Why Are Modern Blockbusters So... Not Very Good? - SOME MORE NEWS
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- Опубліковано 7 чер 2024
- Hi. In today's episode, we look at modern blockbuster filmmaking, excessive CGI, the power producers have over the artistic process, and why studios need all their movies to make $1 billion.
Executive Producer - Katy Stoll
Hosted by Cody Johnston
Directed by Will Gordh
Written by David Christopher Bell and Tom Reimann
Edited by Gregg Meller
Produced by Jonathan Harris
Associate Producer - Quincy Tucker
Post-Production Supervisor - John Conway
Researcher - Marco Siler-Gonzales
Graphics by Clint DeNisco
Head Writer - David Christopher Bell
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/12...
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Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:50 - Studio Execs Seem Bad At Their Jobs
09:06 - Why Movies Are Different Now
19:57 - How The Movie Business Changed
29:14 - Why Does Modern CGI Look So Bad?
36:15 - Streaming and Hollywood Accounting
40:01 - Why The Strikes Are Important
47:45 - Maybe We'll Get Better Movies Soon
Slow down the news ticker in your mind. Upgrade to better Natural Solutions from NextEvo Naturals. Go to NextEvo.com and use promo code MORENEWS to get 25% off. - Комедії
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that’s why I watch SMN on company time.
Me rn
Boss makes a Benjamin, I make a cent. If you flood your house in cream corn, you don't have to pay rent!
Boss makes a thousand while i make point 5 , that's why billionaires don't deserve to be alive.
Boss makes me scrub his back, I need help
@@mars7304they need this on a t-shirt.
Shoutout to Oppenheimer for refusing to credit over half of the VFX crew because Christopher Nolan didn't want it to look like he used too much cgi
im afraid thats just a standard industry practice
@@CH-ls7ye True, but I think it's more irritating when Nolan goes around parading his "lack of VFX" everywhere he goes.
I'd say the VFX industry needs to unionize, but it would be almost impossible, because if it isn't international, then large companies will just turn somewhere else to pay cheap.
hes so pretentious sometimes i swear its embarrassing liking him
@@g.j.9515 His recent movies are overly verbose. Dunkirk was the exception
@@g.j.9515 it is embarrassing, ive never met a Nolan fanboy who had the first clue about story structure.
Memento was a good movie though, I'll give him that.
On Barbenheimer, I remember a few weeks after people were trying to make “Saw Patrol” a thing because the new Saw and Paw Patrol movies came out on the same date and it just did not catch on.
Probably because Oppenheimer and Barbie targeted similar enough demographics and nobody is gonna chase a body horror film with a movie for toddlers
I dunno, I think it kinda depends when it comes to demographics. While this is an example with video games instead of movies, the Doom Eternal/Animal Crossing stuff was pretty well-liked in general, despite the obvious differences in genre.
@@astracrits4633the genres may be quite different between those two games, but they still share a decent number of players, or at least they're parts of similar communities that talk to each other
Some other children's programming has enough going for it that there's a notable adult fanbase, but I don't really know if Paw Patrol has anything like that going for it
What adults with kids are going from paw patrol to saw or vice versa?
Aughhhh Idiots!
It's because "Barbenheimer" was stupid.
Barbie was a legacy brand and toy that many adults who would see something like Oppenheimer grew up with. Paw Patrol is made for too young of an audience to want to watch both.
It's kinda hilarious that a movie about living dolls and a movie about a literal Atomic Bomb didn't have as much CGI as their competitors.
There's actually a video series on what no cgi really means
From that I learned that Barbie had 1500 vfx shots or 75% of the movie had cgi in it but it was marketed as "all practical" Wb removed blue screens from bts footage lol
@@OK-wm2mr Sure, but that's the kind of post production editing and color correction that was done before CGI, it's just now done faster and better on a computer.
@@Bustermachine nope.
@@Bustermachineyou might want to look at what VFX they actually did before you say that. It was certainly not only "colour correction and post-production". You might also notice the comment you are responding to mentions blue screens which are not needed for either of those things.
I find it silly how CGI is being pushed so hard, yet fully animated media is frowned upon for being 'just for kids', unless incredibly raunchy and violent in a childish manner.
It's like these fuckos have never even seen Grave of the Fireflies.
Funny thing is the "adult" animations seem to be uncreative trash that repeat the same ideas and punch lines over and over again for the most part. I think I've enjoyed teen titans go more than the adult animations I've seen, with the exception of the venture bros, because it was actually trying to tell its own story.
It's more funnier when you realize how much preschool shows nowadays are CGI animated
This this this. The new Warner Bros CEO clearly hates animation. Such a turd. I was wondering where that insane Aquaman show went, I didn't realize it had been pulled. This is why Fiona and Cake is a GD miracle
There's something to be said about "adult" animation generally being more childish than animation meant for children.
Technically speaking, "Blockbuster Stores" still - kind of - exist. They are called "your local public library". You can still borrow DVDs/CDs of films, documentaries and music. Support your local public library, everyone!
Hell, yes! You can even suggest purchases and they usually get them. And they also usually provide streaming services. So go, watch, enjoy!
I get TONS of Blu-rays through my library system, even some 4k UHD Blu-rays. Amazing resource.
This!
Libraries are the greatest thing that capitalism somehow hasn't yet taken from us!
Except, I don't have a local public library, and the existing libraries elsewhere are getting their budgets slashed more and more.
VFX artist here. Thank you for covering this topic. It drives my friends and I CRAZY when we get shit on and it's never our fault, it's directors and producers CONSTANTLY changing things up the last second.
Sorry you get a bad rap.
Anyone with a bit more awareness and understanding would know that you’re not making terrible cgi by choice. Who would?
but how else will they avoid accountability for their own actions if they don't throw literally everyone else under the bus?
Women VFX artists lmao.
@@porter9276
the attention you wanted ->
@@porter9276oh, is a sad little weirdo being mad at women on the internet again
The only reason studio greed isn't working anymore is because greedy executives from other industries have jacked the prices of everything in our lives to the point that plenty of families can't afford the $100-200 it costs them to go see a movie
The thing with AI: I work in advertising and have sat in on creative and production meetings, and I can tell you that executives have no clue how AI works. That's why they think AI can take over writers' jobs. Executives are probably some of the least imaginative people I've ever met.
It can only write a good script once it KNOWS what that is down to 99.99999% match a prelabeled one. We got an AI that can (kind of) write paragraphs of content, but keeping a consistant narrative and characters across a massive movie script? With camera instructions, and not require actors to lean into the weird lines to make it work?
Maybe in a few decades, but not right now. AI's only do the task they are told to do, using the judgement honed by structured feedback to fill in the blanks. You need a lot (read millions-trillions of runs) of feedback to get AI's to do even the simplest tasks like object recongition.
Langauge in all its various roles in society is far, far more complicated then simply adding up word definitions. Creative work, even more complicated, as you have to craft the narrative with the medium and final presentation always in mind. And that matters in these scripts because they are nothing but written instructions on how to make a new movie and everything needs to be spelled out before the next phase moves forward.
Frankly, After the intinal burst its like "Yay, we have even *more* ways to rip off people who spent a huge part of the life trying to build a new skill to show everyone. Building creative talent is even more *useless* than before! Now with *50%* less hope of receiving anything like a fair days wage for new creative work! I don't know why everyone is literally hopeless, maybe they should *buy* my merch? Watch Marvel movie #245 or something?"
Everybody wants to throw hard working guys and gals in the trash, and it shows. There can be Art in these things, no suit wants to pay for it though. /rant
@@nomobobbyit can only write a good script if it can scrape the Internet enough. AI will always be behind humans because it's inherently not creative. It's a parasite of creativity. That's why producers think they can understand it. They're parasites too.
I just wonder why we let ourselves be led by these nitwits?
That's the problem... they're not people.
I thought ai generate stuff can't be copyrighted though
One of these days a studio executive will notice how many people see these videos and say "I see... the secret to their success is having weird ads about snails and chugging green juice."
*say bae day*
"Ohh so audiences really enjoy oddly pronounced letters."
No no no, the secret to success is having weird transitions between segments. Gotta incorporate that into Marvel movies!
You mean a Paul Verhoeven movie?
@@leahsander5490 they’re gonna steal Title Monkey! Nooo
Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant calls Palestinians in Gaza "human animals", orders total siege
Barbie/Oppenheimer had real Doom/Animal Crossing vibes. There's even collaborative music video! Two fan bases, celebrating that two good things are coming out on the same day. Wholesome.
"Stories shouldn't be treated like companies." Well said
I think this is why I finally fell off Marvel some years ago.
I liked those movies, and I largely disagree with the notion that they indicate some kind of social ill because they are an example of adults consuming something "childish" (I think a lot of what people think of as being more mature is actually just slightly pretentious) but eventually it's just like "Hey, guys, where we goin' with all this?" and the answer is "Nowhere"
It's not a very exciting answer. Didn't hold my interest.
I'm not sure if this counts as an example of a double-feature, but in 1999, Star Wars: the Phantom Menace was guaranteed to dominate the box office. How did the second Austin Powers film react? They made a trailer that initially looks like a Phantom Menace trailer only to reveal Dr. Evil and then has the trailer voice say, "If you can only see one movie this summer... see Star Wars. But, if you can see two movies this summer, see Austin Powers".
RETVRN TO AVSTIN POWERS
ua-cam.com/video/7vRrZiMQl4k/v-deo.htmlsi=2ZN0brygqKBgjPBg
Iconic
I wasn’t allowed to watch PG13 movies so my parents wouldn’t let me watch the Austin Powers, but I remember that promotion!
Amazing promotion
I'm absolutely blown away by the idea to green light Mattel toy IP movies after the success of Barbie. It's like we're on round two of training a neural network and it's coming up with just the stupidest possible correlations.
You don't need a neural network to find "stupid", humanity has plenty to spare
You have to realize that with upper management it's rarely about the quality of the idea, and more about how well you can justify that idea to others. Oh, a Mattel property made money? Then we should be pushing other Mattel properties, not because anyone thinks it will work, but because correlation is easy to demonstrate in a pitch and is something you can point to later if it fails.
It's all optics in the hope of retaining a prestigious and obscenely high-paying job for as long as possible.
Some of it is trying to beat the competition so that's why in late 90s we got 2 volcano movies and 2 asteroid films released at nearly the same time.
@jC-kc4si and both were subpar compared to the other. Same with the guy who put out all those similar kids movies ...Bugs Life was at the same time as Antz and there were several others.
Nah I’m actually very curious about a Mattel universe
the last thor movie is a great example of filming before you have a finished script and then expecting the overworked and underpayed people to fix everything with cgi.
A primary reason why Jackson's LOTR trilogy is SO incredible is the amount of pre-production/practical effects work
Plus based on an actual good story!
And he wasn't concerned with cramming it full of his own political ideology..
AND, what he made those three movies for, it was a HELLUVA lot less than the ONE BILLION DOLLAR$ it would have cost had it been rushed out with all CGI. Wonderful trilogy, never see its like again...or at least, not for a very long time.
The absolutely amazing dedication and comradarie where everyone at almost every level of production cared so much they didnt even mind pulling long (sometimes unpaid) hours and suffering through injuries for their craft is what makes it for me. They all loved the source material so much and wanted to do it proper justice, for themselves and for each other. Movies where as many stages of production as possible CLEARLY had a great time are always my favourites.
THEY DID AMAZING
thank you for giving Jurassic World the hate it deserves
Oh, I know! Let the little girl decide if we should release a bunch of dinosaurs into the world rather than kill them all here and now! This decision isn't driven by future box office profits at all!!! /s
EDIT: So I'm the only one who had a problem with the ending of the first one. Or you all left before it ended.
I am genuinely impressed with those movies. They're about an island with dinosaurs walking around which is objectively always gonna be sick as hell. So making that boring takes a lot of skill. And yet they did it. 6 hours of dinosaurs being boring as fuck. Incredible.
@@keeganlubbe2470Because it's never about the dinosaurs. It's never about the circumstances of the dinosaurs, or the morality of bringing back dinosaurs, or our responsibility to them or the world because of bringing them back. It's about Chris Pratt being a cocky dick, Bryce Dallas Howard being a frigid and barren and thus objectively horrific woman, and everyone else being boring. Sam Neill's beard has more charisma than everyone in the new cast put together.
lmao
Out of every video on this channel, you are the least allowed to be in the comment section of this one. Your entire channel is basically a corporate mouthpiece perpetuating this exact problem. You made ONE PIECE REACTION content for crying out loud. Get a fucking clue.
Warner Bros has an impressive track record of taking every wrong lesson from each of their successes
Just in general the learn the wrong lesson from every one of their successes, failures, and even other studio’s successes and failures.
Investors don't know anything or care about the businesses they have control over except when they hear about some money making thing. Consider that the people in charge of the sci-fi channel hated science fiction so much they eventually renamed the channel.
And they screwed HBO when they bought them... SO more left turns when right is needed.
Letting Henry go and keeping Ezra was such a blatant "we do neither care about fans, nor punching women." that I am still trying to wrap my mind around that decision.
"Let's all laugh at an industry that never learns anything teeheehee."
The old blockbusters that were so good have staying power.... But there were plenty of terrible movies way back when. We've just forgotten them, thankfully.
2002 to 2024 is going to be just a blackhole in movie history
But the bad movies were still mixed in with the good movies. Today even the "blockbusters" are bad or forgettable.
To all those who fondly remember Blockbuster, they were the ones who killed Hollywood Video, who had earlier killed all the mom & pap movie rental shops. Yes, movie rental places used to be sole proprietorships and partnerships, owned locally. Maybe even by someone you knew or was a friend of your parents.
more people need to realize just how much we *need* art. it’s inherent to humanity and in a world without designers, artists, and craftsmen, you’d quickly go fucking insane
I blame Maslow's hierarchy for society's devaluation of art
Yeah Maslow really shouldn’t have copied an indigenous philosophy of life and just inverted it
She Hulk is art deal with it.
@@deaconlasagna8570not just the inversion but creating a hierarchy out of an egalitarian philosophy. We need all elements of the triangle to thrive
@@MK_ULTRA420literally no one mentioned She-Hulk, let alone said it wasn’t art.
The most baffling thing about that George Reeve Superman “cameo” is, they delayed that movie by a week. So that it came out exactly on the anniversary of that guys suicide. It actually feels like there was malice involved, it’s insane
Most likely just a coincidence. Doubtful most people even remember who George Reeve was. Yet alone when he died.
Jesus Christ how did nobody in production notice that was the date the movie came out on
@@alvinmiller9038then why did they put him in the movie
It feels like the same level of tone-deaf writing as in the recent Chip & Dale movie, where Peter Pan's backstory mirrored his voice actor, Bobby Driscoll.
...yeeeaaah, that's just gross
Whoa, I just finally understand why things look so artificial now when you explained that they have to light things evenly. My mind is blown. That’s why everything now looks like the actors don’t really belong there. I always noticed something was “off” and now I finally understand what bothered me about it. So thanks a lot! 😀
That blew my mind too, and makes so much sense!
The part about CGI being added in post makes me think of Gareth Edwards' "The Creator," which got a lot of press for doing exactly what Cody describes - planned out the shots and then built the effects around them - and everyone was like "wow! We never thought of that! This changes everything!" And it was a beautiful movie, too - much nicer to look at than The Flash or Spider-Man.
As a poorer kid, Blockbuster was a godsend. Our family went out to a movie less than once a year, but it was much more affordable to rent a movie once a month!
My area had a mom and pop video store that I have very fond memories of. That place was the best, they were still renting out Super Nintendo games in 2003.
5 movies for a week for 5 bucks.
@@Violet-fj3lr Know a place like this. They still rent out their PS1 Titles in the Backroom that used to hold all the Porn. Main Buisness is like a Headshop from the netherlands, but the buddy of mine who works there said suprising numbers of people still rent movies in either Blue Ray or DVD and Playstation games.
Man, the movie rental business got *HUGE* for a while. I remember my rinky dink home town, with it's one traffic light, had four movie rental stores. They out numbed the bars! Even the grocery store started carrying a terrible and boring selection of movies to rent. When they stopped they put all the movies and games up for sale and that's how I got some, now, really valuable rpgs for five bucks!
I want a new reign of terror. But it probably be rum by the worst people
Regarding studio executives having absolutely no idea what people actually want, after Cutthroat Island bombed so badly that it failed to save its production studio from its impending bankruptcy, studio heads basically collectively decided that American audiences never wanted to see a pirate movie ever again for the rest of eternity. Michael Eisner had to be practically dragged kicking and screaming into greenlighting the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
It's not so much that studio executives take the wrong lessons from successful movies, but more so that their analysis of why a movie failed or succeeded is always so fucking shallow that it's actually baffling to think they're the ones in charge
A pirate movie failed ? So the problem is that it's a pirate movie. A movie about the multiverse made money ? So in order to make money you need a multiverse in a movie
This surface level deduction of why or why not a movie worked has been there for decades but it's gotten so much worse during these last two decades. To the point that I was genuinely expecting Mattel announcement after Barbie's opening week.
Because the way execs interpret success and failures of any movie is, yes, asinine, and yes, shallow but it's also so fucking predictable at this point.
I would have rather been surprise if those 14 Mattel movies we're not announced, to be honest
It shows how little they know or care about art. They are viewing this is as product with only the surface level aesthetics. They view it like it's coke or something. It's another reason why business majors should not be running movie studios. If they had some understanding, maybe they wouldn't need comps to green light a story and could actually look at it on its own merits. @@maxime5067
@maxime5067 they announced them before barbie came out.
Specifically they said if barbie was successful but yeah
@@sabbathjackal Thank you for the clarification. As a rule, I always stay away from any informations related to a movie I'm interested in, aside from who's the director, the actor and watching no more than one trailer
But it's even sadder now. Because I cannot help but thinking that the thought process here was "If Barbie is successful, then that means that those other movies centered around Mattel Toys will definitely be successful"
And guess what, pirate cinema is dead again because POTC eventually became stale and derivative and even attempts to reboot have failed. Its almost funny, almost. Its kind of a cycle, swashbuckling films were popular from the 1920s through 50s, peaking in the 30s and 40s. They died off in the 1960s, there were some attempts to revive, Cutthroat Island was so bad it killed the very idea of revival. They eventually come back and now its dead again.
The executive approach to making movies laid out here puts me in mind of a quote from an obscure horror game, The Music Machine.
"When your existence is a wasteland of quantifiable values, screaming is as good as singing."
It does have to be noted that, in the case of Mission Impossible 7, the reason it ballooned from $200 million to $300 million is because Tom Cruise and the other producers spent $90 million paying all the cast and crew for the 9 months they couldn't do anything due to the Covid lockdown. That being said, no one's given a good explanation for Indiana Jones 5 costing that much.
In the UK, there is no culture of clapping or cheering during a film, that would be weird because the actors aren't present. So those pauses are just weird pauses, thank you for explaining why they occur.
It happened once to me (in the UK). I was at a screening of Jurrasic Park 2 and in the scene where Ian Malcom's daughter does gymnastics and kicks a raptor out of a window, everyone burst out cheering and clapping. It was very weird.
I think it may have happened a couple of times at the end of a film, but I don't remember which ones.
I distinctly recall people cheering in the theatre during the finale of Day of the Doctor.
Cheering for a marvel moment in the theater should be a litmus tests for whether you have a complex enough inner world to have a coherent understanding of the real one
There's only raucous audience participation on opening weekend for most theatrical showings in the U.S. The pauses are just as weird for more casual viewers on later weeks.
It's nothing like the cinema culture in India, where anything from audience cheering to dancing in the aisles is reportedly the norm.
In Canada we don't clap either, but people laugh loudly at anything anything to do with a penis
The bit about studio execs learning the wrong lessons from successes is so true. I remember back in the mid-2000's when March of the Penguins was a surprise success, and it could, and should, have been a sign that audiences were interested in more thoughtful and intelligent movies than execs thought. But of course, the lesson they took from that was PENGUINS!, and then we got a bunch of CGI kids' movies about penguins shortly after.
I have nightmares of 'Surf's Up'
Executives like to project their retardation onto the audiences.
@@nickstein3129tbf, Surf's Up was actually ok/good.
THATS WHY WE GOT HAPPY FEET 2?!?!
@@nickstein3129Surf’s Up is good though, come on 😭
Anyone remember when physical media limited how long a movie could be? Sure there were multiple hour movies in the past. But they were rare because you needed twice as many film reels and multiple VHS tapes/DVDs in order to break the 90-ish minute mark. But once physiocal media stopped being a limit that people had to creatively work within, movies just sprawl out everywhere and no longer require tight editing.
Shoutout to buying Titanic on two VHS tapes or two standard sized DVDs
the year is 2067
Bob Iger sits in a room of his 620 million dollar mansion, plugged into a life support machine
He reaches on skeletal hand towards a computer mouse, and selects three parameters from drop down boxes
"Spiderman" "Harry Potter" "Bop It"
Bob Iger clicks "Produce"
Within 17 seconds, the movie is made staring AI replicas of Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Holland, and Harrison Ford, and a breakdown of box office results in China appears on the screen.
It has lost 26 billion dollars.
The machine injects a corresponding quantity of dopamine and necessary nutrients into Bob Iger's body.
Short answer: capitalism
SPOILERS!
Honestly the reason for everything being bad. Quantity over quality from food to movies
Also the long answer. A long and strong news answer.
Elaborate
That's the answer to 99% of everything this series covers
Fun fact! Piracy is alive and well, and is getting more and more appealing the more the streaming market splinters into a hundred different subscription services. For some series or shows that have been removed from streaming services, piracy is the only real way to watch them!
Piracy is always morally correct, and even more so when there straight up isn't a legitimate avenue to *PURCHASE* a show or movie, preferably in physical form where access can't suddenly be shut off because of some dark back alley merger deal that happened six years ago with some dumb ass fine print nobody read.
i haven't paid a cent to watch any of the streaming shows on any of the platforms. lol.
Gabe Newell once said that "pirates are just dissatisfied customers" and essentially laid out that if you make a reasonably priced service, people will totally pay for the security and improved customer service to access the product. It's panned out!
@@douglasmarshall6661 Yes, but studios only understood this part "If you make a ... priced service, people will totally pay". And thats what they are doing after seeing Netflix tried it. When there was one (or two) streaming services the content was available for a reasonable price. Now We have N+1 streaming service content being everywhere AND nowhere the same time. So yeah... piracy comes back... but i think it is less of an issue today than it was say 20+ years ago.
For two main reasons: 1) people still pay for streaming services, which naturally reduces the pool of "pirates" and 2) the content the companies create (with a few exceptions) is pretty bad... so it does not even worth the piracy itself. like whats the point even downloading the fast and furious Z movie? I have / had a few friends who were avid downloaders and... they mostly stopped. Simply because the content does not worth it.
There were movies i was eagerly anticipated and waited it to come out - or got very excited when it landed... but this also stopped because the overstimulation of the new content. Like with the MCU. I totally enjoyed the first few films and obviously watched the avenger movies... but when Marvel started to push these things out like a factory (starting around Antman) and ended up having multiple series on Disney+... it completely turned me off...
anyway...
Nice to see other sailors of the 7 seas. So many people seem to think it doesn't exist anymore.
Even just free online streaming sites, most people seem to have forgotten about
“So then you can be scared by that demon in the first movie…”
Even knowing where the joke was going, even seeing the punchline a mile away, I still laughed. Excellent delivery!
So sad what happened to John Carter of Mars. The original book is A Princess of Mars and has been a favorite of many young people since it was published in 1912. My dad read it to me when I was about 10 and then I devoured the rest of the series.
All they accomplished with the name change was to make people confused about what type of movie John Carter might be (a fantasy romance/adventure set on an early 1900s idea of what Mars might have been like)
I quite enjoyed that movie though
if they'd just called it "a fantasy romance/adventure set on an early 1900s idea of what Mars might have been like" as a title, I would have watched it.
...have you READ "A Princess of Mars"??? Dude, that book is weird as hell and not that good. (For those of you who haven't read it, it's about a Confederate general who goes West, runs into some indigenous people described in the manner you'd expect from the time frame and the context, and then goes to sleep in a cave and... WAKES UP on Mars. How does he get there? It's never addressed. How does he know he's on Mars? Because he does. He literally just goes "How do you know you're on Earth? You just know" and then completely moves on. The book gets weirder, but this comment's already long enough as it is)
@@cameronsitton501your description is close to the movie. He knew he was some place with different gravity, no humans, lots of odd creatures. He was told he was on barroom if I remember correctly, in the film.
@@nosuchthing8 No, no, you don't understand. He goes to sleep in a cave on Earth, wakes up in a cave and IMMEDIATELY knows he's on Mars. While he's still in the cave. As soon as he wakes up. He hasn't moved yet and realized the gravity is different. He has seen ZERO Martian creatures. Here is the quote (from Chapter 3):
"I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars; not once did I question my sanity or my wakefulness. I was not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner consciousness told me as plainly that I was on Mars as your conscious mind tells you that you are upon Earth. You do not question the fact; neither did I."
And that's it. That's the opening paragraph of Chapter 3. This is a bad, dumb book. It's just also one of the first ones in the genre, so it inspired a lot of better works in science fiction
When art becomes little more than a product that must make a profit, it suffers in creativity so that the people who own the art (usually not the artists) can inflate stock prices.
Trends are set by little kids on the internet and that's why everything is terrible.
Modern rap has entered the chat.
Art, especially music, ESPECIALLY rap has become a hustle. Not a side hustle, a main hustle but a hustle nonetheless. Most artists today have no business making art. There used to be a skill gap that separated artists from listeners/viewers. Not anymore. But you have to blame the audience, too.
@@JM1993951This ignores the long history of bad artists.
Well said
@@JM1993951yup
There's some similar bs happening in the book industry. Quality of books is declining b/c publishers are spending less money on editing, book covers, and marketing. It used to be an indie authors dream to get picked up by a publisher, but now when that happens, they cut out anything interesting from the book to make it more broadly appealing, change the book cover to be "marketable" (they're following a formula and it's boring), and they don't even do a good job on line editing. Authors are encouraged to follow trends, so readers will complain, "Why do ALL the new romance novels have the misunderstanding trope and female leads who have zero female friends and all women hate her?" but the books keep selling b/c there aren't any other choices, b/c everyone's following the trends to make money. And that's how capitalism encourages conformity. It's frankly dystopian that the number one advice for authors is "Go read the top selling books in your genre and take notes and then just do what everyone else is doing and if you don't do that, you're an idealist, and a chump, and you need to get off your high horse and stop dreaming."
...all art is now just the "don't turn me into a marketable plushie" meme. That's what companies do to art, soften it up and fill it with fluff to make it cute and appealing to everyone.
@@theflyingspaget At least with plushies you can pour milk on them and throw them at walls, which is more entertainment than any capitalist entity will ever provide.
There are now many ways to self publish your book (I have done so), but doing so puts the pressure/cost of editing, cover design and crucially marketing onto the authors shoulders. Pitching my book to a publisher has been described as a waste of time to me with the recommendation being that I just throw it onto amazon myself. I could still get a publishing contract with a big publisher if my self published book becomes a modest success and creates Euro signs in some publishers eyes (I'm european). It also has the added benefit of publishers not being able or willing to make sweeping changes to the story for marketing purposes. For one thing, it would've already proven to be something people would be willing to read, but also those who bought the self published version will notice the changes. And most of the work had already been done.
Making Art under capitalism is a bit depressing.
No wonder fanfiction is so popular
This seems to be leaking over to the academic world as well. Although it's harder to criticize or even recognize simply because conformity is pretty standard in academics
I just wanted a world where I could use AI to create a new episode of Murder She Wrote where Jessica confesses that she was the killer in every episode and details how she framed everyone else.
But no, studio executives are just going to take that tech and make garbage with it all to avoid paying humans.
Clearly the worst timeline.
Because Jessica didn't commit the murders. All the people did. Jessica just Manchurian Candidated them into commiting those murders.
@@CrimsonMey love it!
There are 264 episodes of that show; this would be one long episode. I'd be down to watch it nonetheless lol.
I’m sure some has written that fanfic, go scour AO3
I should’ve guessed the answer was capitalism.
Even as a Star Wars apologist myself... holy cow THANK YOU for calling out that bs with the Madolorian. I was so confused and mad when I learned that I MISSED SOME OF THE STORY because i hadn't watched A DIFFERENT SHOW.
I'M NOT GOING TO WATCH THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT, DISNEY, AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME
Part of the widespread appeal of the Mandolorian was that it was a quality stand alone story that happened to be in the Star Wars universe. And then they just started tying in so many outside plots… ugh. Season 2 was where I pretend the Mandolorian ended lol
I had a huge problem with Marvel Comics doing this back in the 1980s. I had to read Spider-Man to understand Captain America. I had to read X-men to understand Spider-Man. I had to read She Hulk to understand X-men. While I still love comics, I limit myself to stand alone titles.
Well, you know, you can just forego paying for watching it... but ye, it's terrible and a waste of your life either way.
I watched both in the right order and all that, and then was pretty damn disappointed when I watched the next season and realized they had done that to viewers. I did it right and still thought it was a dick move.
@@waverlyking6045 Actually, my favorite super-heroe movies often happen to be stand-alones, most of the time they're the best (look at the recent example of The Batman or other iterations), that's why I enjoyed the first MCU movies so much. It's curious to think that this is not the first time that Marvel goes through this phase.
Funny thing about pet snails. You can either have one pet snail ... or you can have ALL the pet snails. You can't have 2 pet snails, as Katie learned the hard way.
@@jonhall2211 Wait wut?
What we really need right now is a new Steven Seagal movie. You put Steven Seagal in a movie and it's box office gold!
Your comment has been reported as a war crime.
As someone who’s been ramping up my record/cd/dvd/Blu-ray/vhs collecting over the last few years, I can say there’s something fun about hunting down and owning physical media. I just found Excalibur (1981?) at goodwill today! I hadn’t seen it but it’s been on my watchlist for a while. Idk I hope DVD’s make a comeback like vinyl has.
“I have always said this - even when Russia was the USSR. People asked, "Aren't you glad you're in America?" - and I replied that, in fact, I know many Russian filmmakers, and they have much more freedom than me. All that is required of them is to be careful in criticizing the government. Otherwise, they can do whatever they want."
-George Lucas
Yeah, and i mean, you also have to be careful in criticizing our government too, just look at any action flick that wants DoD funding. You can do it, but I think that after the 80s that ship has sailed.
@@meganegan5992 that's the part that's always left unsaid with capitalist "freedom". technically you're not legally barred from doing it, but it's made so difficult and expensive to do that it's not possible for anyone in practice. it's a fake freedom, not functionally much different than legal oppression.
@@meganegan5992 You can't criticise /other/ governments either, because that means giving up a market and associated revenue.
For a great example, watch Top Gun Maverick and ask: Who were they fighting again? The film never actually says. At no point is the enemy country named, or any map shown giving a recognisable location, nor any enemy person shown that might have a recognisable flag or uniform of ethnicity, or any of their language spoken. They are simply The Enemy, nameless and faceless, in order that the film will offend absolutely no country by making them the bad guys.
@@vylbird8014 unless they're brown people of course! the forever war will do that to a culture
@@vylbird8014 It's probably aliens. ..Independence Top Gun Day or Robots .. Age of Top Gun Ultron. .. Top Gun Transformers ..
"studios should embrace memes" you know as soon as you said that, some Sony exec got a thousand yard stare as "it's morbin time" and "re-release Morbius we'll watch this time" memes flashed through their mind
*studios should also understand memes (which granted, execs will likely never be able to do).
Morbius got memed because of how mind-blowingly poorly it was made, as opposed to Barbie that got memed but also largely praised by viewers for being a good, well-made film. The re-Morbing though was perhaps the single greatest use of the internet since its inception.
I still can't fathom how freaking bad that movie was. Usually I'll have a good time, even at a pretty bad movie. This is one of the only times I left angry that I had wasted my time and money watching it. The writing, the effects, the acting....all trash. Total trash. Even the basic premise was beyond stupid. How the f*** does bat DNA let you magically fly? HOW???
I'm not usually one to get upset about comics nonsense, but I mean come on, at least TRY to have it make sense!
@@hmnhntr like even within the diegetic logic of the movie, characters would just do things that were actively harmful to their own interests, and the acting, cinematography, and CGI were horrible at communicating what actions the character was supposed to be doing anyway. It wasn't just "b-movie made by people who don't know how to write", it was "random collection of loosely connected video clips, filmed by people who had never viewed, or written, or acted for film before, and edited together into a barely coherent sequence of events". Picking up random signals with a UHF antenna would make a better story. That studio executives would approve the theatrical release of the film, and then see critical response to it and approve RE-RELEASING the film is demonstrable evidence of their complete lack of both knowledge of their industry and general competence as a media consumer.
The stark difference between Iron Man (the first one) a traditional movie that takes time, setup, tension and any new Marvel movie.
The crazy thing is how short-sighted studio executives are. A little investment in unique, original ideas like Oppenheimer will reward the studio with millions in profits. But they want to play it safe with sequels and remakes, because the sure profit is better for the next quarter than experimental ideas. And that's just how monopolies/oligopolies work
I didn’t even realize The Flash came out, but I couldn’t ignore Barbenheimer for months. Really says a lot.
They didn't want you to realize. After Ezra Miller, they wanted to sneak it in theaters as quickly and quietly as possible. Same thing happened with Disney and Armie Hammer with Death on the Nile.
I was so pleased that Barbenheimer lived up to the hype. It was so fun for everyone.
I've noticed a distinct lack of advertising around most of this year's bombs.
Advertising was misdirected. I loved the Flash. Even though it wasn't a classic hero story, it kind of had a more mature ending.
Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant calls Palestinians in Gaza "human animals", orders total siege
Piracy didn't kill DVD, streaming did. And the studios didn't have to go all-in on streaming - when Netflix started gaining momentum, the studios could have just cut them off before they had time to build a catalog of their own properties. Even now, Netflix could likely be starved to death if the studios all decided to do so. The bigger issue now is that the customer base has become used to the low price and high convenience of streaming, and you're not going to put that genie back in the bottle.
Streaming was the solution to combat piracy, which was (and still is) a huge problem. They just didn’t have a working financial model before they went all in. Partly because they saw what happened to the music industry when it acted too slowly and partly because greedy CEOs + Wall Street + tech hype = lunacy.
@@bradarnold7834 Piracy still exists, and now pirates rip things on day 1 of a new movie/show's streaming debut (which is frequently extremely close to the theatrical debut and much earlier than the DVD debut). Does streaming mitigate SOME piracy by making the low subscription price more attractive than the effort of piracy? Sure. But that low subscription price has also heavily cannibalized theatrical, DVD, and cable.
DVD and blu-ray are still going, albiet more niche, and will for some time to come.
As much as they might wantt o push streaming, all Disney+ has done in its time has been to lose significant sums of money. So much that Disney was forced to release various titles that were previously streaming "exclusives" on such "dated" formats as DVD, Blu-ray and 4K.
Netflix ditched a large chunk of the of their DVD catalogue anyway.
And you’re right that piracy didn’t kill DVDs. Grasping Music/Movie execs, including Amazon and Apple, can’t stand the idea that you control that you bought without paying every time. Even though owning them has little effect on you consuming new music and movies.
[The DVDs that I buy now are films that I know won’t make it back into rotation.]
Yes DVD/Blu-ray are still going as niche products - I'm deeply invested in physical media and will stick with it for as long as it exists. But the market is at 2 billion dollars yearly instead of over 16 billion dollars yearly, so there's been a seismic decline. The remaining physical media audience is people who are willing to pay higher prices for better quality and a sense of ownership. Those people aren't going away, but we're seeing just what a small subset of the overall audience that those people represent.
Cable and theatrical are down too. Theatrical still has occasional mega-hits (Barbenheimer, Guardians 3, Mario this year, similar examples in prior years), but a lot of blockbusters are flopping, the mid-budget film has been all but eliminated, and there are whole genres of film that are primarily streaming-only these days (comedies, rom-coms, adult dramas, etc.) as audiences largely aren't interested in venturing to the theater for them anymore.
Has streaming lost significant sums of money for the studios? Absolutely. My point is not that streaming significantly killed DVD, theatrical and cable and has been a winning proposition for studios. My point is that streaming has significantly killed those profit streams while LOSING money, and now audiences have adjusted their expectations in terms of convenience and low pricing in ways that will be very difficult to reverse. @@AndrewInTO
And now SAG, after striking for months against AI use in television, has signed a bill allowing for AI use in video game voice acting, without a union vote or approval from video game VAs.
They became the very thing they swore to destroy
We’re not experiencing superhero fatigue. We’re experiencing bad movie fatigue. There’s a reason why The Batman and GotG vol. 3 did well. They’re good movies.
I once worked as a previsualization artist on a Marvel movie where the producers were actively limiting the film's director's ability to interact with us. Over the years of working in this industry it's become increasingly common that the director is not involved when it comes to CGI and visual fx. When I started in this industry, it was creative and rewarding and it felt like I had a real impact on the movie, even if that impact was very small. I haven't felt like that for several years now.
@@tonimashdane33498 It's not just Marvel.
Adam savage from mythbusters has spoken about how studios will get you to submit a bid based on the script they intend to make, then change things, add things, reject work you’ve already done, require additions to accepted work, all the while refusing to pay one single dime over the contract price. The best example is Life of Pi, which to this day is visually stunning. Yet three weeks after it’s premier the VFX studio that did all of that folded for the reasons Adam talked about.
Thank you for speaking out against this. Back when the writers strike was going on, a lot of chuds were saying "Write better content, and then you should be ask to get paid more." Ignoring the fact that studios can usually come in and change whatever they like in a story.
A good example of this is chicken little (2005) the original story was going to be about a scared little girl learning to overcome her fear so that she could save her friends from being eaten by wolves, but then Eisner decided to change the script to be more like Shrek and thus cause the disaster that we all know today.
Very rarely is it ever a write's fault, 95% of the time it's the Studios fault.
Because the studio is EXPECTING to be lowballed on price, because price is all they look at bids for.
Unless they own that business (see Starbucks for an example), in which case they will pay massively and the demand a tax rebate "because buying the stuff we need was SOOO EXPENSIVE!!!!")
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is such a wonderful experience. 🎉
It was made for downies
Cody, that was such a concise and clear description of Volumetric Capture, I have coworkers who can't convey that concept as well as you did.
Also another banger as usual.
Although, correction - The Mill didn't do Cats, it was the now defunct Mill Film. The Mill are an advertising company. Both were under Technicolor.
The conversation about CGI being decoupled from directors is best seen when comparing Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. 30 years later and that Trex Jeep scene still hits
Quality vs quantity
@@FooeyMcgooeydoesn’t apply here
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
"He left us! HE LEFT US!"
"That's not... what I'M gonna do."
Not only because of the CGI, but because the original T-Rex breakout scene is done without music with I love the most about all the Jurassic movies.
It’s especially baffling that Indiana Jones could have two entries with terrible scripts. It’s one of the most famous franchises in the world. They waited years to make parts 4 and 5. Surely someone could’ve slipped them a decent screenplay in that time
Problem is, they probably started out with good scripts and then over time the corporate aspect sanded all the edges down until it was too soft to be interesting at all.
I imagine a good script was there but rewrites and studio meddling killed anything that could have worked
What was so bad about Indy 5 again?
I haven’t seen Indy 5, and while 4 isn’t as good as the original trilogy I sincerely do not understand the massive hate it gets. Indiana Jones has always been based on the adventure serials that Lucas and Spielberg watched before making movies themselves, so it’s always going to have some of that pulp vibe to it, and some dumb things have happened since Raiders of the Lost Ark. Nuke fridge is dumb sure but so is using a raft to land safely from a crashing plane.
@@Kevo6492 Indy 5 is genuinely touching, it stays true to his character and gets emotional several times, seeing old Indy having to deal with his age and taking away his youthful strength is a great setting. Movie isn't perfect but imo it's the 3rd best after crusade and raiders
thank you so much for being like the only person I've seen who doesn't blame the sorry state of Hollywood on "wokeness" or stupid shit like that
Exactly. I've never been into the MARVEL franchise, or enjoyed much of Disney since the 1990s. And it's nothing to do with them being inclusive. It's because they put all their chips in on two franchise that I have little interest in. I don't like Marvel, mostly because I don't like Robert Downing Junior or Iron Man, and the whole franchise was built around him. I couldn't even watch the new Spider Man movies because they were part of a universe / franchise I had no interest in. And I loved the previous Spiderman movies.
And Star Wars is just 'OK' in my book. It doesn't repel me like The Avengers, but it doesn't appeal to me like the spiderman movies. I watched them but without feeling any enthusiasm for them.
@@OneTrueScotsman even if it was your thing, the fatigue is real. I was pretty excited for iron man. 15 years and 32(!!!) more movies later is ANYONE still able to muster a shit to give?
@@born2hula325 the one thing i'm still invested in is loki, and that show ended a few weeks ago. used to be a huge fan of gotg and i still haven't seen vol 3.
@@adora_was_taken Dude, GotG 3 is so good tho. I totally get the rest, the MCU seriously fizzled out after Endgame, but GotG is disconnected enough from the rest to just stand on its own as the conclusion to a solid trilogy (though I didn't really like 2).
@@tretretre1111 ok fine i'll watch it tonight
I heard Bucket Predator was the original name for Oscar The Grouch but Sesame Street had to kind of nerf his character to get past the censors.
One reason I love a lot of UA-cam is that you can more easily find a channel where the creator has at least some passion for what they're doing. There's a person behind it. And even when it's mediocre, I'd rather watch small mediocre art that someone cared about, than bloated mediocre art that no one cared about.
I think while there are still writers, cgi artists, actors, sound designers and so on, I think there's always someone passionate about what they're making, even in the most bloated and mediocre art. The problem is, that often their passion is stunted because they have to just make carbon copies of other stuff, are overworked and often underpaid. and even if that one person isn't, others might be or more than likely are.
Me too. I almost never watch new movies and even less new TV and watch UA-cam for exactly the reason you mentioned. A good example are early Cracked videos. Funny, edgy, and usually had some thought behind them.
Even within UA-cam we're starting to see channels become more like large corporations.
Look at Matt Pat and his theorist channels. He has a team of people churning out content every week.
Mark Rober's channel feels like a reality TV production now. He went to his childhood home and acted like he just randomly knocked on the door with a camera behind him.
Dr. Mike is more interested in his boxing career and pumping out sponsored content to pay for it.
Binging Babish started farming out most of the channel to his team.
I could go on, but while UA-cam is still a haven for small creators with a passion for their creativity(and that's why I actually pay for youtube premium) there's plenty of examples of people turning into content farms.
@@RottingDragon Sigh, you are correct. Just to nerd ramble a bit: I always found it interesting that there is a direct analog to the physical theory of entropy and the same theory in Information Science (Shannon's theory which has countless real world applications in IT). I suspect that there is some similar law of entropy for corporations or organizations. You start with what (at least IMO) were very cool companies at the beginning such as Apple and Google (Google really was a cool place to start, before it dominated the search space). And they devolved to the soul-less only out for the bottom line that all big corporations eventually become (if they don't they go bankrupt or get bought by some soul-less bigger corporation). The original Internet was such a cool place. For years there was no concept of a spam email and you didn't need ad blocker because all the sites were created by nerds who thought it would be crass commercialism to include adds on a site. Then things took off and devolved to sites like Facebook, Twitter, 4Chan becoming echo chambers that were mainly for like minded people to reinforce each other's views rather than spaces where people would actually share ideas. I'm enjoying UA-cam while it lasts but I expect one day it will be just another source of corporate crap. Oh well, there are always books.
@@RottingDragonand AI will make this problem worse
Bring back physical media! It helps preserve art and you don’t have to worry about a film’s availability, disappearing, or moving to another streaming service.
Sail the high seas
unionize streaming
The big wigs don’t want to sell physical media, cause there’s laws, contracts and clauses that dictate that they have to pay their workers residuals for those physical sales. That’s the REAL reason physical media is slowly dying. Not because people don’t buy it anymore, they clearly do, but because studio execs don’t want to pay the workers who made them money in the first place. It’s always, ALWAYS about greed.
@@mr.goblin6039 let’s cross our fingers. I mean. At the end of the day I can’t afford all streaming services. If less people get streaming as it gets more expensive, maybe we can get a comeback for that type of stuff. Physical media became popular for people who couldn’t afford cable.
We actually almost lost the classic silent film Nosferatu to history because nearly every copy was destroyed, if I didn't read a total myth.
One thing i wanted to bring up is that while movie blockbusters have been dying out....... animated shows have been...... fucking amazing..... The Owl House, Amphibia, She-Ra, Fiona and Cake, Ghost & Molly McGee, and hell Rick and Morty have all been far more of an outlet for artistic vision than blockbusters have been.
Your coverage on why CGI looks so bad is on point. A good example of overuse is Obi Wan. It looked like the series was filmed on a stage in a highschool. Then you go and watch Andor, same company (The Rat), and they built all the sets and it felt much more other worldly, yet grounded at the same time.
It feels a little ridiculous that a show about a one off character(albeit a good one) became so much better than a show about one of the most integral characters of the whole IP.
I can't wait for the post "everything is VFX and greenscreen" era where Hollywood gets to reinvent itself and suddenly tells people how cool their new movies are going to be because they're now using actual sets and practical effects again
Practical and live sets are still being used, heck. VFX aids in enhancing the practical, there's more productions that are using less Green Screen, or letting VFX specialists direct movies with the skills they know how to work with.
@@marshallw1902 Yes, I am aware, I never said that they don't exist anymore, or that they can't be used to enhance movies, I am just referring to how it's gonna be marketed by studios in the future
agreed lmao. reinventing the wheel and marketing it as new after previously deeming it obsolete/irrelevant (because it involves paying more money/more specialized expertise) is classic capitalism
Yeah it'll be like the 1990s "unplugged" music which was a reaction to the overproduced music of the 1980s
They already do that, whenever some medium-to-big movie is being marketed they heavily do the 'practical effects' thing, I remember topgun doing so much of that and recent MI too
The most egregious part of the Iron Giant in the Ready Player One movie is that not only was it against the character's character.....IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ULTRAMAN!
_What?_ They swapped Ultraman with the _Iron Giant_
@@bloodyneptune that's what I said. Lol
When Super is just not enough!
while it would be against the characters character, it wouldn't be against some random players character to use it. there's so much either missing from that movie compared to the book, or other bits changed (mostly for licensing reasons, but also because the studio would want to push their own characters, and some I bet just because most would have no idea who some of them were without the books narration).
@@Agarwaen it was definitely because they wanted a character that was more "bankable" and likely one they had already owned. But of all of the characters for the movie to use, they chose the one giant robot that was against violence. 🤣 it was originally Ultraman in the book, but there had to be a better option for them than Iron Giant. Haha
Movie theater worker here. The funniest thing that came out of Barbenheimer was the dual release weekend of Paw Patrol and Saw X. Or, as home office called it, Saw Patrol. Funny, that one didn't seem to catch on...
I don't remember which movie I was seeing, but I vividly remember the first time I ever saw an ad at a movie theater before the trailers started. It was in the early 90's, and it was a Dr. Pepper ad. Everyone in the theater was loudly complaining that we didn't come to a theater to watch TV with ads. God, we've fallen so far.
Non-creatives both rely on and hate creatives. They are forever looking for a formula, an easy three-step mnemonic that will allow suits to control artists. The result isn't going to be art. It worked for a while, but in the end people want something with some emotional resonance, something original, something that moves them to feelings more profound than, 'Oooh, there's an Easter egg!' I downloaded Disney+ as soon as it was available, took a look at their landing page with tiles for Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, OG Disney and National Geographic (FFS) and knew they were in trouble. Anyone who understood story could have told Disney that SW and Marvel were played-out, that Pixar had lost its edge, that Disney was just the Frozen channel and Nat Geo was, well, Nat Geo. You cannot extend a story forever, there are limits.
I find that I tend to watch more of the Star/Hulu stuff that Dis+ has, because they acquired all of the Fox library and most of it doesn't categorise well under their big brand banners. There IS a lot of good, interesting stuff on there, but it's definitely not pushed to the front unless you train their algorithm to show you.
"Non-creatives (I'm assuming in business) both rely on and hate creatives" That sentence sums up so many things, from shitty movie studios to controlling record labels to threatening creatives with algorithm "art". I think a lot of people got used to mediocrity, but they deserve better
@@randomusername1735 From my experience with all the Ai art thing, it's not just in business, a lot of regular people despise artists/creatives too.
Tbf series like Andor will only run for two seasons in order to have the story end
@@randomusername1735 Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant calls Palestinians in Gaza "human animals", orders total siege
"greenlight all Mattel movies! Ahhh, the world doesn't know how lucky they are to have us-the benevolent executives. WE know how to art"
all true. A friend of mine works as a senior artist in VFX for Blockbusters and he's losing his mind because of the workload, bad planning and having almost no time off.
The Harry Potter movies honestly feel weird from sequel to sequel, sometimes super fun, sometimes amateurish, sometimes pretty compelling
I feel like one of the best examples of double features working in a different sphere was Animal Crossing and Doom Eternal releasing on the same day. The memes that spawned then lasted throughout covid to make it more bearable. Why movie studios don't do this more often I have no idea
Most of the time no one cares. Studios do counter programming all the time. It's not something you can force.
That's why "Saw Patrol" was a dud. You can't make it happen. It either happens on its own or it doesn't happen.
General audiences have been conditioned into binging at home where it’s more comfortable and not as restrictive. There’s also more completion than ever for people’s free time and not just video games. Not to mention the rising cost of going to the movies. All of that contributes into a double feature being a hard sell. Barbenhimer did well for many reasons that other supposed double features can’t bring to the table. Already established highly acclaimed directors, the contrast of the films, the caliber of stars in the films, and the organic buzz behind both movies that would’ve been there if they didn’t release on the same day.
The whirlwind romance between Isabelle and Doom Guy was beautiful
Stellan Skarsgaard pointed out in an interview that the missing middle of films have mostly moved to television, which is why, for a while at least, we had a golden age of television shows. Succession started as a movie pitch that a studio shot down, for example.
Any developers are the way to go
Whether it's film or video games, they're the only ones that are actually trying to make good art.
God i hate corporations, we need small businesses back
wow, this is probably the best video on the subject, you cover in detail this industry change so well, amazing work Cody!
I laughed out loud at the " watch a scary movie then watching the exorcist to calm down"
Wasn't it watch a movie about a scary demon then watch the exorcist to calm down?
@@The911skullthank you. I waited till the end to comment. So my memory is a little okay 😂
"I've seen the Exorcist about 167 times....and it keeps getting funnier...every. single. time. I see it!" - Beetlejuice
@@stormtempterf8058 it really was a little funny. Hard to believe it was a commendable horror film of its time
44:15 this is the part that got me. If you take 75 million away from 82 billion, you're left with a measly....... 82 billion.
Exactly, rounding up it's 0.1%... one-tenth of one percent.
75 million got you a lot on Epsteins island.
LOVED this video. Well produced and well executed! You officially have a new subscriber!
Every time i see them having actual ads and not just a patreon plug im so happy for them !
I had a conversation with someone about physical media like DVDs recently, because for the past couple years, I’ve been collecting DVDs as a fun hobby. It just felt more special to have a physical copy of my favorite movies, even if it wasn’t as convenient as just pulling up the same movie on Netflix. But eventually, it because less of a fun hobby and a bit bleaker, as a bunch of shows and movies started getting pulled from streaming services, some not having physical releases and threatening to become lost media. I’m currently crossing my fingers that What We Do In the Shadows will release seasons 3-5 on dvd, because it’s currently my favorite show of all time, and the thought of it just… no longer being accessible is heartbreaking to me
It's not the same thing but in a similar vain I've enjoyed another art form for decades now: AMV's. The reason I mention this is in the past year alone two channels I've watched have been effectively erased from the internet along with a great deal of art that they contained. Some of them had millions of views so I know I'm not the only one feeling the loss and I can't help but begin to feel the same as you. As more and more corporations and profiteers erase more and more art as soon as it no longer aligns with their fiscal interests I think we'll find the only way we can be sure we can get to keep the things we love is by religiously recording them and storing them away.
@@Shindo13371 Yeah, I recently stumbled across a bootleg of a play I've been wanting to see, and my first instinct was to immediately download it onto my computer because I just assumed that it would be taken down eventually. But at least that was a play, there's still a script floating around and even if a specific performance from some random community college gets lost, it still exists. It's not the same when something is purely digital
I remember the Time Before VCRs. Imagine watching your favourite show or movie, and it disappearing forever. Or hoping against hope your local TV station would buy it in syndication, and play it on the weekend or Thursday at midnight.
@@Shindo13371One of my absolute favourite AMV channels got purged recently and some of my favourite videos on the internet are now gone forever because I didn't think to back them up on the wayback machine :(
Not a solution in any way, but there are people that makes their own DVDs
Across the Spiderverse was not only a sequel, but also a comic book movie... BUT; it still felt so fresh and real that to me it was like an original property. Weird to think about that way.
It's almost like having an actual vision makes a movie good. Who'd have guessed?
Unfortunately much like other major releases, it was also made with tortured and potentially ununionised labor (especially the offshore animation studio)
@lrigsnart6821 That’s an insult to The Muppets
It's also basically an adaptation of the final [I think] plotline of the 90's Spiderman cartoon [minus the involvement of venom and Carnage.]
How is spiderman an original property? Be fr
omg 3:58 I had "Let's all go to the lobby" in my head all day recently. Thanks for reintroducing it.
30:47 "cool music" LMAO that line delivery really got me.
One really bad thing, about streaming, is that a lot of stuff is streaming only, nowadays ...meaning, that if it is taken off the server, or the company goes bust, that movie or show, is now gone forever. No DVDs or Blu-Rays you can have bought, or can find somewhere. The one and only hope you'd have, of being able to see it, is to hope that people have pirated it.
Then we can thank the high seas because often there is a torrent version out there, it's just not a solution to this.
@@bluester7177 Trust me, there are stuff that's gone from streaming, that can't seem to be found pirated, anywhere.
It's only piracy if it's on the sea, other wise it's sparkling media conservation.
I mean, the same thing happens with other media, especially games. Some get ported onto the newer consoles, but how many don't. that's why there are often dedicated groups of people keeping stuff like roms of old games and creating emulators to let people enjoy these media for as long as possible. And I think at that point it's no longer piracy to me, just like it's not stealing to take an object someone thrown out. Be it a used bottle or a functioning phone.
@@LucasTheOnion Mm, if the company abandons the product, and no longer provides it, then they should have no right to complain about it being pirated.
My perspective on Barbenheimer was it started in cinephile circles, who saw that Barbie was directed by Greta Gerwig, so it was bound for greatness, and the Oppenheimer release day coincidence was noticed later and combined with the already existing Barbie memes.
I stopped going to these blockbuster films so long ago.
There aren't enough snobs in the world.
I have seen things you people would not believe… like well crafted scenes that show how great cinematography can be.
The Writers Strike was a big answer as to why blockbusters have been so bad lately. We've spent the last 15 years squashing talent, what was to be expected?
2008 Writers' Strike happens. Studio executives' takeaway: Let's make movies without writers. Or maybe just Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, the least writerly of the writers.
2023 SAG strikes happen. Studio executives' takeaway: What if...all CGI actors?
@@andrewklang809 I have no idea how those two hacks get to keep writing. They write like AI, but AI is somehow better and more coherent. Doesn't help they got their claws on some legacy properties with fandom who will eat anything as long as it has the brand.
@@oohhboy-funhouse Because they're hacks. Hacks write what they're told to write, like with directors brought in to direct without vision. Executives like hacks.
How fast do you think films get made? The writers strike only lasted 5 months, there are still films from before the strike in post production, the drought is coming.
@@therabbithat Part of what I meant is that so many of things that the writers were striking for explain why films have gotten so bad. For example, producers gutting writers rooms. They have no one to collaborate with or learn from. Not paying to have writers on set for shooting and rewrites means if something doesn't work on camera it's more or less going in the film or getting left on the editing room floor but it's very rarely being reworked into something better. With a lot of these practices we also don't have a way of cultivating writing talent into showrunning, writer producer, and other higher level talent. There are many talented people out there doing the best that they can but the corporations in "Hollywood" have shown such an active hatred for filmmakers and screenwriters that the industry has effectively withered before our eyes.
Meanwhile A24 is drooling over the major studio's stupidity because they're producing the sort of films people want for sane budgets, with creatives having control and making solid bank etc.
thank you for explaining the issues of the vfx studios so well. and not blaming movies being bad on vfx like most people default to doing.
as a long time artist i have had many frustrations with the stress they put on us to finish out shows. now I am head of my department and I now see the reasons why and its only getting worse. especially for the junior artists just trying to build their career.
i agree we need to unionize but its almost impossible at this point since vfx studios have been scattered all over the world, and again to save money.
TBH, I actually like that they can cut spoilers from trailers, leading to actually thrilling reveals. That's been another big issue, is not being surprised by anything in the movie because it was all laid out in the trailers.
That has a lot to do with how bad trailers are nowadays and not necessarily with cgi. Trailers currently are either following an established pattern down to sound effects, try to cram in all the best scenes of the movie or are even a shortened version of the movie itself. It’s like nobody at Hollywood knows how to tease properly and work with anticipation anymore.
"We'll fix it in post" -> "We'll write it in post" -> "We'll come up with the movie idea in post"
And that's when we'll know we've truly reached the end of the line.
Got to love how Netflix said they’re going to raise their fees within days of the writer strike ending. It’s like they’re charging us to pay the writers. Cool bro.
Even their ad-supported tier. Bro, the ads should be enough!
That's their excuse. They want you to be "mad at the writers"
It's a power play
Congratulations on falling for corporate propaganda.
Netflix is using the writers strike as an excuse for raising prices.
@@NicholasMarshall - the sarcasm in the "cool bro." was implied mate
Disney+ is also raising their prices... nearly doubling the yearly rate from $79 to $139. So they can roll out an "ad-supported version" at the original price.
They've been hemorrhaging subscribers over the last year and this is how they're rewarding the people who stuck around.
"beside the fact it slowly degrades our culture and understanding of art and how our society progresses." I wish there would be one Politician I could vote for who is talking like my favourite comedians. Good Speech, hear, hear!!!!
You are picking the thoughts right outta my head! Nailed it all!
This is super informative.
When the films get bad enough, the studio system will be broken by people flocking to an alternative. Right now the alternative is terrible influencers videos; terrible reaction to other terrible content. When the general public raises their standards, change will come. A new renaissance will come, eventually.
It's honestly really depressing to see just how dumb and lazy executives are in general. Yet despite at least half their employees being smarter and more driven than they are, they get 1,000x the salary.
The C suite just exists to serve as a big boys' club for rich families. They send their kids to private school and then "business" school to learn nothing, get a degree for learning nothing, and then get an executive job with at daddy's friend's company. And how strange! Daddy's friend's kid just got an executive job at daddy's company!
And not just dumb and lazy, but completely unimaginative.
the "C" in "C-suite" stands for "cuck"
I wanna live in a world where the mockbusters are better than the blockbusters they're trying to rip off. This does not mean that I want the blockbusters' quality to sink that low. Rather, I want the mockbusters to swing for the fences in terms of artistic merit, quality, daringness of vision, etc., and succeed even beyond that. Imagine a by-the-numbers blockbuster that a studio sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into (and lost) sweeping The Razzies, while its mockbuster sweeps The Oscars.
This is the kind of video everyone should watch. As a musician I saw all of this early on. When spotify started ruining the music industry I was very much against it from the start - and I can proudly say that only one of my (our) albums is available on spotify. But it hurts to see that the same overcame the music industry as I'm a huge movie fan.. same goes for video games now we're at it.
You know there is another reason why film is struggling and that is the 1996 Telecommunications Act Bill Clinton signed into law to that made it easier for big media giants to buy up all the smaller movie and television studios killing competition in the media marketplace. That's also the reason why shows are going decades longer than usual. And that's also a reason why we're getting big budget blockbusters, remakes, reboots, sequels and cinematic universes to all these movie franchises out here to because the executives all want to play it safe.