when he left the company on the edge of Mirkwood). In later appendices and in the revision I referenced, Tolkien elaborated on the Necromancer, disclosing that this was indeed Sauron himself and that the White Council combined forces to remove him from his abode in Mirkwood while the company of Thorin Oakenshield was on its way to Erebor. I agree that this extra depth of story was largely incorporated to stimulate the poignant feeling you spoke of and to tie The Hobbit trilogy more clearly and effectively to The Lord of the Rings, but it isn't the best example of the phenomenon you discussed in this video as it is grounded in legitimate Tolkien lore. I love your channel! Thank you for your deep analyses that are now so rare in this age of superficiality. Best, Kate
wow watchmen was amazing i hate when people pretend its not a good film, but tot each their own evan like antman which is complete generic garbage and i like watchmen a beautiful, well acted, directed and visually appealing film.
It comes down to this idea that will differ from person to person. What is better. A simple story executed well, or a complex story told badly. I think the former is better. An example would be the original star wars trilogy. It is vastly better than the prequels despite being far less complex. The prequels try to have a layered complex story and fails on all levels. Watchmen has a lot of mature complex themes. But comes up hollow and misses the point of the story it's trying to tell. Ant man is meant to be a simple funny film, and succeeds for the most part in that regard. FYI i don't like antman that much more than watchmen, i just recognise it succeeds at what it tries to do.
But the point is there was literally no change from comic to movie besides minuscule differences. Watchmen the comic won hundreds of awards alan moore possibly the best comic writer he wrote killing joke.
Starfire media -chris Yes but you have to understand. Comics (visual literacy) is not the same as movies ( a live action medium) Saying one thing in a comic does not translate the exact same way in a film. aside from budget or timing restraints, its why a lot of films adapt the story they are telling differently.
yea its just a matter of opinion i saw the 3hr 35 min version twice and loved it maybe people have seen the theatrical version and didn't like it. id rather watch watchmen than civil war to be honest but to each their own
+Starfire media -chris yeah ive seen that version as well. didnt sway me much on it. civil war didnt impress me much but most comic adaptations dont. they either miss their mark or are too simple to be engaging
DeCipher ...rather the opposite? That's the only way one can be intellectually insulted. I thought that was obvious. The sudden introduction of a concept so contradictory to the tone, philosophy and arc of its predecessor cannot help but be rejected by any rational mind attempting to conflate the two needlessly dissimilar halves of this universe. It insults me because it's stupid as fuck.
To be fair to Rogue One, the point of the film is to tell the story that bridges the gap between episodes III and IV, it's the story of the rebels acquiring the plans to the death star which are then used to kick off the attack at the end of A New Hope, so there will be a lot of familiar sights, but they should fit with the story. for example, unlike the Hobbit that dragged Sauron into it for no other reason than to get a nostalgic reaction from LOTR fans, Rogue One would make sense to bring Vader and perhaps the Emporer into it because a lot of the story revolves around the Death Star, by the way, saying as Rogue One will be set between trilogies, we will get to see Vader in his prime, which as a SW fan, i'm super excited for.
I'm one minute in, lemme guess. Intertexuality is basically just recycling nostalgia and reference for easy sales. Like south park's member-berries... am I right?
i actually thought that the 'my name is kahn' reveal was a eceptionally good exemple of intertexuality, because, while it gave you that chill you discribed, it told us a lot about the caracter kahn(with the arrogant way he delivers it) and progresses the story, by making the threat clear to us(who have probably seen the original) and, more importantly, kirk(because kahn is very well known in the star trek univese, from the wars he previously fought. it's like saying to us 'i am ghengis kahn'(lol) or something like that). so you see, it was a lot more than a cash out on nostalgia
No please don't. Their only capable of B-rated action flicks besides the Daredevil TV show. Not everyone wants constant jokes and quips with a lighthearted tone.
Sauron was actually mentioned in the Hobbit. Only they talked about the Mirkwood having more and more dark and dangerous areas since the Necromancer had come to inhabit the old fortress close by. When the Council attacked and chased the Necromancer from his lair, they learned that the Necromancer was indeed Sauron. The Middle Earth history tells us that this attack took place after Gandalf left Bilbo and the dwarves at the edge of Mirkwood and before he rejoined them at the Lone Mountain. Only I don't remember exactly whether it was specifically mentioned in the Hobbit that this was what Gandalf had been up to. The story is told at the big meeting at Rivendell in Lord of the Rings and the timing is specified in the timeline of 3rd Age in the appendices of Lord of the Rings. It's also referred to in the Book of Unfinished Tales. So the fight against Sauron is very much canonical for Tolkien's Middle Earth and relevant to the story of the Hobbit too. It's in a way intertextual but it's more a result of the creative team's choice to follow the timelines of the 2 main protagonists (Bilbo and Gandalf) without long unexplained absences. Whereas the Hobbit the book follows only Bilbo's timeline and viewpoint, the movies follow the timeline of Gandalf too, since he's been promoted to the 2nd main protagonist. For a Tolkien fan familiar with his books this is a logical addition, as it is true to Tolkien's storytelling. The girl elf and Legolas stories however do annoy me as a Tolkien fan, since they're additions not true to the story. Especially the girl elf story. It's nothing but an attempt to appease the PC crowd which has no business being added to the movies. Her "romance" with a dwarf is also ridiculous and goes against all we know of dwarves and elves. Legolas is the son of Thranduil the elven king of Mirkwood, so his presence is logical, but the book never mentions him at all. His appearance is pure fan service and intertextuality, nothing else.
but the movie goers dont treated originality with kindness. you should try to see what they had treated " swiss army man" as the recent most original movie in 2016. yes people often said it has intertextuality with "weekend at bernie's" or with "lost" and "cast away" but i would argue that it is hardly the case
People need to cut down on member berries. They're okay in moderation, but if you eat too much all you'll be getting is nostalgia and nothing else. Eventually they're gonna get ill from eating them all the time.
Primo Similar to how people shit on movies and saying "it's my opinion" without even giving any reason or argument as to why said movie is shit. Not to point fingers though.
You aren’t even really talking about intertextuality in this video. A franchise referencing past films is not intertextuality. Sequels and remakes aren’t automatically intertextual.
I have read something discussing the film BvS, saying there are a lot scenes perfectly matching the comics. Ok. So what? Also in a more recent movie, La la land, someone told me a scene in it has a great resemblance to the Hollywood classic Singing in the rain. Ok. Why that is important. A lot people including myself seem very easy to be attracted to this kind of trivia or socalled intertextuality and pay less attention to the movie itself. Also, I wanna say, you have made a ton of great videos. Love it! :D
I think the positive side of intertextuality isn't even about the nostalgia factor because that only applies when it's assumed that the audience is familiar with the referenced text (which is obvious in sequels and superhero movies and the such). But the most interesting type is the kind that Borges spoke about when it came to literature. The reference to other texts as an invitation for your audience to seek other texts to understand yours. "The way to become a better writer is to become a better reader" and with intertextuality you can prove just how much you read by literally referencing other works. Given, it's a bit of a show-off when you put it like that but there's still a lot of value to understanding that no idea is 100% original, and deriving from other texts is incredibly interesting (when not done for a cheap "I got that reference" or nostalgia moment).
It's so crazy that when you described the moment from the Beauty and the Beast trailer as a specific feeling being evoked, my first instinct was to look for similar examples and the first one that came to mind was the Millenium Falcon from The Force Awakens. To be honest, I feel like the Spiderman intro in Civil War was a little bit cheap/unearned- so much characterization had to be handwaved away to make the scene happen. I think a better example of intertexuality that makes the audience excited without feeling cheap from the MCU is the post-credits scene from Iron Man 1.
Intertextuality noun. A tool used in film to display dramatic or amusing scenes using characters, symbols, or phrases from other works; usually of the same work Synonyms: Fanservice, Lazy film making, nostalgia riding. Antonyms: Originality
This is what I've been seeing in everything and I just didn't have the word for it. To me at felt like most films I'm watching these days rely too much on my nostalgia for things. There is only so much "throw back" , homages and nods to my favorite films I can take before whatever it is I'm watching just feels lazy. Which is why most times I'd rather just watch an old favorite instead of risking disappointment with something new.
Or illusion, or reference, or any number of other substitutes you can think of. That's how language works (according to Derrida anyway). But, intertextuality is not reducible to these things, and allusions are only features of the general set of things described under the name of intertextuality.
Intertextuality isn't new. It's not something that appeared with the modern age. It's also not a construct of Hollywood. It's a human thing. All we create is Intertextual. Older movies don't seem to be because they are about things we do not know. As you said about Watchmen. Only those that have read the comics will see the intertextuality. I didn't read it so I never had that feeling. You talked about it as if it was new to this generation of movies but it isn't. Whoever had the idea of Dragons did it intertextually out of things he knew. Nothing is made out of thin air. Ideas are like matter it changes but it does not disappear nor do you create it. It is a misconception to think your ideas come from Pure imagination. All that is in your head come from something you've seen, heard, smelt, felt or tasted.
lol watchmen was amazing...not snyders fault you didn't like his type of visual storytelling and the ending fit the reality of the film...unless you wanted giant octopus to attack -.-
Don't forget aural symbols / motifs too. The theme songs to the scores of many of these movies (like beauty and the beast, star wars, even Bond films) are rearranged- maintaining their main motif, but changing the tempo, tuning, or timing in addition to bringing in counter-melodies and harmonies.
![FNAF vs TF2 - Episode 2 [SFM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z5b3V2-VLb0/mqdefault.jpg)
...Or as we like to call it, "weaponized nostalgia". >.>
Nice label
That's more like it
Like half nostalgia half visual allegory
No. Nostalgia is an emotion that actualizes in the observer of a reference to another text. You cannot copy an emotion, just a text. There is a lot of overlap in the two concepts, but since all of the Nerdwriter's examples were intertextual, but not all used to incite nostalgia, I think 'weaponized intertextuality' is more appropriate. Still, I can't see why you would call it 'weaponized'.
I suppose that the two terms are so interchangeable in my mind, so I tend to conceptualize intertextuality as an intentional reference of a past body of work to elicit an emotional longing of a previous time when that work was presented in the current property. For example, bringing up Sauron in the Hobbit trilogy doesn't make sense in context of the films, but it provokes an emotion to make a LOTR fan say, "Hey, I remember Sauron from the LOTR films. He was such a scary dude, wasn't he?" See, if it is intentionally used to elicit emotion where there would have been none in a very boring scene, that would make it "weaponized" in my mind.
Similarly, if the viewer was acquainted with the past reference that was intentionally injected into the current frame of work which relates very closely to the past body of work, the emotional response is more likely to be incited. However, if someone was oblivious to or was never been previously exposed to the reference, it fails to elicit the emotional response that is demanded by the producer/director of the current body of work. That's why I viewed it as "weaponized nostalgia" instead of generally viewing it as "weaponized intertextuality." I like it when like minds have different perspectives on the same topic.
Honestly we're living in the generation of reboots and fan service.
Via the path of least resistance. During the age of pandering to the least common denominator.
Redlettermedia tackled this a while back. Intertextuality is used more often now because it's perceived as a way of attracting viewers that now have hundreds of choices for their entertainment dollars. The studios figure that even when used in excess it draws in more viewers ($$$) than it repels.
Just when I thought this notion had jumped the shark, they rebooted Star Wars rather blatantly and everyone lapped it up. We may have to live with it for a while.
"Redlettermedia tackled this a while back."
And yet Mike loved both The Force Awakens and Jurassic World. They´re falling for it too.
and as a huge fan of cinema i hate it. intertextuality is a lazy tool for money.
Unfortunately yes. But we must not accept it.
Is intertextuality just a fancy word for "reference"?
No, reference is the grandfather of intertextuality
More or less.
And 'frisson' for 'nostalgia'.
Millionaire Hoy Kind of, but not the same.
or is "reference" the basic bitch version of intertextuality?
"it is like unicorn's blood, it will keep you alive but only half your soul". Oh! I saw what you did there.😀😀😀
Prathamesh Kale That's beyond clever.
hahaha, using intertextuality to describe intertextuality
*braaaaaaammmmmmmmmpppppp* (Inception sound)
Even his commentary is intertextual. ;)
Literally was about to type it, that was funny
damn it, i read the title as intersexuality and i though it was gonna be about how hollywood likes to have humans be in relationships with non humans like in beauty and the beast
AmazingJoe96 me too lol xD
AmazingJoe96 SAME HERE!
saaaaame
AmazingJoe96 same I was so confused
same
The Lego Movie would have been a nice mention here. It handles 'intertextuality' really well and has a nice story.
People are misinterpreting some of the words here and what he is talking about. Some say these are just allusions but allusions are a type of intertextuality. Intertextuality is basically just a relationship between two literary works, as a very broad definition. Also intertextuality isn't necessarily nostalgia and nostalgia isn't necessarily intertextual. You can have something be intertextual without it being an appeal to nostalgia. The best example I can think of is the marvel movies, in Thor when Colson brings up Tony Stark, that's intertextuality but it's not really nostalgia, it's simply a reference to another work in that universe that can sort of excite viewers when they hear it. Nostalgia is more of a phenomenon which allows a certain type of intertextuality to be very effective.
You contradicted yourself
bob polo Simply stating something without providing any further detail or evidence is a great way to not be taken seriously
MaxSnow24 This is how conversations take place. You make a statement, then I refute. Then you say explain. This is my explanation, or the support for my claim.
"You can have something be intertextual without it being an appeal to nostalgia. The best example I can think of is the marvel movies, in Thor when Colson brings up Tony Stark, that's intertextuality but it's not really nostalgia, it's simply a reference to another work in that universe that can sort of excite viewers when they hear it."
The question is, why did the viewer get excited? Isn't their pleasure stemming from a memory in the past, triggered by what was mentioned in the present? Which is the basis of nostalgia
bob polo I wouldn't consider a movie that's a year or two old to be nostalgic, when I get milk out of my fridge I'm not nostalgic for when I went to the grocery store yesterday. Most people would consider nostalgia as being something farther back in time. Even if I concede to your point, you can still have intertextuality without nostalgia, and nostalgia without intertextuality. Sitting down and playing ocarina of time can be nostalgic but there's nothing intertextual about that experience. All the little interextual elements of the MCU and the Marvel Netflix series are far too close together for me to consider them "nostalgic" apart from the references to comic books, references to the other shows within the universe are not nostalgic imo.
Even if you disagree with my point that those things are nostalgic it still doesn't have anything to do with intertextuality. Intertextuality is simply a relationship between two texts, nostalgia is a human experience of having sentimental affection for the past. There could be something that is intertextual that plays off of the nostalgia that people experience, but that doesn't mean intertextuality is intrinsically nostalgic.
You could argue that technically speaking, there is intertextuality between a video game manual and the game it is paired with, however they would typically be sold at the same time, so there would be no nostalgia.
Even if you say that specific example I gave is something nostalgic, it's not a contradiction because my point was always about distinguishing between nostalgia and intertextuality, since some people seem to think they are basically synonyms.
Lets be dumb and say when colson brings up tony stark that's nostalgic for some people. The intertextuality is the actual relationship that exists between those works, the nostalgia is the emotion evoked in the audience by that intertextual dialogue. A specific literary device is not synonymous with the emotions it may or may not evoke. Even if you feel that was a bad example it's not a contradiction, it's just that, a bad example.
Also this isn't a conventional conversation, if you were sitting in front of me, that would be fine, but in the medium of a comments section, it seems pretty silly to act like you're literally talking to someone. I would never go into a conversation on youtube the way you did, I really don't see the point of not providing your evidence upfront The discourse of "you contradicted yourself" "how did I contradict myself?" does nothing and adds nothing to the discussion, just get to the point, and there's really no reason you couldn't have included all of that in your first comment. It's not like had you just said all you wanted to say it would have been rude. Plus even when just having a normal verbal conversation if someone makes a claim that I disagree with I don't think I would EVER just say "you're wrong" and just sit there waiting for them to ask me why I think that instead of just going into why I think they are wrong.
MaxSnow24 You're right, I should conduct my conversations on youtube the way you instruct me to. Any other lessons, father? Parental instruction aside, I defined intertextuality in one of my posts on this same video. If you want, you can scroll through and find it. You're right about everything you said. I fully agree
Please don't get me wrong, I genuinely enjoyed this video and overall love the content! But if I'm being honest (not trying to be a dick) ... I kinda feel this was a VERY jarring and convoluted way to describe was is essentially the formal concept of 'fan service'.
This video feels like taking a casual opinion or observation and attempting to add a rather overbearing academic spin to it where it's not really needed.
That said, this was a very mature and structured way to present the current trend in Hollywood productions. Better than an incoherent rant, haha!
The mistake he made, in my opinion, is that he confused Intertextuality and fan service as being the same thing. He basically stated the pros and cons of referencing past films within a film series, but that's actually a distortion of how proper intertextuality works.
I don't know much about the concept of intertextuality. I literally only know it as the relationship or reshaping of one text to another text (which could be totally wrong).
For example, I assume if a film takes an original source and changes it's meaning or interprets it differently, that might fit the concept like maybe a David Fincher adaptation? I'm completely ignorant to the subject matter so I won't attempt to get ahead of myself.
Ryan Hollinger You actually have a good understanding of intertextuality. You used it effectively in the beginning of your Little Miss Sunshine video. I posted my thoughts on nerdwriter's interpretation at the top. Meet me up there, tell me what you think.
+Ryan Hollinger that's one form of intertextuality. Film student here. All in all intertextuality is just when one text uses another text to inform the narrative. It's not just a moment of fan service. Its when your story depends on another story for your audience to understand the full meaning. However it only works when the story itself stands on its own, and new watchers can still basically understand the text without having seen what the the new text is referencing. The problem, and what this video is getting at, is when a movie uses an intertextual relationship between two films as the emotional pay off itself, where the new audience would be completely unable to derive meaning from the text because the reference would be meaningless to them.
Yea, how he described intertextuality is different from what I was taught it is, which was it's the relationship between texts.
Here he described it as films reference other films, which I guess works.
But how I learned it was related to art criticism and how intertextuality relates to that in terms of analysing and critiquing a work of art based on and in comparison to other works of art in the same style/genre or by the same artist or which deal with the same theme or subject matter or are from the same time period. Something like that. Not art reference other art (art here meaning any art/art form).
Basically how it was described to me in uni was that it is a text's relation[ship] to other texts.
In light of THAT understanding of intertextuality I agree that what he described here is fan service and not necessarily intertextuality.
In the thumbnail I thought it was intersexuality
baraka kautsar i thought i wAs the only one
@Alexander Supertramp ok Jake the dog from the tv show for kids
@Alexander Supertramp how many?
I was looking for this.
goodness. i was embarassed of myself like i am a fucking moron for thinking the same. like my mind is officially degraded. now i know hundreds of other minds are too.
i mean, now i know its not
"There's too many sequels, remakes, and adaptations these days."
There were over 12 Tarzan movies before 1950.
True and there were lots of films about Holmes, Dracula, etc etc. But there is a huge difference between then and now. There were vastly more feature films made in the golden age of the studios and there was a much greater variety of genre overall so there was no shortage of alternative choices.
Secondly most of the sequels and remakes were inexpensive programmers. They were not the major releases of major studios sucking up most of the available finances and resources of those studios. . Their individual success or failure had almost zero impact on the overall financial success of the studio.
They were not dominating the media and cultural scene, they were simply a modest way of eking a bit more money out of unassuming entertainment and filling out the studio roster.
Proper intertextuality is the referencing of an external work within the current film . The reference to the external work intensifies or modifies the meaning or specific themes in the current work. Your examples of Hollywood movies that use intertextuality were Star Wars, Star Trek, 007, Mission Impossible, and Disney remakes. All of these Hollywood movies do use a system of referencing, true; but it's not exactly proper intertextuality because they're basically referencing themselves oppose, to say, referencing another movie that literally has nothing to do with their franchise.
Like, if the 007 series chose to reference Groundhog Day because they had a plot where Bond is experiencing the same day over and over. That's intertextuality! These Hollywood franchises that reference their own films within the series is basically an intertextual loop, meaning they reference themselves opposed to external works outside of their franchises. That's a perfect example of how infinite regression works, but that's another conversation. Another commenter called it "Weaponized Nostalgia." That's a more appropriate label.
Nice Bob, the Groundhog Day example completely refreshes intertextuality for me because I never learnt the specific wording of the concept even if I know how it's used. So I've clearly been subconsciously using it, but that's what makes discovering new ideas or insight from others so interesting and essential.
Intertextuality is a term that was used by this guy named Roland Barthes and it means a reciprocity between texts and ideas, like one takes parts from another idea and makes new one.
English is not my first language so I'll set an example...the Hunger games are an intertextuality of war news and a reality show. That's were the idea came from and you can go back and forward with it because they complement each other. Internet is a great great grand child of the library of Alexandria. It is not a reference but a generator.
But this video is about emotions that are generated by a symbol, not so much about a reference or nostalgia. Lots of kids can watch TFA without knowing who Han Solo is and still get exited. Because Han Solo is a symbol to pop culture.
It's a weird term...and I hate school....
Hunger games using war and news as correlations is more of a rendering of real world counterparts. That's not exactly intertextuality. I don't wish to be so restrictive with a term's definition, but if you define words anyway you like, you lose the meaning of their essential functions.
bob polo That was Barthes problem, his theory didn't have a limit. If it is not limited to text, intertextuality could reach every single thing that we define as culture.
That's true. We see intertextuality not just in movies but in novels as well, like Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, evoking Moby Dick; or Winslow Homer's painting The Gulf Stream, referencing the work of John Singleton Copley. But intertextuality works better for an artist when they use it intentionally. Sure, you can make connections between works that seem familiar to something in the past, but that's not the same as an artist intentionally pulling your emotional and intellectual strings to elicit a significantly better response.
Thought this said intersexuality... still not disappointed
i thought it said intellectuality
me three. Still okay with it.
That was literally what I was gonna comment on before I saw your comment
I thought it said intersectionality and we were going to get right into the political left leanings of Hollywood`s output.
Avatar_hzh who?
Never read Watchmen comics. Loved the movie
If you havent seen the directors cut then you are missing out.Its a masterpiece
I highly recommend the comic. The movie was very good, and in my opinion actually made some positive changes, but the comic dives a lot deeper into the lore of the universe so if that's something you're interested in you should enjoy the comic.
I went searching for the book after seeing the movie.
The intertextuality felt so good.
The comic is amazing! It was written, I heard, to show what comics can do that books, film, and music cannot. Therefore it is impossible to totally translate on the screen. If you are a big fan of the movie, and book will blow your mind(though the plot is spoiled).
I first saw the movie then read the comic.Alan Moore is a genius
Everything will become more and more meta until the center is nowhere and the circumference is everywhere. I make no judgement, I just observe the novelty.
"Thought is the thought of though" - James Joyce
Nostalgia used for profit
everything has a price xD
Nobody forces people to buy it.
Capitalism brings all the white knights!
I dont mind them remaking it, just when they remake it bad, worse they probably even know this and continue to do so for money
The Hobbit was a bad example... the Unfinished Tales explain that the Necromancer (Sauron) was the mastermind of the entire orc/goblin attack, wishing to wipe out the last of Durin's line and kill off the men of Dale so that they would be unable to assist in the war of the Ring... it backfired, but the plan was partially successful.
I agree, there were many better examples in the Hobbit like the moth going to get the eagles, Galadriel going crazy moment or Frodo picking up an Orc weapon in Bilbo's house at the beginning.
That scene in the hobbit screw up all the Lotr saga!!By cronological order Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel see Sauron in that scene and for 58 years Gandalf have no idea that the one ring was in possession of Bilbo, even after when the ring go to Frodo it took him a lot to realize that even if he already met and knew that Sauron was alive and he was gathering an army.That scene isn´t really intertextuality, the whole hobbits trilogy is, but yeah he did better examples
+Judge Fredd And you missed the point of the video, well done.
pathofoblivion That's not inter-text... that is the text on which the film is based... The watchmen example is also bad, it's a direct adaptation of the base work, not an allusion to a previous work.
Judge Fredd Sauron doesn't appear in the original text though, so him being there is just an intertextual reference to Peter Jacksons films. Watchmen is a good example, it can be argued that it is an allusion to the graphic novel (which is a previous work) when it adapts certain comic visuals into the film, because it will give people who have read the novel a sense of self-gratification in knowing that the visuals are straight from the graphic novel.
honestly, i read it as intersexuality.
Me too.
Yeah, i thought it was gonna ba an argument for hermaphroditic , gender spectrum -esqu characters
Thought it aas going to be a video about itnersectionality
omg! me too!
many did, my friend, many did
Never realised this had an actual name.
You can come up with your own terms, like 'monetized nostalgia' for instance
It doesn't. And it's not "intertextuality"
If anything, he's describing allusions.
literally just google a word before you decide it doesn't exist
+Mike Blackney I didn't say intertextual it doesn't exist.. I'm saying that it does exist and it isn't what he's describing. He is misinterpreting it and using it as a fancy sounding word to describe continuity and allusion for the sake of marketable familiarity.
+Mike Blackney which is NOT intertextuality.
READY PLAYER ONE
that was a good movie imo.
Lorespade it was okay but was so much better than the book. I don’t think I can read the book again without losing a couple braincells every time the author makes a giant list of pop culture references.
the first 3 seconds of this video are beautiful. I love the usage of a soft wind and string section holding a single steady note, the strings slightly building vibrato as the milk falls into the cup of coffee, only for the piano arpeggio to begin the moment the last droplet of milk impacts on the surface. 10/10 artistic detail.
Or: The Problem With Modern Film-Making.
Too much focus on nostalgia for money-making reasons at the consequence of telling a good story. Don't get me wrong - good stories still come through the morass, even in remake form, but they are exceptions to the rule. Most movies are pretty weak, and for no reason. They can be better, but they are not. The film-makers focus instead on getting butts in seats, because we pay for films *before* viewing them.
I understand the need for profit, but I don't believe that must come solely through poorly written stories as evidenced by the onslaught of sequels and remakes that fail to live up to their original counterparts 99% of the time.
I think more effort should go into crafting a quality story to give new films longevity. Nobody is going to watch Jurassic World in 20 years because Jurassic Park is so much better. Nobody is going to watch Terminator: Gyenisiys when T1 and T2 are vastly more entertaining due to their nature of simply being well-made movies.
I long for the day Hollywood realizes they are leaving money on the table, because that's the only way things will change on a macro level for the better. The entertainment business is a business first, make no mistake. Sometimes, we get entertained. Other times, we get swindled.
One of my favorite recent examples of intertextuality was the piano cover of a certain song playing during a certain scene of the TV show Mr. Robot.
It might have been a little on the nose, and the reference it established was at that point pretty much obvious to everyone familiar with it - but it hit hard nevertheless.
It also works well on its own without the intertextual context because it's a nice mood-setting piece. Not like a closeup of Cumberbatch saying "Khan" and making a funny face, or Waltz going "Ernst... Stavro... Blofeld" like his goofy name has inherent dramatic weight.
Which scene?
You can't just blame the studios for this. It's the fandom culture that lets fan service succeed. If people better distanced themselves from properties they liked, studios wouldn't be able to play them like a drum. As long as they keep their favorite stories or characters on an altar and use them to define their own identity, studios will be able to trigger this kind of emotional response with nostalgia and in-jokes far more easily than by creating a unique and compelling product.
Would your use of 'Surprise Muthafucka' in this video be considered a meta-use of intertextuality? ;)
nice one
The transitions you used on key's visions, what are they called? Would love to use it in the future! Ant great vid!
Intertextuality is the nerd equivalent of putting a half-naked woman on a billboard to sell a product.
You pretty much see intertextuality in every film, Quentin Tarantino's films live on intertexuality and it's hard to escape.
Haha yep pretty much
+pathofoblivion I thought all of his films just took place in the same world? Or did the fans make that up to explain why he keeps referencing himself?
Jason Williams No, he says his films take place in the same universe (like Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction and Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs being brothers), he hasn't elaborated where his other films fit into it but fans have come up with theories about it.
I think though you misinterpreted what intertexulaity means, it means the presence of a text within another text. He references films constantly in his films both subtly and obviously - that's intertextulaity. Example: The opening of Jackie Brown is an intertexual reference to The Graduate (shot by shot pretty much). The showdown between The Bride and O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill vol 1 is an intertexual reference to Lady Snowblood (shot by shot as well). Tarantino is a cinephile, he watches films from all over the world and he references them in his films, that's why he's the King of intertexulaity.
pathofoblivion Yeah, but he goes over the top in his films to the point that it stops being intertextuality, and becomes a greatest hits buffet of his favorite films.
There was no other way to tell the Watchmen story than frame-by-frame. That is the only thing I disagree with. The comic book followed a cinematic flow, so to adapt it purely from its original form was the right decision--in my opinion.
Agreed. I liked that movie. If only because it followed the original source mostly to the T.
Yeah, and the film adaptation certainly didnt feel 'hollow'. My brother's never read the original and it's his favorite film.
I agree. I read the comic book only after I've watched the movie a few times and loved it although I dislike most superheroes movies. This is actually the only comic book I've ever read...
There's was a shit ton of non-linear plot progression in Watchmen (the book). Rorschach's journal, the news articles, the comic book the kid was reading, etc. There's no way they could've included it all, but I still think Watchmen is easily the best graphic novel adaptation ever. I remember always hearing about it, and saw all the hype when the movie was about to come out, so I read the book before seeing it. Afterwards, I was able to truly appreciate how true it was to the original, and point out what they clearly changed (for plot and pacing reasons, which all movies must do).
Nice choice. I'd recommend reading Saga, that's another great comic that's never coming to cinema.
Seems to me that the Force Awakens was nothing but pure high-grade weaponized intertextuality. I still liked it, because of course I did, Star Wars episode 4 was a very fun ride so I can't imagine Star Wars episode 4.1 being any less fun. If any of you watch Moviebob he pretty much called this from the day JJ Abrams was picked as director, that despite being a pretty good technical director he was the safe choice, and that means we were robbed of a possible risky, visionary choice.
David Fincher was considered, as well as Guillermo Del Toro. Yep.
Roberto Horacio De Lugo I love everything bu Del Toro, so I'll have to be content imagining what his Star Wars would be.
Don't worry. Rian Johnson will hopefully alleviate that feeling for the next Star Wars. He has a good track record for taking risks.
I love Fincher, but he'd be terrible for star wars
Force Awakens was in a very unique spot in that, after the prequels, many fans felt Star Wars lost its way, and by its very own creator. The reason it used fanservice, and in ways that made sense for the story and the film itself, was because it was smarter, or at least, safer to bring the old feel and look of Star Wars back. And then you get Rogue One, the single most different Star Wars film of all time, but that's neither here nor there.
The Force Awakens did it well, but like I've said for years, Episodes 8 and 9 need to be their own things. Episode 7 is a return to form, but if it goes the Hollywood route, where they're just the Original Trilogy redux, then they won't be remembered down the line. At least the prequels are still remembered for how bad they are.
The "intertextuality" in Watchman works for me. I have never read the comic book (on my todo list), but the frames you showed were just memorable and visually impressive scenes from the movie. On the whole I didn't get the feeling that I was missing out on something, that I needed some extra information for this and that scene to invoke something in me. Watchman just sounds like an adaptation that decided to stay very true to the source material, and in this case it worked!
Member berries.
was gonna post this!
It just hit me why those blew up the way they did.
Member when you were about to post member berries then saw this post? Member?
William O'Reiler oooh! I member!
Hey! Hey! Member, Xenomorphs?
Basically shitty directors using nostalgia to induce a sense of excitement to cover up how horrible and unoriginal their films are
If that's what you took away from this video, then you probably already felt that way going into it. Because that certainly isn't what he said. There are great movies that use intertextuality (like The Shawshank Redemption). It's just one of many cinematic tools. It, on its own, isn't inherently good or bad. It's about how a film maker uses it. You should really enter these videos and discussions with a more open mind. Same goes for you people thumb upping this guy's shallow comment.
I see it as the overuse of easter eggs and fan service. But hey that is what the market demanded and it works.
+Lord Tippington the Wise - Atheist Knight of Le Reddit Gentlesirs But Shawshank didn't use intertextuality in a "weaponized" form, which is what this video was addressing, so the OP wasn't really incorrect
He's not saying that's all intertexuality is. He's saying that it describes the more recent trend and reliance on intertexuality in place of doing interesting, original work in film. You shouldn't assume that a person's criticism is all encompassing or the extent of their opinion on a topic.
That's a great point to make, this guy's obviously coming into the video with that sort of mindset and it appears as a horrible generalization. But I think he's got somewhat of a point that's pretty important and speaks volumes about the direction this industry is headed towards. Obviously intertextuality can be seen from a macro and micro level, but I think what this person is going off of is the idea that what we see a lot of happening today in the industry (at least what seems to garnering the most success) are movies that are playing off of other stories. You don't see many Chaplins rising up anymore who write their own work. And it's not necessarily a bad thing because directors like Nolan do it well, and demonstrate as well that they have the capacity to illustrate revolutionary techniques in cinematography in other work, and can write
their own work. But at least from what i can see, there is a great deal of lazy directing going on in Hollywood for the sake of money. This could be because we're introduced to an increasingly larger sector of entertainment (the gaming industry) i don't know how much those two are related and i haven't done any census work to figure this out, but from the surface it's easy to make the argument that the use of intertextuality and nostalgia is being abused a lot more than it should. Think of it this way, you can apply intertextuality as a tool based on target audiences, if you look into what generation you're hoping to speak to you can obviously do research into what the media was heavily suggesting to them as children, and construct symbols based on a similar dialectic, or you could hit them on an even more intimate level by playing around with psychological symbols and symbols based on music,
unfortunately, you just see lazy reboots of movies instead of actual
synthetic use of symbols in organic work. But I don't wanna overshadow your point, obviously at the micro level, with subliminal stimulation and the use of symbolic reference, it goes a much longer way that ought not be neglected. I like to think that directors above anything else must understand the monolithic importance of symbols in order to be successful at any level. I don't know if you've seen The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, but it illustrates this from a very psychoanalytic perspective, and does a pretty good job from what i can see. Once again though, I respect the point you're making!
How did you get clearance to show all the footage in your clips?
Your videos make me think a lot about movies and appreciate them. The comments under your videos make me hate them.
It'd be interesting to hear you talk about intertextuality in film that exists between entirely separate films. Things like the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin being used in Brazil and The Untouchables, the shot of the desks from The Crowd being reused in The Apartment, music from Vertigo used in The Artist, or how Blow-up The Conversation and Blow-Out are all in direct conversation with one another. I think these are more interesting and effective examples of intertextuality than their more 'fan-service-y' brethren, and they more closely resemble the intertextuality that is a staple of modern and post-modern literature.
Great video as always, though! I realize that my examples are just outside of the scope of this particular video. Cheers.
Maybe it's because I've seen so much intertextual references, but I seem to be feeling less and less nostalgia and more and more annoyance. Dare I say the word, cringe-y. It's lazy and further catering to the mass demographic. "Durrrr I know that thing!"
Granted we also have moments where whatever we get that's new is terrible (cough-starwarsprequels-cough).
Can you do more work on paintings that stuff is just awesome!
so, nostalgia?
No, no, no. It's 'weaponised intertextuality' you commoner.
+Henry Harvey memes? References? Throwbacks? Callbacks? Homages? Sorry if this is all too pedestrian but I don't see why we need another term for a thing we've all known about
+jay kj I was joking. it think this video is complete bullshit
+Henry Harvey well not really, he simply pointed out the reoccurring use of "safe" material in an eloquent manner. And besides there is such a thing as nuance, you fucking pleb.
+Henry Harvey well not really, he simply pointed out the reoccurring use of "safe" material in an eloquent manner. And besides there is such a thing as nuance, you fucking pleb.
Your channel is so great! Every video you make is so insightful.
AKA fanservice
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said so many of these movies are hundred-million dollar risks that they HAVE to rely on aggressive intertextuality just to get people to see the damn things. We are officially done with self-contained movies. Everything has to be a franchise. Everyone has to have seen all the movies, read all the books, watched the spin off TV show... even family movies and comedies, my two favorite kinds, rely way too much on giving the audience lip service. A movie can't just be it's own thing any more because they're too expensive. We NEED small movies again, and I hope that happens soon.
THANK YOU for making this video! There a good number of reasons of why I don't like many Hollywood films, particularly how they try to manipulate us emotionally. I always realized Intertextuality was a thing, but I never had the right words to describe it.
So, intertextuality = fanservice?
If too much used...
And Easter eggs.
Yeah, but intertextuality is a better word for an essay, which what this basically is, just in video format.
He even said "fan service" between the Smallville and Batman vs Superman example.
Not really. Fanservice is necessarily bad. Fanservice, I would say, has to be specifically related to the franchise we are talking about.
Seeing Hogwarts in the second Fantastic Beasts was such a moment...
I had a nostalgia moment as i wrote my graduation thesis on intertextuality. You are one of the best things on RUclips right now.
I discovered your channel for the first time today and I can tell I will be devouring much of your videos. Thank you for bringing so much great semiotic analysis to pop culture. I love it!
from what you say i understand that every sequel to a movie, book story that continues with the same characters or the story line is made for intertextuality or generates it. i think it is more nuanced then that. There is basically no way to have Han solo or any of the other character in ep7 without it being "aggressive intertextuality". I think that you cluster all the types of references, nods, fan services, or whatever you call it unrightfully together but I also have no clear definition of intertextuallity for myself either.
a year later and i still agree with myself!
thanks, me!
yeah, im bored at work..
two years later. I watched this video again and i still agree with myself. IM ON A ROLL!
What's the difference between Intertextuality and standard referencing then?
There is non. Intertextuality is just a fancy word for reference.
a reference can be to anything whereas intertextuality is a reference to your own series or franchise
intertextuality often provokes the feeling that you're still there in the same series that you were in decades ago while a reference is usually just a throwaway joke or a wink and a nod
Intertextuality is non-explicit reference
Steak Bentley
Wikipedia's definition:
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody.
Oxford definition:
The relationship between texts, especially literary ones.
Intertextuality doesn't have to be a reference to your own work.
Intertextuality is a term that was used by this guy named Roland Barthes and it means a reciprocity between texts and ideas, like one takes parts from another idea and makes new one.
English is not my first language so I'll set an example...the Hunger games are an intertextuality of war news and a reality show. That's were the idea came from and you can go back and forward with it because they complement each other. Internet is a great great grand child of the library of Alexandria. It is not a reference but a generator.
But this video is about emotions that are generated by a symbol, not so much about a reference or nostalgia. Lots of kids can watch TFA without knowing who Han Solo is and still get exited. Because Han Solo is a symbol to pop culture.
I hope I cleared your doubts :D
The new spider man is 100% this. People don’t even care about anything other than seeing actors back on screen
Hey, just found your channel. Super into it. I literally have a trunk full of Marvel comics I'm about to re-read through to see where I loved & didn't love certain aspects. But you nailed the authenticity factor right here. Love it. I'm trying to hold to the standard of 'no martyrs' in my own stories, so... it's hard to find what matters outside that with dignity for my stronger characters but... it's so worth the explore. Thank you! Can't wait to binge you videos!
It's probably your introductions and the music that attracts me to want to continue watching your videos.
"...seems like these are a kind of unicorn's blood; they'll keep your story alive, but only with half a soul"
Oooh....You just went inter-textual on us dude. :D
lmao @ not mentioning marvel in this until you say it's "not all bad" especially when the entirety of the MCU is built on this to a FAULT. heck, marvel does this to the point that it ignores the rules of its own universe just so that it can have big "OH the heroes are fighting side by side or EACH OTHER" moments. like are we pretending that the ENTIRE appeal of the first Avengers movie wasn't that "oh the heroes are with each other" cut Micheal Bay style? or in Civil War the whole "government is going to nuke all of NYC" thing is dropped in order to play alongside an idea first spelled out in the comic strips? how SpiderMan in CW was there just for the sole purpose of this, and could have been omitted 100% without changing the story? how every single Joss Whedon joke in AoU was based on this? Black Widow in the MCU literally doesn't have a character. (try to describe BW in the movies consistently using the Star Wars prequel character rules).
go on and be critical about things like this but holy shit PLEASE be consistent with criticism! because intertextuality wasn't the biggest issue with BvS as a film by any stretch (imo the main issue is the movie's misprioritization of what needed to be text and what needed to be subtext in the script). and of course humans are not objective but when a critic has massive blind spots to what exists in media that they genuinely enjoy then they become critics not worth listening to.
Totally agree with you. I thought the exact same thing while watching one of his earlier videos. Simply liking the marvel universe/comics shouldn't completely excuse all the trash that's been recently produced lol. I'm not entirely familiar with the comics etc. but from what I can see, the content of the movies has gone completely downhill since the disney purchase. Pretty clear that Disney just wants to milk as many cows as possible (star wars reboot - boring garbage aimed exclusively at people already obsessed with the franchise), so the fact that fans are completely ignoring the poor quality and just eating it all up is truly disturbing.
thank you for this. Civil War was entirely intertextuality and fanservice, everything from spider-man to the fact that they changed it into Civil War from what Cap 3 was originally supposed to be.
Also I'm curious, what are the Star Wars prequel character rules?
theres a pretty internet famous review of the star wars prequel and in the episode 1 review the guy is talking about characters and challenges people to describe a Star Wars character without saying what they look like, what costume they wore, or what profession or role they had in the movie. so you can describe han solo and C3PO well but not Qui-Jon or the princess. you can't do that at all for Black Widow in any of the movies.
reverberate10 oh yea I saw that. I think with black widow, you could do that if you tried hard enough, but the problem with her is that that description changes every movie.
Cosmic Spectrum i think the prequel star wars films (rogue one) are focused more on those die hard fans while the 7,8,and 9 are doing more interesting things. and most fans as far as i can tell don't really care about quality, which is why they're making a FIFTH Bay transformers movie.i don't hate bay but the fourth movie is TRASH and theyre making ANOTHER ONE
"Scenes like this are a kind of unicorn's blood: they'll keep your story alive, but only with half a soul."
I see what you did there 😏
There's always been a motivation in art to deal with the unknown from the comforting vantage point of the known. This is where reocurring elements and story lines have their merit. Thinking about how greek tragedy employed familarity to much greater extent. Yet, that was 2500 years ago. And the Greeks seemed to have a point.
One of the things that made the scene of Obi Wan talking about Anakin in the first Star Wars movie to one of my favourite scenes of all time is because of the way intertextuality was used in that situation. The film took events we as the audience knew nothing about and stated them as facts, as events which you don't need to explain. In this scene, intertextuality connected to something unknown. That is such an incredible stong concept that made the Star Wars universe in its beginning as strong as it was. But today no one dares something like that anymore, instead intertextuality has fallen back to where it already was in the world of the anicent greece. It simply connects to things we all know far too well at this point.
Watchmen is a terrible example. It´s not meant to incite nostalgia, because it was not directed at those who have read the graphic novel because, popular as the novel was, it´s still a relatively small group. Watchem is merely a faithful (as faithful as one can get in cinema) adaptation of a good story with amazing visuals and atmosphere.
I'm not convinced your use of intertextuality here has any weight, considering of course these things are reminiscent of their own franchises, sequels, etc.
that's exactly what I was thinking
I don't understand your point
Agreed
Sauron was kind a in the book, but the story wasnt told, just hinted at
I find it really funny that when we were learning about screenwriting for experimental films one of the guidelines given to us by a textbook was using a form of intertextuality. It said that part of breaking from dominant cinema was in referencing and building off of existing works. And of course dominant cinema quite regularly uses it now, as you said.
Nerdwriter1,
I would like to point out that the extraneous material you referenced in The Hobbit trilogy was not exclusively for intertextual recall purposes. Though I'm sure Peter Jackson did have it in mind when he added Galadriel, Saruman, and Sauron into the final mix, there is a textual basis for his decision. Before his death, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien began rewriting The Hobbit in the context of the much darker Lord of the Rings trilogy and setting it up to be a more compelling prequel. In the original Hobbit, Dol Guldûr and the Necromancer are referenced (this is what we find that Gandalf was up to when he left the company on the edge of Mirkwood). In later appendices and in the revision I referenced, Tolkien elaborated on the Necromancer, disclosing that this was indeed Sauron himself and that the White Council combined forces to remove him from his abode in Mirkwood while the company of Thorin Oakenshield was on its way to Erebor. I agree that this extra depth of story was largely incorporated to stimulate the poignant feeling you spoke of and to tie The Hobbit trilogy more clearly and effectively to The Lord of the Rings, but it isn't the best example of the phenomenon you discussed in this video as it is grounded in legitimate Tolkien lore.
I love your channel! Thank you for your deep analyses that are now so rare in this age of superficiality.
Best,
Kate
wow watchmen was amazing i hate when people pretend its not a good film, but tot each their own evan like antman which is complete generic garbage and i like watchmen a beautiful, well acted, directed and visually appealing film.
It comes down to this idea that will differ from person to person. What is better. A simple story executed well, or a complex story told badly. I think the former is better. An example would be the original star wars trilogy. It is vastly better than the prequels despite being far less complex. The prequels try to have a layered complex story and fails on all levels. Watchmen has a lot of mature complex themes. But comes up hollow and misses the point of the story it's trying to tell. Ant man is meant to be a simple funny film, and succeeds for the most part in that regard. FYI i don't like antman that much more than watchmen, i just recognise it succeeds at what it tries to do.
But the point is there was literally no change from comic to movie besides minuscule differences. Watchmen the comic won hundreds of awards alan moore possibly the best comic writer he wrote killing joke.
Starfire media -chris Yes but you have to understand. Comics (visual literacy) is not the same as movies ( a live action medium) Saying one thing in a comic does not translate the exact same way in a film. aside from budget or timing restraints, its why a lot of films adapt the story they are telling differently.
yea its just a matter of opinion i saw the 3hr 35 min version twice and loved it maybe people have seen the theatrical version and didn't like it. id rather watch watchmen than civil war to be honest but to each their own
+Starfire media -chris yeah ive seen that version as well. didnt sway me much on it. civil war didnt impress me much but most comic adaptations dont. they either miss their mark or are too simple to be engaging
The struggle to make pseudo-intellectual content is real.
Nice weaponsied pseudo intellectual comment there.
+Henry Harvey I actually like the nerdwriter. I've even happily made a contribution with gratitude. However, this video is weak.
+Eroton LMAO you resonate with me
You had me at hello
agreed. a little too much of a pretentious "intellectual" rumbling in a short video about blockbuster movies.
What do I feel when I watch Force Awakens nostalgia grope? Pity that people are so easily amused.
Better than feeling intellectually insulted by midichlorians.
Your intellect must be pretty fragile if it was insulted by a fantasy concept. Did you find TFA "intellectually" nourishing?
DeCipher TFA did not go out of its way to disgust an audience. It is therefore better than 50% of Star Wars saga.
Lettuce Prime So you accept that your intellect is pretty fragile?
DeCipher ...rather the opposite? That's the only way one can be intellectually insulted. I thought that was obvious.
The sudden introduction of a concept so contradictory to the tone, philosophy and arc of its predecessor cannot help but be rejected by any rational mind attempting to conflate the two needlessly dissimilar halves of this universe.
It insults me because it's stupid as fuck.
I appreciate the production quality you put into your videos, hard to find on youtube anymore.
To be fair to Rogue One, the point of the film is to tell the story that bridges the gap between episodes III and IV, it's the story of the rebels acquiring the plans to the death star which are then used to kick off the attack at the end of A New Hope, so there will be a lot of familiar sights, but they should fit with the story.
for example, unlike the Hobbit that dragged Sauron into it for no other reason than to get a nostalgic reaction from LOTR fans, Rogue One would make sense to bring Vader and perhaps the Emporer into it because a lot of the story revolves around the Death Star, by the way, saying as Rogue One will be set between trilogies, we will get to see Vader in his prime, which as a SW fan, i'm super excited for.
This is the newest PowerPuff Girls series in a nutshell
I'm one minute in, lemme guess. Intertexuality is basically just recycling nostalgia and reference for easy sales. Like south park's member-berries... am I right?
THought the title was "intersexuality," not sure what that means plz help
i actually thought that the 'my name is kahn' reveal was a eceptionally good exemple of intertexuality, because, while it gave you that chill you discribed, it told us a lot about the caracter kahn(with the arrogant way he delivers it) and progresses the story, by making the threat clear to us(who have probably seen the original) and, more importantly, kirk(because kahn is very well known in the star trek univese, from the wars he previously fought. it's like saying to us 'i am ghengis kahn'(lol) or something like that).
so you see, it was a lot more than a cash out on nostalgia
I love how the Wolverine cameo in First Class became a small part of the conflict in Days of Future Past.
I originally read “intersexuality” but i’m not disappointed. Very informative :)
I only came here cause I read it "Intersexuality"
.....
Marvel, please adopt Batman... :(
He needs a good home.
Independent film producers, please dissemble cinema oligopoly.
We have three great Batman movies. The Dark Knight Trilogy. Which is the best comic book trilogy so far.
No please don't. Their only capable of B-rated action flicks besides the Daredevil TV show. Not everyone wants constant jokes and quips with a lighthearted tone.
I love how Scott Pilgram Vs The World is used in every video it appears in on multiple channels as an example of something that is good.
Sauron was actually mentioned in the Hobbit. Only they talked about the Mirkwood having more and more dark and dangerous areas since the Necromancer had come to inhabit the old fortress close by. When the Council attacked and chased the Necromancer from his lair, they learned that the Necromancer was indeed Sauron. The Middle Earth history tells us that this attack took place after Gandalf left Bilbo and the dwarves at the edge of Mirkwood and before he rejoined them at the Lone Mountain. Only I don't remember exactly whether it was specifically mentioned in the Hobbit that this was what Gandalf had been up to. The story is told at the big meeting at Rivendell in Lord of the Rings and the timing is specified in the timeline of 3rd Age in the appendices of Lord of the Rings. It's also referred to in the Book of Unfinished Tales. So the fight against Sauron is very much canonical for Tolkien's Middle Earth and relevant to the story of the Hobbit too. It's in a way intertextual but it's more a result of the creative team's choice to follow the timelines of the 2 main protagonists (Bilbo and Gandalf) without long unexplained absences. Whereas the Hobbit the book follows only Bilbo's timeline and viewpoint, the movies follow the timeline of Gandalf too, since he's been promoted to the 2nd main protagonist. For a Tolkien fan familiar with his books this is a logical addition, as it is true to Tolkien's storytelling.
The girl elf and Legolas stories however do annoy me as a Tolkien fan, since they're additions not true to the story. Especially the girl elf story. It's nothing but an attempt to appease the PC crowd which has no business being added to the movies. Her "romance" with a dwarf is also ridiculous and goes against all we know of dwarves and elves. Legolas is the son of Thranduil the elven king of Mirkwood, so his presence is logical, but the book never mentions him at all. His appearance is pure fan service and intertextuality, nothing else.
Intertextuality has gotten out of control, I want to watch something original!
but the movie goers dont treated originality with kindness. you should try to see what they had treated " swiss army man" as the recent most original movie in 2016. yes people often said it has intertextuality with "weekend at bernie's" or with "lost" and "cast away" but i would argue that it is hardly the case
People need to cut down on member berries. They're okay in moderation, but if you eat too much all you'll be getting is nostalgia and nothing else. Eventually they're gonna get ill from eating them all the time.
I don't think you're using intertextuality correctly here
No he isn't . This video is indeed very misleading.
How is it misleading?
People who keep saying Nerdwriter is wrong without saying exactly what he did wrong is almost as annoying as Nerdwriter.
Primo
Similar to how people shit on movies and saying "it's my opinion" without even giving any reason or argument as to why said movie is shit. Not to point fingers though.
Yeah lazy Big Lebowski-fans are the worst.
You aren’t even really talking about intertextuality in this video. A franchise referencing past films is not intertextuality. Sequels and remakes aren’t automatically intertextual.
I have read something discussing the film BvS, saying there are a lot scenes perfectly matching the comics. Ok. So what?
Also in a more recent movie, La la land, someone told me a scene in it has a great resemblance to the Hollywood classic Singing in the rain. Ok. Why that is important.
A lot people including myself seem very easy to be attracted to this kind of trivia or socalled intertextuality and pay less attention to the movie itself.
Also, I wanna say, you have made a ton of great videos. Love it! :D
I think the positive side of intertextuality isn't even about the nostalgia factor because that only applies when it's assumed that the audience is familiar with the referenced text (which is obvious in sequels and superhero movies and the such).
But the most interesting type is the kind that Borges spoke about when it came to literature. The reference to other texts as an invitation for your audience to seek other texts to understand yours. "The way to become a better writer is to become a better reader" and with intertextuality you can prove just how much you read by literally referencing other works.
Given, it's a bit of a show-off when you put it like that but there's still a lot of value to understanding that no idea is 100% original, and deriving from other texts is incredibly interesting (when not done for a cheap "I got that reference" or nostalgia moment).
unicorn blood. intertextuality. see what I did there :p
also, member berries :-)
Member chewbacca? member millennium falcon?
holy shit i read that as intersexuality until you spelled it
It's so crazy that when you described the moment from the Beauty and the Beast trailer as a specific feeling being evoked, my first instinct was to look for similar examples and the first one that came to mind was the Millenium Falcon from The Force Awakens. To be honest, I feel like the Spiderman intro in Civil War was a little bit cheap/unearned- so much characterization had to be handwaved away to make the scene happen. I think a better example of intertexuality that makes the audience excited without feeling cheap from the MCU is the post-credits scene from Iron Man 1.
Intertextuality
noun.
A tool used in film to display dramatic or amusing scenes using characters, symbols, or phrases from other works; usually of the same work
Synonyms: Fanservice, Lazy film making, nostalgia riding.
Antonyms: Originality
It all started when Indian Jones shot the two Arab guys with swords in that one sequal.
dude it's called F A N - S E R V I C E
ooh i member
This is what I've been seeing in everything and I just didn't have the word for it. To me at felt like most films I'm watching these days rely too much on my nostalgia for things.
There is only so much "throw back" , homages and nods to my favorite films I can take before whatever it is I'm watching just feels lazy. Which is why most times I'd rather just watch an old favorite instead of risking disappointment with something new.
amazing. As a film student and pop culture Fanatic this gave me a lot of knowledge well compressed in an understandable manner.
There's already a word for "intertextuality"--it's called a "callback."
Or illusion, or reference, or any number of other substitutes you can think of. That's how language works (according to Derrida anyway). But, intertextuality is not reducible to these things, and allusions are only features of the general set of things described under the name of intertextuality.
Or "easter egg"
Intertextuality isn't new. It's not something that appeared with the modern age. It's also not a construct of Hollywood. It's a human thing. All we create is Intertextual. Older movies don't seem to be because they are about things we do not know. As you said about Watchmen. Only those that have read the comics will see the intertextuality. I didn't read it so I never had that feeling. You talked about it as if it was new to this generation of movies but it isn't. Whoever had the idea of Dragons did it intertextually out of things he knew. Nothing is made out of thin air. Ideas are like matter it changes but it does not disappear nor do you create it. It is a misconception to think your ideas come from Pure imagination. All that is in your head come from something you've seen, heard, smelt, felt or tasted.
he said that in the beginning
thought Said what exactly? He didn't say all of what I said.
Pretty sure any weaponized intertextuality fired by Ghostbusters will be blanks.
4:45 is that a little Gnarls Barkley instrumental playing back there? Run children, run for your life!
The Unicorn's Blood reference was savage. And I think in a nutshell, that perfectly describes the outcome of using intertextuality canonically.
First Hollywood had homosexuals. Then it had transexuals. Now it has intertextuals? What is this world coming to :P
lol watchmen was amazing...not snyders fault you didn't like his type of visual storytelling and the ending fit the reality of the film...unless you wanted giant octopus to attack -.-
TIL intertextuality is the hipster term for nostalgia
Don't forget aural symbols / motifs too. The theme songs to the scores of many of these movies (like beauty and the beast, star wars, even Bond films) are rearranged- maintaining their main motif, but changing the tempo, tuning, or timing in addition to bringing in counter-melodies and harmonies.
nvr mind u said "song"
RUclips served this to me again even though I've already watched it. I watched it through a second time in its entirety..
Glad I did.