The problem with most movies is that, instead of leaning into the universe, it constantly makes fun of its self in the worst possible way, by breaking immersion.
It's big in certain types of movies because the filmmakers are embarrassed by the genre. That's also why The Batman and the Nolan trilogy tried so hard to be gritty and realistic. Everything's either a deconstruction of the heroes or have the heroes pointing out possibly embarrassing things before the audience can. "Would you prefer yellow spandex?"
@@JDoe-gf5oz It’s like most movie studios think that audiences are expecting everything to be completely realistic. Name me a person who watched lord of the rings and went “what’s all this magic nonsense! This doesn’t make any sense!” Like, it’s fiction, it doesn’t need to be realistic to be taken seriously.
@@JDoe-gf5oz how the fuck are Matt Reeves and Christopher Nolan "embarrassed " of the source material? If anything, taking it seriously is way MORE respectful than the constant use of "well that just happened" style dialogue.
Which is so ironic. Because cringe only happens when someone sincerely tries to be something they're not. Like, someone who can't sing tries to sing a Whitney Houston song, and they try with all their might and fail hard. That's cringe worthy. But someone sharing their real genuine emotions in the truest way they can should not be cringey at all. It's authentic.
@@phoebexxlouise what if a person who can't sing pouring their heart into singing a whitney houston song IS sharing their real genuine emotions in the truest way they can? I'm more in the camp of cringe culture is dead, all it does is mock people for enjoying things or trying things. be cringe! be free!
@@quinintheclouds I agree completely. No matter what you do or don’t do, people have a problem with you anyways, so you should just be yourself. People label everything and anything as cringe, the same way they spit out insults, because they have no self control whatsoever. This culture of cynicism has an impossible standard of perfection and I’m completely sick of it.
Oppenheimer and the Los Alamos scientists watching the footage of the Hiroshima bomb and aftermath. The projector shuts off and the lights come on. Everyone is silent. Oppenheimer slowly turns to the camera. "Well, that just happened."
I speculate that part of the reason this humor took off is because people are afraid of being judged for taking "nerdy" things seriously, and they see ironic meta-humor as giving them an excuse to enjoy things without being seen as lame for it.
The big reason was a lot of superhero flicks tried and failed to be ‘edgy’ and ‘mature’, like Daredevil. The Avengers was fresh, it was humor comic fans and those just getting into the universe could laugh at. It was also a pretty natural progression for a character like Tony Stark, who like Rocket Raccoon, uses his witty humor as a shield.
I agree. Ironic *Blank* is a way of shielding your sincere belief in whatever *Blank* is. Sadly a good example of this is 'ironic' prejudice or bigotry.
And even then, the reason Deadpool works is because he has characters around him, like Colossus and Cable, who ARE taking the movie seriously and who react appropriately when he's making tasteless jokes or quipping in the middle of a deadly battle.
Exactly and with Deadpool 3 apparently being described as a 'fish out of water' story for Deadpool in the MCU, I wonder how legit that statement is going to be considering how everyone is just as referential as him. He's just going to be more profane and crude
The worst part about it is that this kind of thing also influences the general public attitude towards sincerity in the real world, too. There's been so many times where i've been open to my friends or who ever, be open/vulnerable just to be met with disgust in their face lmao
I've got a brother who's been dealing with that to an extent. He mentioned it's been hard to listen to the original songs that parodies make fun of. As I've talked with him more, he's been realizing that it's been a mask for uncertainty and self-doubt. It's really rough to figure out.
Be nice if they treated Thor's PTSD and guilt with respect. His scene with his mother in Endgame was touching. Imagine how powerful that whole arc would have been with sincerity. Instead we get fat joke Thor.
I hate Thor Ragnarok for this. It feels like a more somber or sad Movie at least in this direction it goes, but every time the emotion start to grow in that direction boom joke. Biggest offence are the end credits. They should have gone; She dies and than she arrives in the afterlife, and than end but no we have to end on a happy note no matter Thors feelings.
I think the biggest issue is how little a scene is allowed to breathe. Shots don't sit on something anymore because instead they focus on something happening them quickly cut away to a lame joke which undercuts any bit of tension and emotion.
And then they can go too far the other way, with all the shows and movies that have characters constantly staring pensively into the gray distance to show how serious and thoughtful the scene is.
100%. Editing is so clinical nowadays, showing just enough to illustrate the plot point and moving on, which loses out on all the interesting nuance that makes scenes meaningful.
Or when films feel the need to have characters literally describe everything going on in a scene in detail, or describing jokes and why theyre supposed to be funny, or having a scene dedicated to dialogue where every plot and plan is revealed to the viewer - as if we can't tell what's going on and need to have our hands held to understand the story. TV series are even worse, every edgy cartoon from the early 2000s to now is literally BASED on this kind of dialogue.
The flip side of this is how often children's cartoons are well received by adults. Actual cartoons aimed at children can have very emotionally deep and sincere messages, that aren't hurt at all by whatever goofy stuff is happening. The cartoon dogs can do silly things all episode, and be very emotionally serious.
Yeah perfect example of this is the fact that there was a Bluey episode where the mother dog actually explained to Bluey that her sister was sterile, I believe actually using the term, and it tried and failed to have children before, or there was an episode of Friendship is Magic where they actually dealt with the idea of someone being born disabled even though they didn't use the term per se. Her magic didn't work basically, but it was in no way unclear as to what that meant. In a Marvel movie, they would have had somebody make some sort of quip about how she's disabled or how Bluey's mother had a failed pregnancy.
You know, for all it's flaws, it was refreshing to walk away from Avatar 2 and think "man, it's nice to have a movie where the characters take their goofy ass world seriously, and don't constantly make jokes about it." Because really, if you grew up there, why would you?
I completely agree with you. I love Avatar 1 and Avatar 2 because, for all their flaws, these movies are sincere and aren't filled with quips during tragic moments. I love the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy for the same reason, because those movies are sincere and aren't filled with quips during tragic moments.
As much as I hate the modern snark humour in movies recently, I really didn't like Avatar 2. It just felt like there wasn't much thought put in the world making sense or the plot developing rationally, and it was just a series of emotional moments and pretty visuals.
It hit me in the D&D movie that came out recently. The team is down on their luck and Bard starts to sing a song to cheer everyone up. The big barbarian girl looks up and him and I'm almost certain she is about to say something about it and threaten to shove his lute up his backside if he doesnt stop singing, or something to that effect. But then she didnt. She smiled and joined in. They cheered up. And of course they did, these people are dear friends. But it was so so damn refreshing and totally unexpected. Made the ending way more impactful as well, those of you who have seen it know what I mean. Damn that was a good movie.
@@IPITYTHEFOOLZ What is the purpose of your comment? You didn't like the movie, that's fine. But what can possibly come from you dropping a nothingburger of a statement here?
I know exactly what you are talking about with this. A few days ago I rewatched The Return of the King with my best friend and we both cried when Sam said "Come on Mr Frodo! I can't carry the ring for you! But I can carry you!" We were trying to figure out why we love that scene so much, and we came to the conclusion that it's because very few movies portray such a powerful and sincere platonic love between two male characters. If you have two characters helping each other in a modern Hollywood movie, they are either sexually attracted to each other, or they are forced to stay together by the plot. It's actually kind of sad how few platonic relationships are shown in movies/shows nowadays, especially between two male characters. So I cheer for moments like that Mission Impossible clip from the beginning, Where Benji is opening up to his need to protect Ethan. It's not his duty as an agent, it's his duty as a friend. Sorry if I sound like an armchair psychologist, but I feel like if you find moments of platonic love in movies cheesy, it's probably because you don't have any meaningful relationships in your life.
@@thegodofalldragons I don't wanna jump to conclusions, but yes. That tweet reeks of someone with emotional immaturity and lack of literacy. But honestly that describes most twitter users.
It's so annoying when Hollyweird can't have two males or two females just be friends anymore and not 'friends with benefits' or 'secretly hot for each other'.
What about a romantic relationship between two men make their actions any less sincere? I understand the desire for healthy portrayals of men's relationships in media, and the positive cultural effects that can have, but why imply that a homosexual perspective cheapens their actions or makes them any less meaningful? Sorry if I sound like I have a molten rod up my ass, but it feels like every time this "why can't two men just be friends anymore without it being GAY" stuff comes up, it most charitably feels like it's blowing the situation vastly out of proportion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as of now, there are vastly more healthy portrayals of platonic relationships between two men than there are romantic ones. One doesn't come at the expense of the other.
It feels like so many people who are into nerdy things act like there's some 80s jock following them who is about to make fun of them if they are too sincere about their passion, so they have to call everything "silly" and "corny" or drench it in multiple layers of irony so that no one will make fun of them.
Which is funny because, being an 80s jock in spirit, I can now make fun of them trying to weasel their way out of being a nerd rather than owning up to it. If anything it's easier to bully now since, rather than actually having to make a case for things being goofy, I can just call people insecure and know it will hit home
@@maxsync183 it 100% is, and I don't get why so many people feel a need to put others down for having interests. It's like the only way to be "cool" is to be a piece of cardboard
it's wild if you follow counterculture spaces one of the biggest trends I've noticed as of recently is genuine sincerity and vulnerability. You have to imagine it's in direct reaction to the infestation of Joss Whedon dialog and any number of insufferable twitter randos that proclaim themselves as "fluent in snark". I hope we can look back at sarcasm nowadays like we look at fart and gross out humor in the 90s.
The fart and grossout humor was largely an accident. Because the Farrely Bros. had Jim Carrey--then the biggest upcoming celebrity of the time--participating in it in DUMB & DUMBER, it caught on. But for a brief window of time, the Farrely's were largely in control of it; no one else was doing it really. But once THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY exploded, then everybody ran with it, and when AMERICAN PIE hit it big the next year for that reason, it solidified it for the next several years. It was originally used because no one else was doing it and the unexpectedness of it accentuated the comedy. But the jokes without the gross-out were already funny, the gross-out was a highlight or an accessory. But they eventually became the meat when the imitators jumped in.
This is the case for the digital age as a whole. Like on the internet, no one is real. Everyone is sarcastic and taking things seriously on the internet is considered cringe and sad
Oh my God, THANK YOU. This is my biggest problem with media today, and why I think so much of it is garbage. The vast majority of it is so meta, cynical, and lazy. Many writers think that they can get away with bad writing as long as they appear “self-aware,” and it’s incredibly annoying.
The ultimate irony being that alleged "self-awareness" has now become actually lacking in self-awareness itself, where you have people attempting to seem that way but in turn they come off as cringe simply because of how hard they're trying to. Like someone telling the same joke over and over and over again. In this case literally.
Because actually great smart writers knew how to do these exact things but with actual substance. Nowadays it’s a trend people follow with no understanding of the nuance of **why** cynical, meta fiction can be just as great as more idealistic works.
There's a term for this: bathos, which is defined as "an effect of anticlimax created by a lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous." While it can be used effectively, it's overuse in parts of the story that should be serious can signal that the author doesn't trust the story to capture the audience emotionally, and it can have the effect of teaching the audience that any emotions they may feel are silly and that they shouldn't actually car about anything happening in a piece of media
Wow, your description of bathos makes me think of David Lynch's "twin peaks the return", I believe that was one of the only intentional instances of this effect being used well, as it's used to undermine Cooper's belief in his current reality as he realizes he's in a dream. Near the last episode the show takes a major tone shift and turns into them fighting a CGI fireball with a glove, after which Cooper realizes this is not real life and goes down to the boiler room to travel to a different memory. I think it works in that case because the show itself is somewhat about if we can trust what we perceive/what we are shown
@@Xenozillex"There's a big bomb that's going to explode in Central Park" "Uh, a big what now? What is this, an action movie?" "Shut up comic relief! This is serious, people are going to die!"
I watched Paddington for the first time yesterday and I was surprised at how refreshing the sincerity of that film felt. Like, sure, Paddington is a talking bear and that’s really unbelievable and extraordinary, but everyone in the film treats him like he’s only just a bit odd and not much more. The fact that we didn’t get a “the bear is talking?” moment every other scene was fantastic and I wish more movies just embraced their weirdness instead of constantly drawing attention to it.
I think that's why the scene in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish where Perrito was comforting Puss during his panic attack was so loved and talked about so much. There was no dialogue or quippy jokes. Just a friend helping a friend in need.
Jep, what in the beginning was played as a joke (Perrito wanting to become a therapy dog and Puss being appaled by it), became sincere in the moment of need. It was beautifull, because Puss was this emotionaly distant, cocky dude not so different from many marvel charakters. Even him "not being a math guy" was this certain humor, designed to keep emotions of vulnerability away. I'm thankfull the bountyhunter was so scary as a villain, as he forced vulnerability in a movie, that would've otherwise be just another marvelesque movie if we look at any other scene.
The biggest thing to note is that trends are basically a swinging pendulum. As folks were getting tired of media taking itself too seriously, quippy/ironic humor felt like a breath of fresh air. And now, we're seeing folks getting tired of irony, so we're swinging back towards sincerity. And we'll be right back to irony in another generation or two.
@@sownheard It's honestly not even that the writing is necessarily bad or that quips are a crutch for them, but that the writers who overuse them (or the suits that demand their use) are afraid to just let a scene breathe. While the more cliche lines should probably be shelved for a bit, quips as a whole are fine when used responsibly; like all writing tools and tropes.
@@DTFauxClassic except the writing IS bad and the majority of movies are using the humor to hide it behind laugh tracks. This is the standard MCU film. Even if the scene was allowed to breathe it’s still gonna be bad, so no, bad writing IS the issue.
@@blacklivesorblackvotes2985 The reason why I stand by saying the writing "isn't necessarily bad" is because most of these films (Marvel included) are still competent and entertaining for what they're worth; even if we, personally, aren't feeling them anymore. We can argue all day about execution, tired trends, artistic merit, etc., but to just throw a blanket "It's all bad" is lazy and unproductive criticism. Great to get a gauge on how YOU feel about something, but it doesn't give much for people to chew on or walk away with.
When I finally got around to watching LOTR, the sincerity and romance struck me as the best part. It was a massive shock after years of parody and self aware media.
I think this is also why Harry Potter is successful. Compare to Percy Jackson with super sarcastic, overly aware quirky first person narrator. MG/YA books only went down hill from there.
Absolutely. I just finally watched LOTR for the first time this month and was blown away. I finally understand why the movies are so timeless and loved. You can really see in the characters faces that they are quite sure they will die at the end and are still pushing through til the end. Beautiful
Yeah, I started noticing this becoming really obnoxious during Civil War, but it became intolerable for me by the time the Star Wars sequels rolled around. I just remember leaving the theatre wondering why they thought it was a good idea to make every character Han Solo.
Great call. That was the beauty of Han Solo. He was a blue-collar smuggler thrown in the middle of a space wizard battle so everything was mind-blowing. There is absolutely no reason a former storm trooper and rebel fighter would be surprised their enemy can fly.
The reason why all this shit happens in cycles is that it starts out as a radical gesture and then, because of it's impact, becomes adopted and mass-marketed until all the merit inside it is lost. It's not the thing itself, it's the insincere exploitation of it that is the problem. Joss Whedon's style works for projects that are in that vein. But adapting his tactics to things that don't clearly backfire and erode things over time. We need to do something about our tendency to run things into the ground every time they pop up. We just gorge the shit out of every new thing until it becomes tired and stale before it's even explored and used properly.
@@g5studio21Capitalism is a big driver of this. Lots of trends become trends because products are made to entice people to spend money in it. However, if you could utilize social media to where the trends work like a block party, where they all exist simultaneously and people can migrate from one to another at will, then rather than burning out, they either settle down or cross-pollinate into something different. But this way there's undulating momentum, so things don't stagnate but flow into each other.
It's like Shrek. Shrek came out making fun of true loves kiss, making fun of princesses, making fun of fairytales (and Disney) Then people copied them. Now making fun of classic fairytales is normal. Then Puss in Boots 2 came out and said "Hey, here's a story about a man outrunning death", classic fairytale stuff, and everyone loves it because it's so new.
The thing is you can't send "the right message" to Hollywood executives. They will always demand what they perceive is the cause to success instead of what actually was the reason. Barbie was successful because it was such a different take by competent indie writers and director with big actors. Instead of that they took away that people like toy movies and announce 14 movies based on Mattel properties such as Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball, Uno, and Major Matt Mason.
So true 😂. The boardroom and the writers room are in different buildings, metaphorically. I’m convinced that execs are living in their own little world of financial graphs and pie charts and have no grounding in anything artistically genuine. Maybe they should watch more UA-cam film commentaries
You say that, but when we remove Hollywood execs out of the equation, we get the complete crap that is most netflix movies. So maybe they know more than you think? Perhaps the box office outweighs the film scholars on youtube?@@champagne.future5248
Exactly. If you convinced Hollywood of 'this is what we want', then every movie is going to be exactly that. When they find a formula that works, they squeeze that formula until it makes no more money. But i can't blame them, really. As any business, their objective is to make money.
I think snarky, dry humor works when the characters are making jokes, but not when the writers are making jokes. I think of Iron Man in the first Avengers movie- his humor works there because it's somwthing that HE does, not something that the writers make any old character do for a quick laugh. He IS a snarky self-confident asshole, so when he makes those jokes he's just acting in character. And most importantly, he never made jokes about how the situation he was in was absurd. He might take things a little light-heartedly, but you always got the sense that he was actually invested in what he was doing. I think a lot about the "Shakespeare in the park" joke from when he fights Thor, and why it works so well when other jokes in later movies don't. I think it's because Tony is still acting within the scene, making a joke to insult Thor (who has just taken Loki from the Avengers, and whom Tony thinks is less qualified to handle the situation). The joke isn't that the situation the writers came up with is absurd, it's that Tony finds Thor's cape to be absurd.
@@gabe_s_videos Bruh the point of Bojack Horseman is that he is a depressed sarcastic asshole about everything because he is afraid of insincerity. It's very much a case of it being the character and I can't think of many scenes where it feels like the writer is doing it. Plus the show knows when to take itself seriously and stop making jokes which it does in nearly every scene that is actually meant to be sincere
There definitely are "writer-jokes" in the first Iron Man movie. Like in the sequence where Tony is working on his second suit in his home workshop. He hurts himself in almost slapstick ways, while testing his new suit's prototypes. But those jokes work because they're not undermining the gravitas of Tony's character or his motivations. They're establishing that Tony isn't perfect or infallible. He can bumble and fumble and make mistakes, just like anyone else. They're actually helping to heighten the tension, by making Tony seem vulnerable. That's a way of including jokes in an otherwise serious movie, without sacrificing sincerity.
I can't help but imagine how cringe the Cantina Scene in A New Hope would be with modern writing "oh yeah, everyone going to act like its totally normal all these aliens are here, I guess this is a spaceport." They're so insecure about their movie being riffed on that they riffed themselves which simultaneously destroys the riff potential AND the original work.
oh gods i can imagine it now, like when han boasts about his ship's speed and obi wan responds with silent amusement, if it were written nowadays the movie would stop to point out that han was lying through his teeth to get hired,
The real problem is that there's too many blockbusters and not enough mid range movies anymore. We need an industry that can afford to experiment and take chances.
@@josephrusso4828 they can't. because of streaming the video rental industry died out, which was where most movies made their money. now, they have to make that money in theatres, so everything has to be either super big or be made on a shoestring budget
I think this style of humour works when the comic relief comes from a few specific characters. When Iron Man and Spider-Man make these quips, it fits their personalities. They make light of everything, even though they take their core values seriously. But when every character does this, it gets annoying. And when all the characters have the same sense-of-humour, they don't feel like believable individuals, and instead it feels like the writer making light of the story.
@@joseislanio8910 Yeah, I kinda don't like Spiderman anymore in part because of this. He's a cool dude now, and not even a nerd. Both the Garfield and Holland versions are a little too "popular" and snarky.
It stems from a problem in our culture, platonic friendship is dead now. When's the last time you heard two friends, particularly males, say they love and care for each other, without having to play it off as a joke or say no homo afterwards. We look at sincere emotion and love as cringey and mushy. The entertainment produced for us is a reflection of our own values. Films and shows from other cultures don't have this issue because their cultures don't have this issue.
This is why I hate it when people "ship" friends and feel the need to project a sexual relationship onto them. I barely experience sexual attraction with people but I experience emotional and intellectual attraction too often. And I'm wary of expressing it because I know most people can't experience either without romantic or sexual interest as well, so I worry I may come across as being sexually or romantically interested because they project the way *they* feel onto me.
@miaferrari958 People ship characters just the sake of shipping and it's beyond embarrassing. People are too depraved they have to manufacture the relationships where there was none.
I think this is one of the reasons that the Dune movies have been so successful. Like them or not, they’re movies that take their fictional worlds very seriously, and go to great effort to make their settings and characters seem plausible and grounded, no matter how ridiculous they might seem on their face.
I had a thought. I wonder if this is part of why the Lord of the Rings movies are still revered. They had humor, but overall they embraced being sincere and committed fully to the world of Middle-Earth. It probably did a lot to make the world feel real and sell it, because the characters weren't afraid to be vulnerable and the films never made fun of themselves for the material. I think the closest we get to a character remarking, "well, that happened," is "that still only counts as one." But that works because it's part of a running sub-plot of the kill-count contest between Legolas and Gimli. When Sam sees an Oliphaunt, there's no "wink wink, it's just an oversized elephant" it shows Sam as awed by a creature he'd heard stories of but never seen before. When the second in command villain is called "the Witch-King" no one makes a joke of "haha, he's a guy but he's called a Witch." They treat him as a legitimate threat. The Orc actors, credit where it's due, really got into their role of acting despicably. The closest their was to a 'comic relief' villain was Wormtongue, and he was more just made to be a pathetic man. Not to say the movies are perfect, but they are still unbelievably good. The series embraced being a noble story, embraced giving epic speeches, it embraced being authentic and sincere as a work meant to both be enjoyed and to give hope to people.
Yes the humor is very much in sync with the rest of the story. Aragon's "it's the beards" line (which is an extended scene I think) when talking about female dwarves (this has to do more with chemistry and Aragorn being suave as fuck with ladies), the orc's "meat's back on the menu boys!" played as a gag when the Hobbits basically fall into their lap, etc. The Hobbit suffers from the overuse of it because it was made much later and "under new management" so to speak.
Bring 👏 back 👏 intimidating villains. If the villains in modern movies are quippy or the protagonists treat them like jokes, why should the audience treat them any different?
My only complaint on this front is how they treated Gimli. Book-Gimli is a dignified Dwarf-prince, a bit out of his element but committed to the Fellowship's quest. While film-Gimli feels more like a D&D stereotype of a Dwarf - a short, burly meathead with a fragile ego. Hell, in the books Gimli is awed by Galadriel's beauty, and requests just 1 of her hairs as a keepsake. While in the films Gimli nurses the same arbitrary disdain for Elves as you'd find at any D&D table. He gets over it eventually, but book-Gimli never went there in the first place.
This is a mindset very prevalent in general now. More and more, people don't take much of anything seriously because it's "not cool to care". Or it's "cringe" to be passionate, especially about perceptively juvenile things. Sincerity is dying in society and it's reflected in our media.
Another movie that you didn't mention that takes itself completely seriously is Dune - and I love it for it ! There are no interjections to deliberately ruin sincere moments with a pun, there is no fourth-wall breaking winking and nodding at the audience, there are no "They fly now ? - They fly now !"-comedy skits in the middle of a (supposedly) deadly chase scene etc.
That’s something I love about David Lynch movies. I’ve heard the term used to describe it as Dream Logic, where no one questions the absurd happenings or draws too much attention to it with a “what the heck is going on?” They just live through the circumstances. great vid
It's what I liked about Airplane. Tons of oddball stuff going on in the background and foreground as a set piece that the characters take one hundred percent seriously. One of the most stupid jokes that got a laugh out of me was the air traffic control communicating with a pilot and in the background you see a guy open up a door to what looks like a laundry machine and loading up some bedsheets.
@@dizzydial8081 It's pretty telling when characters in an outright comedy made back then take things more seriously than characters in modern action movies.
Sorry for the random ping, but I appreciate you bringing this term to my attention. I feel like "dream logic" is how things are supposed to be watched, THEN the unwashed basement guys can "rip into" the films after the fact.
I'm a Kingdom Hearts fan, and one of the reasons why I still believe that is because, despite the premise being kind of silly (a young teenager travels to various Disney worlds to fight monsters with a giant key and sometimes FF and other Squenix characters show up), the story and the characters within it take themselves seriously from beginning to end. There's never really a moment (that at least I can recall) that the writing takes a moment to wink and nod at the audience, and IMO, it's all the better for it. Obviously the series has its moments of comedy to break up the seriousness, but it's NEVER at the expense of the narrative. Kingdom Hearts doesn't make fun of its audience for being invested in its world and narrative, and I think we can all learn something form it.
I was literally thinking about how seriously KH takes itself while watching this video, despite not being a fan who thinks the series is way too contrived.
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy is probably the exact opposite of this. Extreme sincerity, embraces camp, isn’t embarrassed of what it is, has actual good comedy, and the emotion hits god damn hard. Probably why I hated the writing of No Way Home, it is exactly everything you described here
@@miadatenshi9903 Did I say that or are you just making up your own assumptions? The movie’s writing was god awful it’s not just those jokes, it has more plot holes and shitty lines than I can list, but no nothing ruined the movie cause I could still enjoy it as cheap fun popcorn fan service. Just not as the kind of cinema I love
This video covers exactly what I hoped it did. I'm kinda sick of these movies being so scared of being called sentimental that they're putting up emotional walls. They're robbing themselves of actual emotional catharsis.
-Gen Z- People who are 25 and younger have a big problem with labeling everything that has a shred of sincerity or earnesty as "cringe". That's _why_ Disney and pop culture at large have the irritating constant meta-awareness and winking to the audience. It's an ouroborous where they think this way because that's the media they were raised on. But the media is made because the youth think this way.
Bro zoomers were like 12 when this style got popular. They had no bearing on this trend. If you want to blame a generation it would be millennial and Gen x writers and the boomer execs.
"Well, that happened" I fucking HATE, HATE, HATE this stock dialogue (and all variations of it) and I completely agree with everything you said in this video. Another example of this type of thing that immediately came into my mind is when Asgard was destroyed in Thor: Ragnarok but that dickhead Taika Waititi decided to turn the destruction of Asgard into the punchline for a joke that Korg made. I'm sick of the age of irony we live in. I just want a return to sincerity.
I was so frustrated by this because let’s face: thors people lost their home world. It’s destroyed and no one can ever bring it back again. It’s probably like earth would have exploded and someone made a dumb joke about it. We would take probably for the rest of humanity to mourn. It was their home. It should have had the feeling like the start of Mass effect 3, when you leave earth. But instead it was made a fucking joke. Movies and series today feel sometimes like they’re afraid to let people feel upset.
Yeah, I enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok but there was something offputting about it I could never put my finger on. It doesn't feel like it is or really wants to be a Thor movie so much as Guardians of the Galaxy with Thor as the lead. Stuff like the Warriors Three dying immediately or the Korg joke you mentioned just makes you feel stupid for caring about anything that happened in the first two movies.
Honestly, I blame CinemaSins. So many people have been trained to look at cinematic worlds nowadays and think "gosh, this doesn't make any damn sense" or make goofy jokes at the expense of it, making it harder to tell an emotional or sincere story without it being picked apart, either by the audience or by itself.
I used to occasionally watch CinemaSins back in the day, but the schtick got old the more sardonic and nitpicky it became. I'm a bigger fan of CinemaWins myself.
@@LadyDecember cinema wins are faar less aggravating, at least with that channel they point out when a part of a movie is distractingly bad without the tired exaggerated snark that cinemasins uses
WELL...a good story SHOULD at least make internal sense, though. I think some of the scenes CinemaScenes and the like poke at deserve the jabs they're getting, but they are getting them from a commentary genre, not within the film genre itself. If a good comic book movie kept the internal logic of it's plot and characters I think it would be a lot harder for sardonic film essayists to criticize.
As someone put, quick and simple, "not everybody can be Deadpool. Only Deadpool can be Deadpool." You can create a fun and snarky character. They just have to experience actual emotions. You need to know when to let your quip -heavy characters drop the act and respond in raw fear, or wonder, or joy, or pain.
I watched the re-release of Titanic back in February and I was blown away by how unabashedly earnest the movie is. Honestly, it was kinda refreshing. The movie is cheesy as hell but I love how shamelessly sincere it was in telling Jack and Rose’s story without a hint of irony. That’s a movie completely confident in itself and its premise.
I _love_ Titanic with all my heart. I wouldn't use the word cheesy per se, maybe more syrupy and saccharine. To me, cheesy denotes a level of campiness, which I don't think Titanic has. But either way, I totally agree with you! Every time I watch that movie, I don't care if the emotions are getting dramatic and the music is building to a crescendo, I get swept up into the moment heart and soul. When Rose jumps from the lifeboat back onto the ship, I'm all, "YES, HONEY! Find him! Run to him!". I sing 'My Heart Will Go On' with the purest yearning I can manifest. I take Titanic 100% seriously and no cynic since 1998 has been able to convince me otherwise. And I do definitely remember when it was cool to rag on it. It's definitely a movie that is not ashamed to completely play it straight, and I'll love it for eternity.
I yearn for moments like in revenge of the sith when anakin screams at obiwan that he hates him. I never rly got over that scene and those movies. Go back and watch those. For me the campy sincere and dramatic dialogue is extremely refreshing and welcome in today's age.
The only big flaw in Hayden's acting is his voice. I watched the prequels dubbed as a kid and never thought of him as pathetic. Now I rewatched them in English and, although there are a couple of scenes where his emotions are strange, the dialog isn't sticking together too well, yet the biggest offenders are his weak voice and frequent voice cracks. To his credit though, the yelling he's done was emotional.
This is incredibly true when you remember Ep9 and that "joke" when stormtrooper with a jetpack appears: "they flying now" repeated few times. As if they were so scared of adding new thing that might piss people off (and let's be fair, with TFA and TLJ people were less than pleased with Disney already) that they started to laugh it off instantly.
It’s possible that the dedicated sincerity to the ridiculous Star Wars universe is what has helped the prequels gain traction with the rising generation. I grew up on Hollywood epics like The Ten Commandments and I was used to the earnestness in which the characters delivered some honesty kinda wacky lines (just look for clips of The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur and you’ll see what I mean) and I honestly attribute my okay-ness with “corny” dialogue to those movies and the Star Wars prequels. They believed in themselves.
The most egregious example, imo, was Hawkeye in Avengers two talking to Wanda. "The city is flying and we're fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense." Yes, that's the current situation, and pointing out that it doesn't make sense _in the context of this film's universe_ ruins any suspension of disbelief in the audience.
Nah, I disagree with this. Quips are 100% overused, especially in Age of Ultron, but I really like that Hawkeye moment. He’s taking a moment to break the suspension of disbelief to COMFORT a character who is extremely overwhelmed BY the severity of the situation. He doesn’t just crack the joke and move on; he says “none of this makes any sense. But I’m going back out there, cuz it’s my JOB. Stay here if you want. But you step out that door, you’re an Avenger.” I think it’s a great scene that allows Wanda to consciously step forward and CHOOSE to enter this wacky world of superheroes that we love so much. Joss’ quips leave much to be desired, but I think this one is actually great
Absolutely. I think I first noticed this consciously when watching "The Force Awakens", which was a movie I had very high hopes for. Within the first few minutes, when Kylo comes face to face with Poe in the desert, there is a brief moment where they stare each other down, and then Poe says "So who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?" *cue audience laughter* I found that line to be so incredibly jarring. It completely undermined the intensity of the scene and told me that this was not a film that took itself seriously, which means I'm not going to either. Once I noticed it there, I started noticing it everywhere.
I think that line could have worked to establish Poe as a fast-talking spy who uses his wit to defuse a tense situation in-universe, maybe he's afraid and very good at hiding it like Leia standing up to Vader and Tarkin, and especially if his antics get shut down quickly to show that the bad guys do not stand for such nonsense. but it's clearly not meant to be that, it's supposed to be snarky ironic comedic relief out-of-universe. It happens too quickly to be natural dialogue, and it only exists to poke a finger at narrative convention.
That line aged poorly since it now feels like “well that happened” but I think the original intent was just trying establish that the tone would be funnier like the old Star Wars. It kind of spiraled from there though…
Moments like the octopus scene are exactly why I loved Aquaman. It took the 'you talk to fish' concept and made it matter. Arthur doesn't win because he's stronger or faster or better skilled. He wins because he is the son of two worlds, and struggles to learn about them both. And those kinds of scenes are dead and gone now that comic book movies are either Marvel or a basically guaranteed failure. This was something Fox did well with the X-Men films, going so far as to take the 'We need you to...hope again.' line into the coda of their most successful trailer for Days of Future Past. There is definitely a middle ground to be found, and some films from the decade before this trend started did lean hard enough into sincerity that they were ridiculed, and rightly so. But the alternative isn't stuffing anything made for more than 150 million with bathos. Even Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - the forth sequel in a pulp action franchise which should have been about friends going on a final journey together and solving everything with a good right hook - was stuffed to the brim with insufferable 'witty' dialog.
@@genericname2747 Precisely! On paper I think i understand: Logan was a triumph, and the thought of doing it again with another aging hero nearing the end of his life was enough to get things moving. But that fundamentally misunderstands what Logan was about and what Indi has always BEEN about! Wolverine as a character has always had a tragic past while Indi is cut from a different cloth. We didn't need to find out he feels he wasted his life, we didn't need his son to die in Vietnam (just maybe not be in the movies anymore? thanks.) and we didn't need someone else to solve his problem for him, especially offscreen!
Man, you remember how absolutely pragmatic Wolverine was in those films? Someone does a dramatic table flip because they're angry and he just calmly talks them out of their fit, then just as calmly asks "You want to pick that shit up now?" Wry, yes, but very true to the character, salt of the earth take on things. I miss that.
I actually think that the rise of “the golden age of television” might have an effect on this too. So many sincere and emotional moments have been done in popular streaming shows so now I think a lot of people think tv is the only medium that can have sincerity. A two hour movie doesn’t feel like enough time to earn the emotion it’s presenting. I don’t agree, of course, but it could be a contributing factor.
At the same time though, I feel like a lot of TV shows started leaning so far into grimdarkness that they still lose the sincerity in it. The Walking Dead was practically a glorified snuff film, it was depressing and exhausting. The first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery were the same way. There were no lighthearted, sincere moments to make the dark moments worth anything and most of the characters feel like the perpetually-depressed people that are tough to be around.
I was thinking about this after watching the latest Spider-Verse film. There's plenty of humor in the movie, but none of it is really poking fun at the absurdity of the world in a way that makes the world feel undercut. And it has plenty of moments where characters are sincere and it really hits home.
I think that the trick that the movie uses is that it never feels like the characters are winking towards the audience for a gag. Though characters like Gwen and Miles do point out the absurdity of the situations and characters they're surrounded by, it never feels like they're making a joke for the audience. Their reactions feel genuine and authentic to the kinds of people they are. This is actually rather interesting given that Spider-Verse is and incredibly meta film. It's just that instead of using "meta" as an excuse to cram in stale memes and elbow the audiences' ribs as they make their super fun and relatable references, it instead creates genuine metafiction that questions the necessity of tropes within its own genre and the main characters' place as a character both within the fictional world and in ours. It's genuinely one of the few films I've seen in recent memory to actually understand what being meta can do for a story and utilizes it to enhance the storytelling rather than distract from it.
@@Hemlocker What I love is that they're going for a trilogy. I think Marvel and DC have both kinda abandoned the idea of trilogies, of the three act structure, because they know they're just going to keep making movies or reboot them in a few years anyway.
Emotions and sincerity makes people uncomfortable because it forces them to immerse themselves into the world and face the emotions and situations of the scene head on, face to face. And that’s a good thing.
This is why Sam Raimi Spiderman was the best superhero film, it's not afraid to be earnest and sincere, and actually it makes the whole thing more grounded and believable and human
I personally think thatThe Dark Knight is the greatest superhero hero movie, but I also agree with you regarding the heart and sincerity of the Raimi Spider-Man movies and the love poured into them.
"Rocket is kind of a deconstruction of the snarky, quippy hero..." Well, in the third movie, he's also a deconstruction in more ways than one, so you're not wrong!
Deconstruction, reconstruction, over and over and turned into some little monster... But yeah, I'm really glad he brought up Guardians of the Galaxy. Obviously the third has those highly emotional moments, but no one ever talks about how those kinds of moments exist in all three movies, and the movies take them seriously. And it fits the characters that they themselves avoid those kinds of things. Even the part I quoted in the first one where Rocket talks about the experiments they did on him, he only shares that because he's drunk!
Weirdly, I think this kind of dialogue has actually affected younger generations. I've noticed a lot of younger people experience difficulty expressing sincere emotion, opting for jokes and quips instead. It's sad to see how influential awful Hollywood writing can be.
Hasn't that notion of teenagers being incredibly insecure about themselves been in pop culture for decades? It's just a new expression for an existing idea. Before, the trope was extreme sarcasm, eye rolling, and the all-time classic of "Whatever". The sarcasm of yesterday and constant humor of today accomplish the same purpose: concealing their true feelings from the other, equally cynical teenagers who they were always around
Young people have always been like this, that’s what they do best lol. Kids will express themselves in whichever way is most comfortable, and if the environment that they’re raised in (friends and family, not media) doesn’t give them room for sincerity, they’ll use humor instead. It’s almost like they’re humans who haven’t had a whole lot of experiences in life yet.
@@aetranm I understand that these people are products of their environments. I just hate when I listen to zoomers trying to interact and it sounds like an Avengers straight-to-dvd sequel.
Self awareness is also a cop-out for when you can't mantain the suspension of disbelief. Your superhero/fantasy/action movie has to have a lot of crazy things happening, and if you can't immerse the audience enough to make it look natural then self awareness is your last resort.
Pacific Rim (my favorite movie of all time) vs Pacific Rim Uprising (a sheer embarrassment) are the perfect embodiments of max sincerity vs none at all. god, what a disappointment uprising was lmao
Oh ain't it the truth. Newt was my favorite character in the first one, and while I wasn't big on the direction his character took in the second, I wanted to have it seen through at least. The sequel was so unforgivably disappointing, though, that it's likely a third will never be made and we'll never see closure on the character. Newt was left on such a cliffhanger. It was not the sequel the first one deserved at all.
@@luigiwiiUU I've seen tons of movies spanning the whole history of film. My only blind spot really is horror films. Have I seen plenty that are *objectively* better than Pacific Rim? Yes. Does objective quality determine what's my *favorite*? No. Hope this helps :3
Spot on the the death of sincerity. I think another way to express that is cynicism. I remember listening to a podcast discussing Andor and one of the people there was saying one of the strengths of the show is how uncynical it is. And that might sound peculiar considering the show's incredibly bleak tone, but he wasn't using the the word cynical in terms of tone, but in style. There's never a "wink wink" moment in Andor. No 4th wall breaking, no cheeky callbacks. Every character is 100% sincere and committed to what they are saying on the screen. Which in comparison to most of the stuff out there that is super cynical about that stuff, it was just so refreshing to watch a show about characters that CARED about what was happening on screen. Another example to me is the difference between the Raimi Spider-man films and the MCU films. The MCU films are fine, they're not bad films, but they totally fall into that "Well that just happened" type of humor that the MCU is so known for. The scene where Otto Octavious tells MCU Spider-man and his friends his name and they all laugh and go, "No but seriously." That's a scene that simply would never exist in the Raimi films. The Raimi films are sincere, super sincere, almost to the point of parody. But there's a reason why those films have stuck around the public consciousness for so long. It resonates with viewers in a way that a lot of the new stuff simply don't. The new stuff is sacrificing emotional honesty for a momentary laugh.
True. And there was a 'wink wink' moment in Spider-Man 2, in regards to Doc Ock, but do you know who did that? Jameson, the belligerent chief of the Daily Bugle. "Guy named Otto Octavius ends up with eight limbs. What are the odds?" No one but him. And it works, because Jameson is _exactly_ the type of guy who'd make a joke like that, but the rest of the cast do not.
@@stardusstlmao what are you talking about? That scene is extremely sincere. The fact that people perceived it sincerely is the very reason why it was criticized.
"The new rebels are artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the ‘Oh how banal’. To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness." - David Foster Wallace, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction", 1993 Great video man! You articulated your thoughts so well, and your memes are solid to boot.
Sincerity, or the lack thereof, is the real reason I've checked out of movies in the last few years. Its become uncool to have characters care about things or show actual friendship or respond to the stakes of a situation with anything other than pithy quips that immediately lower the tension, and I absolutely hate it. Its hard to get invested in a world when the characters so clearly DON'T. One of my favourite movies is the Legend of Zorro with Antonio Banderas. That movie is charming and funny and has plenty of witty banter, but only ever in situations where bantering makes sense. When Zorro is facing down the villain at the end, he's seriously fighting for his life without a quip in sight, as you would if it were real! I connect so much more with Zorro than any Marvel hero because the movie treats his stakes as serious and isn't afraid to expect that I'll be invested enough to do the same.
You can still find good movies that don't this, you just have to be a bit careful with where you look. Avoiding all superhero movies is probably a good rule of thumb. Also, anime is honestly a good place to go if you want sincerity. They really don't give a fuck in Japan, they'll have their characters in the most insane scenarios and it'll be taken seriously. The Ghibli movies are obviously great.
When the new D&D movie came out I saw it praised in multiple places for how sincere it was. I loved that movie because it succeeded in being genuinely fun and funny without relying on this kind of self-aware humor, or making its characters feel annoying and unlikeable. I’d love to see more fantasy blockbusters like it.
Okay, quick pause to defend Civil War. The point of that battle was that it wasn't all or nothing stakes. Everyone involved knew they were friends, and the quips were a reminder that no one was quite on top of why the conflict had come to blows at all, why they weren't all talking it out. Everyone was pulling punches. And it was all fun and games until someone got hit so hard they lost their ability to walk. Permanently. That was the whole point of the scene. It was light, until it wasn't. Pulling punches is no substitute for, ya know, talking. And listening. And no one was listening. To dismiss the quippiness as the movie itself pulling punches is to forget how dire that scene becomes in its final moment.
This is the correct take. Glad I scrolled through the comments to find it so I didn't have type it out. That whole scene is friends trying to subdue each other other and using humor as a defense. There are no quips in this scene between Bucky and T'Challa (one is trying to kill the other) and also no jokes during the final fight between Bucky, Cap, and Iron Man.
@@rileylederer8800 Thank you. I mean, I get it. The homogeneous nature of the Marvel films, the way every story is tailored to fit the umbrella style, invites criticism. Now the experiment is failing, it's easy to look back and say it never worked all that well. But I think it's a mistake to go looking for faults. That's not good criticism practice. And complaining that the mid-point fight in Civil War pulls its punches is just looking for something to complain about, whether it's actually a flaw or not. It's less an insight than an amateur attempt to mimic insight. I think there are a lot of weird takes on Marvel movies lately, looking for things to critique for the sake of having something fresh to say about movies that have been so picked over. This whole "bathos" complaint seems like that, taking the weak attempts at humor in Doctor Strange and turning it into a pervasive problem throughout the franchise. The critique doesn't actually hold water, especially when leveled on a film like Guardians of the Galaxy, that's built on mixing pathos with humor. Sincerity is great, but assuming that irony cancels out sincerity is, well, a tad immature. What made Doctor Strange fail wasn't that it undercut its sincerity, but simply that its attempt at sincerity wasn't that convincing in the first place. Meanwhile, Guardians succeeded because it was genuinely sincere, while also being genuinely funny. Doctor Strange was neither.
@@rottensquid Wow, very insightful and I couldn't agree more. Thank you for the thoughtful commentary. Glad I commented. Do you have a letterboxd account you'd be willing to share?
The thing people forget is that even Joss Whedon knew not to have characters constantly quip and make sardonic/sarcastic remarks. I mean, sure his writing often used self-referential humor, but it had a time and a place and when he needed to get serious he did so. This is why avengers worked so well.
To paraphrase a popular saying, who's the bigger trendsetter? Is it the trendsetter or the trendsetter who follows the trendsetter? It reminds me of that second gold rush of animated shows for adults post-South Park that JUST copied the political incorrectness, so all you got were jokes that were mean for the sake of being mean.
@@gabe_s_videos Eh I don't mind this kind of humor but will agree it's way overused in modern storytelling. I mean there is nothing wrong with self-referential meta humor in small doses IMHO, but yeah it's become a crutch nowadays. Personally, I say anyone who uses this kind of thing must watch Buffy the vampire slayer at the very least and see how to implement it in a good way or even the first avenger's movie. Humor is subjective, of course, but still if you are going to ape Wheadon do it properly.
The way I normally explain my deep distaste for this kind of writing is: If you don't take yourself seriously (something that seems to be praised and encouraged for some reason), nobody will. Out of all the emotions and feelings you could try to inspire in people, as an artist, you choose to sacrifice all of them to a single one, quick inhale air bad humor. It's not worth it.
The humour in these films stems from insecurity with regards to the source material. This same insecurity leads to the writers forcing themselves to fill any silence with quips and make sure that they make fun of something before the audience does so that they remain in control. They are afraid to let a moment breathe, without satire, for fear of making an audience uncomfortable. In fact the humour in Marvel films is very obviously wish-fulfilment on the part of the viewer by way of the writer. The jokes do not come naturally from the character, but are rather the jokes that a passive third-party observer would make about the situation if he believed himself to be 'witty'.
This approach was what ruined Thor: Love and Thunder for me. I just couldn't enjoy it after a while, because there had to be a quippy little joke every ten seconds. I couldn't get invested in the emotional stuff, because I was expecting someone to undermine it with a quip.
Have you seen the deleted scene where Zeus gives some fatherly advice to Thor before he has to set off to stop Gorr? He doesn’t act like an asshat and has a realistic personality, while making subtle jokes that aren’t distracting and flow with the dialogue. Thor 4 had a shot at being a legitimately good serious movie, and they turned it into a stereotype of shitty marvel movies
I'm still mad at that movie for wasting Christian Bale that badly. The premise had such potential. But it was just another mediocre, 90% green screen mess. At this point, the MCU is really only hanging on by the great performances their actors still somehow manage to give.
I'm still halfway through the video so it might be mentioned at some point, but in case not, that trope is called "lampshading". And yeah, it definitely can become a crutch for when the writer is not so secure about the sincere moment so they can come across as though they're "in on the joke". Overtly Sarcastic Productions has a great video on it. But I'm mostly commenting because I had somehow forgotten or missed that "Illumi-what-i?" joke in Doctor Strange 2, and oh my god it's awful. Not so much for the pun itself, but because it makes no sense coming out of that particular character's mouth. Of all characters, you really choose the one who's a scholar and a WIZARD to somehow never have heard the term Illuminati? Sure, he could be confused at this particular group of individuals calling themselves that, but the name Illuminati as "the enlightened" has been around since the 15th century. It would have immediately taken me out of the movie.
That presumes that knowledge of the illuminati exists in the marvel universe. Sort of like how their norse mythology is presumably a big different. But uhh, I think he could also be expressing surprised at him being part of an organisation that has named itself after one of the biggest conspiracy theory hotpoints of the past hundred years. Like it's such an unabashedly 'bad guy' name that you'd laugh at anything with that name in real life. The same way you would if Bill Gates announced he was creating an organisation called 'The New World Order'. You'd think he'd actually gone insane.
God you're 100 percent right it makes absolutely no sense for him to not know what that word meant. Like, if they HAD to make him quip at least make it believable for the character saying it!
It reminds me of that claymation film where a bunch of kids meet Satan, who calls himself an angel. When they react with stunned silence at his name, he asks what's the matter to which one of them responds "It's a pretty sorry name for an angel." I think that's what they were going for, but it definitely just came across like he had somehow never heard the most obvious cliche name for a group of bad guys.
There was a scene in Guardians 3 where Starlord was pouring his heart out to Gamora, then it was just ruined with a "You realise everyone can hear this conversation, right?" snarky comment that completely ruined it. James Gunn isn't immune to this style of humour either.
5:55 The irony is, if it was JUST Hawkeye and Widow bantering, itd just be a fun character moment that highlights their long history together. Its the unfocused snark that ruins it. (And I guess Spiderman but since thats his Entire Thing I'd give it a pass)
Right?? Hawkeye and Black Widow aren't really invested on the fight, and Spiderman and Antman are just here for the ride. Everyone else should be serious, like how Black Panter refuses to banter with Hawkeye.
I still remember how Great of a scene scene was when in Iron Man Armored Adventures Tony has a mental breakdown after learning that his Father built weapons in the past & start to become paranoic, just to be consolated by Roberta Later by telling him: _"You are the reason why your father stop selling weapons, & where ever he is right now, he's proud of the man you're becoming"_ Good luck finding that moment in MCU films
@@Halo_Legend you are the problem this video is talking about, this person was sincere in their appreciation for a scene they like and then you just had to undercut it with one eyebrow raised and a smug grin. And while it is obvious this person struggles with english that doesn't give you the right to be a douchebag.
The blockbusters of old, like Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, all had great quippy humor, but it wasn’t attached to the plot. The humor came straight from the characters personalities playing off one another. When the humor depends on the characters and not the plot, it doesn’t dampen the sincerity of the story.
the way I saw Joss Whedon's avengers was that during the time when super hero movies where still trying to find their footing, we had an abundance of super hero films take a serious/realistic approach within cinema. the reason avengers' quippy blend with action and sincerity worked was cause it appealed to the die hard fans of the comics while also being open to more skeptical audiences. meaning when a skeptic sees a giant killer whale fly through New York and a joke or quip is made, the skeptics are relieved to know even the movie is aware with how ridicules situation is. Now that superheroes are fully accepted into the mainstream the need to appeal to skeptical audiences fall more flat. ages ranging from 13 to 40 (even the odd 50 to 60) are more open to the idea outlandish story telling. It feels like in todays filmography producers are scared to let the movie breath or feel, which is a shame cause it makes the audience feel like they're being talked down on. This might just be me but if you feel the need to have a character poke fun at an idea or name or storyline or whatever. maybe instead of that, write something else. cause if a creator doesn't care for their work why should the audience?
Totally agree. Yeah actually I think that's is the reason why this sort of "Well That Just Happened" humor is so annoying in such large doses is that it generally feels like the movie is talking down to you, like the movie is making fun of you by making fun of itself and saying "Who the hell would ever go to see a movie like this? You paid for this, what the fuck is wrong with you?"
This is a great essay, thank you! I never realized that this was such a huge thing. I used to be a big fan of Buffy and its sense of humor, and the thing about that show is while all characters made those jokes, Whedon and the other writers on staff had the sense back then to balance out those jokes with some real heavy shit. And in a long, 7 season TV show, I guess they had more space to experiment with funnier and more dramatic episodes/scenes. They never felt out of balance. Even in the first Avengers movie, he let those heavier scenes breathe, so it wasn't just funny, it was allowed to be funny AND dramatic, and epic, when it needed to be. It was only after other writers attempted that same sense of style, where it got out of balance for me at least. Gunn is an expert in using those funny lines to serve into the drmatic aspects of this writing, so the two styles can live side by side. Looking forward to more videos you make!
Exactly. There are jokes in Buffy, characters making smart allec remarks about the crazy thing that happened, but it's not constant. Even when they do make a quip, the threat is still a threat, actions have consequences, people suffer. Honestly one of the reasons I love the tone of Buffy and Firefly is that it feels more real than straight drama or comedy. Life, in my experience, is tragedy and comedy interwoven. So in that sense those shows are descendants of shows like MASH, where they joke about the war, but also suffer the war.
Agreed, Whedon's work up until Justice League (which tbf was already partially done when he got it) was a refreshing balance between humor and heart. It's mainly the Marvel (and other studios) writers that have tried to emulate his formula that have lost the heart
@@claudiadarling9441 100% Life itself is not just dramatic, but sometimes unnecesarily funny in those sincere moments as well. Best example to me is Anya's speech in "The Body" where she is still quirky as hell, and yet, is allowed to proess the absurdity of death, in her own style, in a bit of a childish and innocent way, that makes things all the more heartbreaking.
@@claudiadarling9441 And in the real world, a common way of dealing with intense situations or jobs is humour. in BtVS, the characters were high school students who found out their town is overrun with monsters and each night could potentially be their last, so finding a way to cope with that fact feels entirely appropriate. But the show knew when the characters would NOT be laughing or being ironic, and some of the best moments come from when the joking suddenly stops.
Yeah and Buffy still takes itself seriously even during episodes that have goofier premises. One of the saddest episodes in the show is a musical episode, a stock plot that never gets used seriously. As much as Joss sucks as a person he used to be really good at balancing the winks and nudges with actual storytelling.
I've noticed this in so many movies, it's the modern day equivalent of a laugh track on sitcoms, like the studio thinks the audience is so dumb that they need to be told how to feel about each moment in the movie.
This is just what happens when everything has to be a franchise. You can't have every film leaving a crater in the audiences' hearts if you plan to bombard them for the next 20 years, or have them compare your new stuff to the oldies they remember. The brighter the flame, the sooner it'll burn out, and we can't have that in our perpetual money machine. Keep things mild, manageable, and appropriately forgettable, artistry be damned to nine hells and back. This is all planned and measured by the studio.
Interesting. "Just enough above average to keep us going" does seem to be the motto. I think (or hope) that it's starting to run its course though. At least in terms of the superhero franchises.
@@Hemlocker People became somewhat interested in superhero movies in the second half of the 2010s, and that’s about it. It was a fad that came and went. Also, when I say superhero, I mean marvel
THAAAANK YOU FOR POINTING THIS OUT. I could never put my finger on why i absolutely HATE modern superhero movies. I remember when i first saw Rocky 1 in 2008 for the first time of my life and i really enjoyed it a lot. When I was telling my sister about it she said "ugh that movie is just too much. Its so melodramatic." I thought that was the stupidest opinion ever. The characters weren't feigning or heightening their emotions unnecessarily. They genuinely felt things based on their circumstances and let it out.
Another thing is that, the writer thinks that if the goofiness is pointed out by some character then it is okay. Which is not. It is still goofy but now you pointed it out, those who didn't understood it at 1st, now they also realised that. 😂
I can't remember which comedian talked about this, but when a comedian is bombing on-stage, the absolute worst thing they can do is say something like "well this is awkward, isn't it?". The only way they can salvage the situation is to just stick to whatever emotion or situation they were playing. Pointing out that something is goofy doesn't make the audience okay with it. Or in other words, audiences are much more likely to believe goofiness if the writer believes it themself.
So something that stuck out to me that I once heard regarding super hero movies. I don't remember where it was, but the speaker juxtaposed the X-men movies against modern marvel. In particular he referenced a scene where cyclopes mockingly asks wolverine, 'What did you expect, yellow spandex?' mocking the comicbook costumes. I think the point was that Comicbook movies had 'arrived' now that they were taken 'seriously'. But the truth is that comic book movies never took themselves seriously. They've been ridiculing themselves like the kid in school who has the popular table's attention but has no idea why.
@@Halo_LegendYou have a weird and rather childish obsession with grammar, to the point where it feels like you're a middle schooler trying to sound grown and mature.
Imagine watching Paul Atreides crash in the middle of the desert at midnight, with only his mother and himself as the only surviving members of his friends and family as far as he knows. He also knows that the Harkonnens would never have brought them so far out for no reason. Chances are, they're in the domain of Shai'Hulud. Sandworm territory. Lost, scared, tired and alone, Paul gazes out across the rolling Dunes of spice and sand. His eyes turn to his mother. Then he just smirks and says "Well *that* was something!"
You're right. It makes many Hollywood films feel both inconsequential (when the characters don't take anything seriously, the audience can't either) and samey, as if the same guy is doctoring all of the scripts. I can see why they do it: because it's safer. If a film aims for genuine emotion then it risks failing and becoming unintentionally laughable, but if everything is played for "it's a laugh, innit?" then there's no comparable fail-state; it's all just "pantomime" and it won't be held to the same standard as something that's shooting for real drama.
Up until Resurrections came out, Matrix 3 could have been considered the worst of the series. But there's this scene near the end of 3 where Neo and Trinity are in the real world, flying this ship up into the sky to escape the sentinels. The only real sky the people of that world knew was one always covered in clouds, but when the ship broke through them, Trinity got to see the real sky, and she said to herself, "It's beautiful." That one great, uninterrupted scene in a mediocre film is better than anything in Matrix 4.
Matrix 3 is diamond compared to the lump of coal Resurrections is. I still distinctly remember giving the latter a go when bored one night, and in the VERY FIRST SCENE there's this quirky girl being spotted by Agents, only for everything to pause for a few cringey seconds for her to make some kind of joke. My mind instantly went back to the first scene of the original movie, and Trinity running desperate and scared (pointing her guns at the broken window, imploring herself to keep moving as her hands tremble slightly) from a single Agent. The stark comparison instantly nuked my enjoyment and patience for Resurrections, and to this day I've never watched past that opening scene and I never will. Sorry for the rant it feels good to express such things sometimes.
I almost never sleep in movie theatres when watching a movie, regardless of i'm enjoying it or not... I slept halfway through Matrix Resurrections, don't remember most of it only the goofy scenes, and for me the movie was 1 hour long because of how much i slept through it
In the latest Jurassic World movie, there’s a scene in which Dallas Bryce Howard’s character, Claire, is talking with her adoptive daughter, that is currently going through an identity crisis not only because she is adopted but because she is a clone of another person (which is crazy, but doesn’t matter), the scene starts with sincerity and Dallas is a good actress, she can convey emotion of a concerned mother, but then it abruptly changes tone with her saying “I am not good at this, ain’t I” and the girl replying with “no you’re not”. This snarky moment was so unnecessary, the scene was going fine having a more emotional feeling and it didn’t really needed humor, I mean, a snarky response by a teenager girl to her mom is not something unrealistic, but it the scene it was so not earned and insincere.
Excellent video! The death of sincerity in a lot of Hollywood blockbusters has made me and others flock to the tokusatsu genre with shows like Kamen Rider and Ultraman. There, everything feels sincere and genuine, and it's such a breath of fresh air.
But even Kamen Rider and Sentai have been having a similar problem ever since the 2000s. It's accelerated since the 2010s. The difference is Toei displays a "lack of commitment" differently than Hollywood is doing, and layers everything with dumb slapstick that dilutes the serious material of the shows.
Very nice assessment. These phrases date a television show or a movie. It's like the "seriously?!" line that got old, yet continues to zombie along. Or the, "wait, what?" But I think fans are very much to blame for this interruption of emotion in movies. Where once they criticized DC for taking itself too seriously, now they criticize Marvel for making everything a joke. But fans had signaled to studios for years that "light-hearted comedy" is exactly what they want.
Perfect example of why you shouldn't just give the fans what they want. They know what they like but they don't respect the structure that it takes to let the moments they love so much, land.
The first time I heard a character say "Well that just happened!" was Daria in "Is it Fall Yet" after the camp councilor threw a chair through a window and everyone else ran outside. It was about the year 2000 and that was hilarious and on the nose for Daria. But I have recently been rewatching "Daria" and Daria is one of my least favorite characters now - maybe some of it is no longer being a teenager myself, but the other part of it is being so burnt out on that style of humor.
NB: I found that clip on TikTok. It was a sink thrown out the window (not a chair), and Daria says deadpan "Well even I'll admit I found that amusing." But it was the "that just happened" style.
Lethal weapon is imo the perfect example of a serious movie saga that while having tons of hilarious scenes it doesn’t let that stray away from the fact that it’s a more serious buddy cop action thriller. Or the first 3 die hards.
Well said, I couldn't agree more. I like many people have grown to tired of movies that try and be self aware because they're too scared to just be genuine. This is part of why older movies are so fun they were unapologetically sincere and people like that.
The reason people love movies like No Way Home and Deadpool even though they both have the same humor is because it fits the characters. Spider-Man is a wise cracking teenager and Deadpool makes pop culture remarks and 4th wall breaks all the time. It is part of their personality. But characters like iron man and doctor strange don’t.
Iron Man kind of started the trend. Can't speak for the comics because I'm not a comic guy, but his snarky personality was already set up in his very first movie. He's the dickhead billionaire playboy who refuses to take anything seriously... Until he's fundamentally changed by being kidnapped. After he then gets back, the snark becomes a kind of shield he keeps using throughout every appearance to mask fear or insecurities. It's a core part of who he is. Doctor Strange though, no. Not half as well integrated.
4:50 The sad thing is, for all the snark and quips in Firefly, the characters can often be very sincere as well and that sincerity is never played for laughs; it's clear all the main characters genuinely care for each other and Mal, the snarkiest of them all, can shut his humour down at the drop of a hat when the situation calls for it. Whedon knew when to make quips to break the tension and when *not* to, and it's a shame that that subtlety seems to have been forgotten with time.
This is one of the many reasons I've been turned off modern media. Having one character per movie like that is fine but now every character is the same. Everythings undermined by a joke or quip.
another similar bit is when a character starts making a sincere speech … only for it to be revealed that the bg music is being played by another character mockingly
You deserve more subs. You're pretty smart. One suggestion, and this is something even big creators do, work on your volume levels. When you cut in things like B-roll laughs it was WAY louder than your own voice track. Try and equalize them a bit
Glad to see such big stars from dune discussing this topic thank you!
ua-cam.com/video/1Ck8fv6iW3E/v-deo.html
Now Timmy Tim ay Timmy Tim ay
Was just about to say this
I was literally just looking at another video on the right, with someone looking like Stephen Amell
you bastardo. you almost made me spit out my pizza laughing. warn a brother first
Bro is foul for that, but for some reason I couldn’t stop myself from cracking a smile 💀
The problem with most movies is that, instead of leaning into the universe, it constantly makes fun of its self in the worst possible way, by breaking immersion.
It's big in certain types of movies because the filmmakers are embarrassed by the genre. That's also why The Batman and the Nolan trilogy tried so hard to be gritty and realistic. Everything's either a deconstruction of the heroes or have the heroes pointing out possibly embarrassing things before the audience can. "Would you prefer yellow spandex?"
@@JDoe-gf5oz It’s like most movie studios think that audiences are expecting everything to be completely realistic. Name me a person who watched lord of the rings and went “what’s all this magic nonsense! This doesn’t make any sense!” Like, it’s fiction, it doesn’t need to be realistic to be taken seriously.
@@JDoe-gf5oz how the fuck are Matt Reeves and Christopher Nolan "embarrassed " of the source material? If anything, taking it seriously is way MORE respectful than the constant use of "well that just happened" style dialogue.
@@ginichilders9619 calm down, dude. They're just movies.
Exactly
Too many people are afraid of being called "cringe" and thus they can never take things seriously ever. :/
Which is so ironic. Because cringe only happens when someone sincerely tries to be something they're not. Like, someone who can't sing tries to sing a Whitney Houston song, and they try with all their might and fail hard. That's cringe worthy. But someone sharing their real genuine emotions in the truest way they can should not be cringey at all. It's authentic.
@@phoebexxlouise what if a person who can't sing pouring their heart into singing a whitney houston song IS sharing their real genuine emotions in the truest way they can?
I'm more in the camp of cringe culture is dead, all it does is mock people for enjoying things or trying things. be cringe! be free!
@@quinintheclouds
I agree completely. No matter what you do or don’t do, people have a problem with you anyways, so you should just be yourself. People label everything and anything as cringe, the same way they spit out insults, because they have no self control whatsoever. This culture of cynicism has an impossible standard of perfection and I’m completely sick of it.
"I am cringe, but I am Free"
@@amiablereaper"I am cringey and I am proud."
Oppenheimer and the Los Alamos scientists watching the footage of the Hiroshima bomb and aftermath.
The projector shuts off and the lights come on.
Everyone is silent.
Oppenheimer slowly turns to the camera.
"Well, that just happened."
"Bazinga"
"Well looks like I doomed the world didn't I huh?" *grins*
“oPpEnWHaTer?”
“I created a nuclear bomb! That’s a thing I do now, I guess!”
*off-screen laughing*
I speculate that part of the reason this humor took off is because people are afraid of being judged for taking "nerdy" things seriously, and they see ironic meta-humor as giving them an excuse to enjoy things without being seen as lame for it.
Good point!!
yeah, sincerity is weakness
The big reason was a lot of superhero flicks tried and failed to be ‘edgy’ and ‘mature’, like Daredevil.
The Avengers was fresh, it was humor comic fans and those just getting into the universe could laugh at. It was also a pretty natural progression for a character like Tony Stark, who like Rocket Raccoon, uses his witty humor as a shield.
I agree. Ironic *Blank* is a way of shielding your sincere belief in whatever *Blank* is. Sadly a good example of this is 'ironic' prejudice or bigotry.
Great point
I don't remember where I saw someone say this "A problem with modern action movies I that every character talks and acts like Deadpool"
When everyone is Deadpool, no-one is Deadpool.
And even then, the reason Deadpool works is because he has characters around him, like Colossus and Cable, who ARE taking the movie seriously and who react appropriately when he's making tasteless jokes or quipping in the middle of a deadly battle.
@@Rishi123456789”And when everyone’s Super!… no one is”
Exactly and with Deadpool 3 apparently being described as a 'fish out of water' story for Deadpool in the MCU, I wonder how legit that statement is going to be considering how everyone is just as referential as him. He's just going to be more profane and crude
Deadpool is overrated
*runs away*
The worst part about it is that this kind of thing also influences the general public attitude towards sincerity in the real world, too. There's been so many times where i've been open to my friends or who ever, be open/vulnerable just to be met with disgust in their face lmao
Tbf, I'm pretty sure that's just influenced by internet culture in general.
I've got a brother who's been dealing with that to an extent. He mentioned it's been hard to listen to the original songs that parodies make fun of. As I've talked with him more, he's been realizing that it's been a mask for uncertainty and self-doubt. It's really rough to figure out.
I'm sorry to tell you, but those assholes were not your friends
it's all interconnected, yeah @@The_Man_Who_Sold_the_World.
I was about to make this point too. Sincerity, vulnerability, and indirectly honesty, arent looked upon favorably in the mainstream culture.
Be nice if they treated Thor's PTSD and guilt with respect. His scene with his mother in Endgame was touching. Imagine how powerful that whole arc would have been with sincerity. Instead we get fat joke Thor.
The only things allowed to have any sincerity these days are biopics of BIPOCs
I hate Thor Ragnarok for this. It feels like a more somber or sad Movie at least in this direction it goes, but every time the emotion start to grow in that direction boom joke. Biggest offence are the end credits. They should have gone; She dies and than she arrives in the afterlife, and than end but no we have to end on a happy note no matter Thors feelings.
@@janiwersen9417Do you mean Love & Thunder?
@@Se7enRemain Ragnarok was also bad, Love and Thunder just happened to be even worse than that
Fr, they want to treat Scarlet Witches trauma seriously, but make fun of Thors
I think the biggest issue is how little a scene is allowed to breathe. Shots don't sit on something anymore because instead they focus on something happening them quickly cut away to a lame joke which undercuts any bit of tension and emotion.
And then they can go too far the other way, with all the shows and movies that have characters constantly staring pensively into the gray distance to show how serious and thoughtful the scene is.
100%. Editing is so clinical nowadays, showing just enough to illustrate the plot point and moving on, which loses out on all the interesting nuance that makes scenes meaningful.
This thread is literally Across the Spiderverse and Oppenheimer
@@kono5933Oppenheimer was an editing masterclass. It’s a 3 hr talky biopic. The editing style had to be quick and snappy.
Or when films feel the need to have characters literally describe everything going on in a scene in detail, or describing jokes and why theyre supposed to be funny, or having a scene dedicated to dialogue where every plot and plan is revealed to the viewer - as if we can't tell what's going on and need to have our hands held to understand the story. TV series are even worse, every edgy cartoon from the early 2000s to now is literally BASED on this kind of dialogue.
The flip side of this is how often children's cartoons are well received by adults. Actual cartoons aimed at children can have very emotionally deep and sincere messages, that aren't hurt at all by whatever goofy stuff is happening.
The cartoon dogs can do silly things all episode, and be very emotionally serious.
Yeah perfect example of this is the fact that there was a Bluey episode where the mother dog actually explained to Bluey that her sister was sterile, I believe actually using the term, and it tried and failed to have children before, or there was an episode of Friendship is Magic where they actually dealt with the idea of someone being born disabled even though they didn't use the term per se. Her magic didn't work basically, but it was in no way unclear as to what that meant. In a Marvel movie, they would have had somebody make some sort of quip about how she's disabled or how Bluey's mother had a failed pregnancy.
aku
I know exactly what “cartoon dogs” you’re talking about 😀
I’m glad I know which “cartoon dogs” you’re talking about.
“Cartoon dogs”
From Australia?
(I know what you’re referring to btw)
You know, for all it's flaws, it was refreshing to walk away from Avatar 2 and think "man, it's nice to have a movie where the characters take their goofy ass world seriously, and don't constantly make jokes about it." Because really, if you grew up there, why would you?
I completely agree with you. I love Avatar 1 and Avatar 2 because, for all their flaws, these movies are sincere and aren't filled with quips during tragic moments. I love the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy for the same reason, because those movies are sincere and aren't filled with quips during tragic moments.
@@Rishi123456789my back my back
@@thegreatpiginthesky3904shazam fly up up and away web
As much as I hate the modern snark humour in movies recently, I really didn't like Avatar 2. It just felt like there wasn't much thought put in the world making sense or the plot developing rationally, and it was just a series of emotional moments and pretty visuals.
Not a movie, but: *coughs in modern Paper Mario*
It hit me in the D&D movie that came out recently. The team is down on their luck and Bard starts to sing a song to cheer everyone up.
The big barbarian girl looks up and him and I'm almost certain she is about to say something about it and threaten to shove his lute up his backside if he doesnt stop singing, or something to that effect.
But then she didnt. She smiled and joined in. They cheered up. And of course they did, these people are dear friends. But it was so so damn refreshing and totally unexpected.
Made the ending way more impactful as well, those of you who have seen it know what I mean.
Damn that was a good movie.
RIGHT?! my d&d group watched that movie together and honestly it might be my favorite of the year, maybe next to Spiderman which is also very good.
What's it called?
@@HostileAtHeart Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
No it wasn't
@@IPITYTHEFOOLZ What is the purpose of your comment? You didn't like the movie, that's fine. But what can possibly come from you dropping a nothingburger of a statement here?
Forespoken feels like the movie industry leaking into the games industry and that is honestly the most terrifying thing imaginable
I just moved Hollywood's cringe writing into games with my freaking mind! Yeah, ok, that is something I do now.
Well the game absolutely bombed and was critically panned, so there's hope for our industry yet.
And so, the self awareness became cringe again.
You kids need a life
It legitimately sounds like joss whedon wrote the dialog lmao
I know exactly what you are talking about with this.
A few days ago I rewatched The Return of the King with my best friend and we both cried when Sam said "Come on Mr Frodo! I can't carry the ring for you! But I can carry you!"
We were trying to figure out why we love that scene so much, and we came to the conclusion that it's because very few movies portray such a powerful and sincere platonic love between two male characters.
If you have two characters helping each other in a modern Hollywood movie, they are either sexually attracted to each other, or they are forced to stay together by the plot. It's actually kind of sad how few platonic relationships are shown in movies/shows nowadays, especially between two male characters.
So I cheer for moments like that Mission Impossible clip from the beginning, Where Benji is opening up to his need to protect Ethan. It's not his duty as an agent, it's his duty as a friend.
Sorry if I sound like an armchair psychologist, but I feel like if you find moments of platonic love in movies cheesy, it's probably because you don't have any meaningful relationships in your life.
So in other words, you think that tweet at the beginning has the same energy as, "Uh, kinda gay, bro."
I agree. Screw that tweet.
@@thegodofalldragons I don't wanna jump to conclusions, but yes. That tweet reeks of someone with emotional immaturity and lack of literacy. But honestly that describes most twitter users.
@@gerardolanci8900 Most twitter users are dumber than dog shit. Social media has made the world dumber and smaller.
It's so annoying when Hollyweird can't have two males or two females just be friends anymore and not 'friends with benefits' or 'secretly hot for each other'.
What about a romantic relationship between two men make their actions any less sincere? I understand the desire for healthy portrayals of men's relationships in media, and the positive cultural effects that can have, but why imply that a homosexual perspective cheapens their actions or makes them any less meaningful?
Sorry if I sound like I have a molten rod up my ass, but it feels like every time this "why can't two men just be friends anymore without it being GAY" stuff comes up, it most charitably feels like it's blowing the situation vastly out of proportion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as of now, there are vastly more healthy portrayals of platonic relationships between two men than there are romantic ones. One doesn't come at the expense of the other.
It feels like so many people who are into nerdy things act like there's some 80s jock following them who is about to make fun of them if they are too sincere about their passion, so they have to call everything "silly" and "corny" or drench it in multiple layers of irony so that no one will make fun of them.
Which is funny because, being an 80s jock in spirit, I can now make fun of them trying to weasel their way out of being a nerd rather than owning up to it. If anything it's easier to bully now since, rather than actually having to make a case for things being goofy, I can just call people insecure and know it will hit home
@@purplesamurai5373I think this need to call everyone insecure is part of the issue tbh
@@maxsync183 it 100% is, and I don't get why so many people feel a need to put others down for having interests. It's like the only way to be "cool" is to be a piece of cardboard
@@maxsync183 ...is what an insecure person would say wouldn't it be?
@@plaguepandemic5651 I think you agreed with the wrong person.
it's wild if you follow counterculture spaces one of the biggest trends I've noticed as of recently is genuine sincerity and vulnerability. You have to imagine it's in direct reaction to the infestation of Joss Whedon dialog and any number of insufferable twitter randos that proclaim themselves as "fluent in snark". I hope we can look back at sarcasm nowadays like we look at fart and gross out humor in the 90s.
It comes in cycles, I think.
@@Bustermachine Like a sewage?
The fart and grossout humor was largely an accident. Because the Farrely Bros. had Jim Carrey--then the biggest upcoming celebrity of the time--participating in it in DUMB & DUMBER, it caught on. But for a brief window of time, the Farrely's were largely in control of it; no one else was doing it really. But once THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY exploded, then everybody ran with it, and when AMERICAN PIE hit it big the next year for that reason, it solidified it for the next several years.
It was originally used because no one else was doing it and the unexpectedness of it accentuated the comedy. But the jokes without the gross-out were already funny, the gross-out was a highlight or an accessory. But they eventually became the meat when the imitators jumped in.
@@Bustermachine Everything comes in cycles. Everything turns and returns.
Sarcasm/snark humor can work well but when it's appropriate. Now blockbusters are using it constantly.
The last decade of movies has trained viewers to be so nihilistic that literally any sincerity is looked at as corny. At least by younger audiences.
This is the case for the digital age as a whole. Like on the internet, no one is real. Everyone is sarcastic and taking things seriously on the internet is considered cringe and sad
It is corny, cringoid.
@@EggEnjoyercase in point, the above comment.
@@mrosskne silence zoomer or I'll say the wrong pronouns 🤣
In that case, my ocs are the corniest characters on earth, which is not surprising at all
Oh my God, THANK YOU. This is my biggest problem with media today, and why I think so much of it is garbage. The vast majority of it is so meta, cynical, and lazy. Many writers think that they can get away with bad writing as long as they appear “self-aware,” and it’s incredibly annoying.
The ultimate irony being that alleged "self-awareness" has now become actually lacking in self-awareness itself, where you have people attempting to seem that way but in turn they come off as cringe simply because of how hard they're trying to. Like someone telling the same joke over and over and over again. In this case literally.
Because actually great smart writers knew how to do these exact things but with actual substance. Nowadays it’s a trend people follow with no understanding of the nuance of **why** cynical, meta fiction can be just as great as more idealistic works.
There's a term for this: bathos, which is defined as "an effect of anticlimax created by a lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous." While it can be used effectively, it's overuse in parts of the story that should be serious can signal that the author doesn't trust the story to capture the audience emotionally, and it can have the effect of teaching the audience that any emotions they may feel are silly and that they shouldn't actually car about anything happening in a piece of media
Nice comment
Wow, your description of bathos makes me think of David Lynch's "twin peaks the return", I believe that was one of the only intentional instances of this effect being used well, as it's used to undermine Cooper's belief in his current reality as he realizes he's in a dream. Near the last episode the show takes a major tone shift and turns into them fighting a CGI fireball with a glove, after which Cooper realizes this is not real life and goes down to the boiler room to travel to a different memory.
I think it works in that case because the show itself is somewhat about if we can trust what we perceive/what we are shown
Self-referential humour is definitely a growing problem.
I'm thankful when there's a character that just tells the person explaining the joke to abruptly "Shut up" and move on
@@tuckernutter I think that will be the next step that will also be overused untill we reach full circle into sincerity again.
@@Xenozillex"There's a big bomb that's going to explode in Central Park" "Uh, a big what now? What is this, an action movie?" "Shut up comic relief! This is serious, people are going to die!"
It’s been growing since the 2000’s. To my mind that when the infantilisation of adults through games and movies really started becoming noticeable.
Well, you just said that 😹
I watched Paddington for the first time yesterday and I was surprised at how refreshing the sincerity of that film felt. Like, sure, Paddington is a talking bear and that’s really unbelievable and extraordinary, but everyone in the film treats him like he’s only just a bit odd and not much more. The fact that we didn’t get a “the bear is talking?” moment every other scene was fantastic and I wish more movies just embraced their weirdness instead of constantly drawing attention to it.
I think that's why the scene in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish where Perrito was comforting Puss during his panic attack was so loved and talked about so much.
There was no dialogue or quippy jokes. Just a friend helping a friend in need.
Jep, what in the beginning was played as a joke (Perrito wanting to become a therapy dog and Puss being appaled by it), became sincere in the moment of need. It was beautifull, because Puss was this emotionaly distant, cocky dude not so different from many marvel charakters. Even him "not being a math guy" was this certain humor, designed to keep emotions of vulnerability away.
I'm thankfull the bountyhunter was so scary as a villain, as he forced vulnerability in a movie, that would've otherwise be just another marvelesque movie if we look at any other scene.
cringe
@@mrosskne Don't care ☺
@@DundG on my way to your address :)
@@mrosskne nuh uh
The biggest thing to note is that trends are basically a swinging pendulum. As folks were getting tired of media taking itself too seriously, quippy/ironic humor felt like a breath of fresh air.
And now, we're seeing folks getting tired of irony, so we're swinging back towards sincerity. And we'll be right back to irony in another generation or two.
Quips are crutches for bad writing.
And most marvel movies all have the same spoiled milk plot.
@@sownheard It's honestly not even that the writing is necessarily bad or that quips are a crutch for them, but that the writers who overuse them (or the suits that demand their use) are afraid to just let a scene breathe.
While the more cliche lines should probably be shelved for a bit, quips as a whole are fine when used responsibly; like all writing tools and tropes.
@@DTFauxClassic except the writing IS bad and the majority of movies are using the humor to hide it behind laugh tracks. This is the standard MCU film. Even if the scene was allowed to breathe it’s still gonna be bad, so no, bad writing IS the issue.
@@blacklivesorblackvotes2985 The reason why I stand by saying the writing "isn't necessarily bad" is because most of these films (Marvel included) are still competent and entertaining for what they're worth; even if we, personally, aren't feeling them anymore.
We can argue all day about execution, tired trends, artistic merit, etc., but to just throw a blanket "It's all bad" is lazy and unproductive criticism. Great to get a gauge on how YOU feel about something, but it doesn't give much for people to chew on or walk away with.
Exactly
When I finally got around to watching LOTR, the sincerity and romance struck me as the best part. It was a massive shock after years of parody and self aware media.
I think this is also why Harry Potter is successful. Compare to Percy Jackson with super sarcastic, overly aware quirky first person narrator. MG/YA books only went down hill from there.
Absolutely. I just finally watched LOTR for the first time this month and was blown away. I finally understand why the movies are so timeless and loved. You can really see in the characters faces that they are quite sure they will die at the end and are still pushing through til the end. Beautiful
I get you like cringy "sincerity" cause you're a pathetic runt that's afraid that the universe doesn't give a fuck about your sorry lives
@@lunalee3021Harry is a little smart aleck in the books, but he does take things seriously.
You've probably seen the Hobbit movies by now, what're your thoughts on those?
Yeah, I started noticing this becoming really obnoxious during Civil War, but it became intolerable for me by the time the Star Wars sequels rolled around. I just remember leaving the theatre wondering why they thought it was a good idea to make every character Han Solo.
"They Han Solo now?!"
@@JDoe-gf5oz That "They fly now?" line was bad enough the first time, but they made the characters say it THREE times. lol
"Everyone likes Han Solo, so just make everyone Han Solo that way we can increase profits!" -Disney corporate suits
@@SammEater It would be nice if this were ANY less than 100% accurate.
Great call. That was the beauty of Han Solo. He was a blue-collar smuggler thrown in the middle of a space wizard battle so everything was mind-blowing. There is absolutely no reason a former storm trooper and rebel fighter would be surprised their enemy can fly.
The reason why all this shit happens in cycles is that it starts out as a radical gesture and then, because of it's impact, becomes adopted and mass-marketed until all the merit inside it is lost. It's not the thing itself, it's the insincere exploitation of it that is the problem. Joss Whedon's style works for projects that are in that vein. But adapting his tactics to things that don't clearly backfire and erode things over time.
We need to do something about our tendency to run things into the ground every time they pop up. We just gorge the shit out of every new thing until it becomes tired and stale before it's even explored and used properly.
Well do you have a solution for it because I can't think of anything.
I do agree though
@@g5studio21Capitalism is a big driver of this. Lots of trends become trends because products are made to entice people to spend money in it.
However, if you could utilize social media to where the trends work like a block party, where they all exist simultaneously and people can migrate from one to another at will, then rather than burning out, they either settle down or cross-pollinate into something different. But this way there's undulating momentum, so things don't stagnate but flow into each other.
That’s just the nature of markets, I guess. We do the same thing to Earth, why would we be any different with culture?
It's like Shrek.
Shrek came out making fun of true loves kiss, making fun of princesses, making fun of fairytales (and Disney)
Then people copied them. Now making fun of classic fairytales is normal.
Then Puss in Boots 2 came out and said "Hey, here's a story about a man outrunning death", classic fairytale stuff, and everyone loves it because it's so new.
Lazy execs not wanting to pay writers a decent wage enough to have a decent meal every night to feed themselves for the next day of work
The thing is you can't send "the right message" to Hollywood executives. They will always demand what they perceive is the cause to success instead of what actually was the reason. Barbie was successful because it was such a different take by competent indie writers and director with big actors. Instead of that they took away that people like toy movies and announce 14 movies based on Mattel properties such as Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball, Uno, and Major Matt Mason.
So true 😂. The boardroom and the writers room are in different buildings, metaphorically. I’m convinced that execs are living in their own little world of financial graphs and pie charts and have no grounding in anything artistically genuine. Maybe they should watch more UA-cam film commentaries
You say that, but when we remove Hollywood execs out of the equation, we get the complete crap that is most netflix movies. So maybe they know more than you think? Perhaps the box office outweighs the film scholars on youtube?@@champagne.future5248
Exactly. If you convinced Hollywood of 'this is what we want', then every movie is going to be exactly that. When they find a formula that works, they squeeze that formula until it makes no more money. But i can't blame them, really. As any business, their objective is to make money.
Skibidi toilet by Michael Bay… I’m scared
Which brings the question of WHY we have corporate old men making the choices for what art should be instead of ACTUAL CREATIVES. It makes no sense.
I think snarky, dry humor works when the characters are making jokes, but not when the writers are making jokes. I think of Iron Man in the first Avengers movie- his humor works there because it's somwthing that HE does, not something that the writers make any old character do for a quick laugh. He IS a snarky self-confident asshole, so when he makes those jokes he's just acting in character. And most importantly, he never made jokes about how the situation he was in was absurd. He might take things a little light-heartedly, but you always got the sense that he was actually invested in what he was doing. I think a lot about the "Shakespeare in the park" joke from when he fights Thor, and why it works so well when other jokes in later movies don't. I think it's because Tony is still acting within the scene, making a joke to insult Thor (who has just taken Loki from the Avengers, and whom Tony thinks is less qualified to handle the situation). The joke isn't that the situation the writers came up with is absurd, it's that Tony finds Thor's cape to be absurd.
@@gabe_s_videos Comparing Bojack Horseman to this shit is downright vile.
@@gabe_s_videos Bruh the point of Bojack Horseman is that he is a depressed sarcastic asshole about everything because he is afraid of insincerity. It's very much a case of it being the character and I can't think of many scenes where it feels like the writer is doing it. Plus the show knows when to take itself seriously and stop making jokes which it does in nearly every scene that is actually meant to be sincere
There definitely are "writer-jokes" in the first Iron Man movie. Like in the sequence where Tony is working on his second suit in his home workshop. He hurts himself in almost slapstick ways, while testing his new suit's prototypes. But those jokes work because they're not undermining the gravitas of Tony's character or his motivations. They're establishing that Tony isn't perfect or infallible. He can bumble and fumble and make mistakes, just like anyone else. They're actually helping to heighten the tension, by making Tony seem vulnerable.
That's a way of including jokes in an otherwise serious movie, without sacrificing sincerity.
That's actually a really good way to describe the difference, I like that!
@@tbotalpha8133 How does Tony testing his suit and the slapstick comedy that ensues at all "writer-jokes"? What does that even mean?
I can't help but imagine how cringe the Cantina Scene in A New Hope would be with modern writing "oh yeah, everyone going to act like its totally normal all these aliens are here, I guess this is a spaceport."
They're so insecure about their movie being riffed on that they riffed themselves which simultaneously destroys the riff potential AND the original work.
I suppose the auralnauts version is probably a good preview of what that would have been like. At least, if it were actually funny.
@@RAFMnBgaming "Oh, and Literally Satan! That makes sense..."
@@Mick_92cinema sins ahh quote
oh gods i can imagine it now,
like when han boasts about his ship's speed and obi wan responds with silent amusement,
if it were written nowadays the movie would stop to point out that han was lying through his teeth to get hired,
Han: “this is the ship that made the kessel run in under 12 parsecs”
Luke: “um English please??”
The real problem is that there's too many blockbusters and not enough mid range movies anymore. We need an industry that can afford to experiment and take chances.
More people should be talking about this. Mid budget movies need to come back.
We need more indie studios. When everything is Disney, marvel, and HBO, everything is the same.
@@josephrusso4828 they can't. because of streaming the video rental industry died out, which was where most movies made their money. now, they have to make that money in theatres, so everything has to be either super big or be made on a shoestring budget
I think this style of humour works when the comic relief comes from a few specific characters. When Iron Man and Spider-Man make these quips, it fits their personalities. They make light of everything, even though they take their core values seriously. But when every character does this, it gets annoying. And when all the characters have the same sense-of-humour, they don't feel like believable individuals, and instead it feels like the writer making light of the story.
It doesn't even work when those characters act like a stand up act 24/7
@@joseislanio8910it works with Ironman cus he clearly does it as a defense mechanism more than anything
@@Gaming_Legend2 even with him it was overused.
@@joseislanio8910 Yeah, I kinda don't like Spiderman anymore in part because of this. He's a cool dude now, and not even a nerd. Both the Garfield and Holland versions are a little too "popular" and snarky.
And when they don't do it all the time. It can even help the impact of certain scenes. When even the comic relief shuts up you say "oh fuck"
It stems from a problem in our culture, platonic friendship is dead now. When's the last time you heard two friends, particularly males, say they love and care for each other, without having to play it off as a joke or say no homo afterwards. We look at sincere emotion and love as cringey and mushy. The entertainment produced for us is a reflection of our own values. Films and shows from other cultures don't have this issue because their cultures don't have this issue.
I feel so insanely lucky to have a close male friend like this. I hear this shit constantly from men and it's so sad.
This is why I hate it when people "ship" friends and feel the need to project a sexual relationship onto them.
I barely experience sexual attraction with people but I experience emotional and intellectual attraction too often. And I'm wary of expressing it because I know most people can't experience either without romantic or sexual interest as well, so I worry I may come across as being sexually or romantically interested because they project the way *they* feel onto me.
@@HemlockerSame here, but a brother instead.
This sounds like me 20-25 years ago so it's not a new thing. These days my lived experience is much more emotionally open in general.
@miaferrari958 People ship characters just the sake of shipping and it's beyond embarrassing. People are too depraved they have to manufacture the relationships where there was none.
I think this is one of the reasons that the Dune movies have been so successful. Like them or not, they’re movies that take their fictional worlds very seriously, and go to great effort to make their settings and characters seem plausible and grounded, no matter how ridiculous they might seem on their face.
And then Deadpool almost doubled the money of Dune, people still eat this shit
@@pietr1036 half of the world is stupid, and then half of those stupid people are ret*rded.
@@pietr1036Deadpool films ain’t ever gonna be close to Dune films.
Audiences aren't tired of sincerity, but Hollywood is.
And they are being trained to think and feel like Hollywood
idk about that one chief
@@tng514case adjourned
We got through decades to get to where we are
@@tng514ik about that one chief
I had a thought. I wonder if this is part of why the Lord of the Rings movies are still revered. They had humor, but overall they embraced being sincere and committed fully to the world of Middle-Earth. It probably did a lot to make the world feel real and sell it, because the characters weren't afraid to be vulnerable and the films never made fun of themselves for the material. I think the closest we get to a character remarking, "well, that happened," is "that still only counts as one." But that works because it's part of a running sub-plot of the kill-count contest between Legolas and Gimli.
When Sam sees an Oliphaunt, there's no "wink wink, it's just an oversized elephant" it shows Sam as awed by a creature he'd heard stories of but never seen before.
When the second in command villain is called "the Witch-King" no one makes a joke of "haha, he's a guy but he's called a Witch." They treat him as a legitimate threat.
The Orc actors, credit where it's due, really got into their role of acting despicably. The closest their was to a 'comic relief' villain was Wormtongue, and he was more just made to be a pathetic man.
Not to say the movies are perfect, but they are still unbelievably good.
The series embraced being a noble story, embraced giving epic speeches, it embraced being authentic and sincere as a work meant to both be enjoyed and to give hope to people.
Yes the humor is very much in sync with the rest of the story. Aragon's "it's the beards" line (which is an extended scene I think) when talking about female dwarves (this has to do more with chemistry and Aragorn being suave as fuck with ladies), the orc's "meat's back on the menu boys!" played as a gag when the Hobbits basically fall into their lap, etc. The Hobbit suffers from the overuse of it because it was made much later and "under new management" so to speak.
I don't like the goofy scenes on LotR.
It feels so immature and dusturbing.
Bring 👏 back 👏 intimidating villains. If the villains in modern movies are quippy or the protagonists treat them like jokes, why should the audience treat them any different?
That's why the death of boromir still hits on such an emotional level
My only complaint on this front is how they treated Gimli. Book-Gimli is a dignified Dwarf-prince, a bit out of his element but committed to the Fellowship's quest. While film-Gimli feels more like a D&D stereotype of a Dwarf - a short, burly meathead with a fragile ego. Hell, in the books Gimli is awed by Galadriel's beauty, and requests just 1 of her hairs as a keepsake. While in the films Gimli nurses the same arbitrary disdain for Elves as you'd find at any D&D table. He gets over it eventually, but book-Gimli never went there in the first place.
This is a mindset very prevalent in general now. More and more, people don't take much of anything seriously because it's "not cool to care". Or it's "cringe" to be passionate, especially about perceptively juvenile things. Sincerity is dying in society and it's reflected in our media.
Another movie that you didn't mention that takes itself completely seriously is Dune - and I love it for it ! There are no interjections to deliberately ruin sincere moments with a pun, there is no fourth-wall breaking winking and nodding at the audience, there are no "They fly now ? - They fly now !"-comedy skits in the middle of a (supposedly) deadly chase scene etc.
yeah but if you mention a movie that you were a lead in then it feels a bit on the nose, don't you think?
I'd take a movie full of Whedonism then have to have watch friggin' Zendaya.
@@JDoe-gf5ozShe’s barely in it
@@books2438That's still too long.
@@JDoe-gf5ozwe’ll see how part 2 handles it
That’s something I love about David Lynch movies. I’ve heard the term used to describe it as Dream Logic, where no one questions the absurd happenings or draws too much attention to it with a “what the heck is going on?” They just live through the circumstances.
great vid
Yep
It's what I liked about Airplane. Tons of oddball stuff going on in the background and foreground as a set piece that the characters take one hundred percent seriously. One of the most stupid jokes that got a laugh out of me was the air traffic control communicating with a pilot and in the background you see a guy open up a door to what looks like a laundry machine and loading up some bedsheets.
@@dizzydial8081 It's pretty telling when characters in an outright comedy made back then take things more seriously than characters in modern action movies.
Sorry for the random ping, but I appreciate you bringing this term to my attention. I feel like "dream logic" is how things are supposed to be watched, THEN the unwashed basement guys can "rip into" the films after the fact.
I'm a Kingdom Hearts fan, and one of the reasons why I still believe that is because, despite the premise being kind of silly (a young teenager travels to various Disney worlds to fight monsters with a giant key and sometimes FF and other Squenix characters show up), the story and the characters within it take themselves seriously from beginning to end. There's never really a moment (that at least I can recall) that the writing takes a moment to wink and nod at the audience, and IMO, it's all the better for it. Obviously the series has its moments of comedy to break up the seriousness, but it's NEVER at the expense of the narrative. Kingdom Hearts doesn't make fun of its audience for being invested in its world and narrative, and I think we can all learn something form it.
I think the only time Kingdom Hearts did this type of joke was the Frozen world when they kept falling off the mountain
I was literally thinking about how seriously KH takes itself while watching this video, despite not being a fan who thinks the series is way too contrived.
Same. The series certainly can be ridiculous and contrived. But the characters are still likable and take their journey's seriously.
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy is probably the exact opposite of this. Extreme sincerity, embraces camp, isn’t embarrassed of what it is, has actual good comedy, and the emotion hits god damn hard.
Probably why I hated the writing of No Way Home, it is exactly everything you described here
If 2 or 3 lines ruined the movie for you, then that's weird
@@miadatenshi9903 Did I say that or are you just making up your own assumptions? The movie’s writing was god awful it’s not just those jokes, it has more plot holes and shitty lines than I can list, but no nothing ruined the movie cause I could still enjoy it as cheap fun popcorn fan service. Just not as the kind of cinema I love
No Way Home is a movie for redditors. The dialogue, the acting, the sheer sloppiness of its visual language and directing. Just so god damn Reddit.
@@bikramarora1819 What a bummer, sounds like a Raimi nostalfag
no okay no way home unironically made me lose my MIND, i’m so glad i’m not the only one who hates it
This video covers exactly what I hoped it did.
I'm kinda sick of these movies being so scared of being called sentimental that they're putting up emotional walls.
They're robbing themselves of actual emotional catharsis.
-Gen Z- People who are 25 and younger have a big problem with labeling everything that has a shred of sincerity or earnesty as "cringe". That's _why_ Disney and pop culture at large have the irritating constant meta-awareness and winking to the audience. It's an ouroborous where they think this way because that's the media they were raised on. But the media is made because the youth think this way.
🐔 or the 🥚???
Bro zoomers were like 12 when this style got popular. They had no bearing on this trend. If you want to blame a generation it would be millennial and Gen x writers and the boomer execs.
@@ministry.ofsoundthe boomers are the ones still pulling the strings. Bob Iger? Boomer. David Zaslav? Boomer.
"Well, that happened"
I fucking HATE, HATE, HATE this stock dialogue (and all variations of it) and I completely agree with everything you said in this video. Another example of this type of thing that immediately came into my mind is when Asgard was destroyed in Thor: Ragnarok but that dickhead Taika Waititi decided to turn the destruction of Asgard into the punchline for a joke that Korg made. I'm sick of the age of irony we live in. I just want a return to sincerity.
Oh, god yes. Ragnarok had it's good moments, but damn that ending soured me on the entire film.
And then he solidified himself as being the Joel Schumacher of Marvel with his direct follow up Love and Blunder
I was so frustrated by this because let’s face: thors people lost their home world. It’s destroyed and no one can ever bring it back again. It’s probably like earth would have exploded and someone made a dumb joke about it. We would take probably for the rest of humanity to mourn. It was their home. It should have had the feeling like the start of Mass effect 3, when you leave earth. But instead it was made a fucking joke.
Movies and series today feel sometimes like they’re afraid to let people feel upset.
Yeah, I enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok but there was something offputting about it I could never put my finger on. It doesn't feel like it is or really wants to be a Thor movie so much as Guardians of the Galaxy with Thor as the lead. Stuff like the Warriors Three dying immediately or the Korg joke you mentioned just makes you feel stupid for caring about anything that happened in the first two movies.
Irony is everywhere now and I'm so sick of it. People online can't form an entire sentence without shoving some meme in there.
Honestly, I blame CinemaSins. So many people have been trained to look at cinematic worlds nowadays and think "gosh, this doesn't make any damn sense" or make goofy jokes at the expense of it, making it harder to tell an emotional or sincere story without it being picked apart, either by the audience or by itself.
Critical thinking Ex Machina cliche **ding**
I doubt CinenaSins is cause of all of this
I used to occasionally watch CinemaSins back in the day, but the schtick got old the more sardonic and nitpicky it became. I'm a bigger fan of CinemaWins myself.
@@LadyDecember cinema wins are faar less aggravating, at least with that channel they point out when a part of a movie is distractingly bad without the tired exaggerated snark that cinemasins uses
WELL...a good story SHOULD at least make internal sense, though. I think some of the scenes CinemaScenes and the like poke at deserve the jabs they're getting, but they are getting them from a commentary genre, not within the film genre itself. If a good comic book movie kept the internal logic of it's plot and characters I think it would be a lot harder for sardonic film essayists to criticize.
As someone put, quick and simple, "not everybody can be Deadpool. Only Deadpool can be Deadpool."
You can create a fun and snarky character. They just have to experience actual emotions. You need to know when to let your quip -heavy characters drop the act and respond in raw fear, or wonder, or joy, or pain.
Even the Deadpool Movies understand this...
I watched the re-release of Titanic back in February and I was blown away by how unabashedly earnest the movie is. Honestly, it was kinda refreshing. The movie is cheesy as hell but I love how shamelessly sincere it was in telling Jack and Rose’s story without a hint of irony. That’s a movie completely confident in itself and its premise.
don't use the word "cheesy"!!!
@@9crossI don’t even mean it’s “cheesy” in pejorative way. It’s clearly a stylistic choice the movie makes and commits to fully.
I _love_ Titanic with all my heart. I wouldn't use the word cheesy per se, maybe more syrupy and saccharine. To me, cheesy denotes a level of campiness, which I don't think Titanic has. But either way, I totally agree with you! Every time I watch that movie, I don't care if the emotions are getting dramatic and the music is building to a crescendo, I get swept up into the moment heart and soul. When Rose jumps from the lifeboat back onto the ship, I'm all, "YES, HONEY! Find him! Run to him!". I sing 'My Heart Will Go On' with the purest yearning I can manifest.
I take Titanic 100% seriously and no cynic since 1998 has been able to convince me otherwise. And I do definitely remember when it was cool to rag on it. It's definitely a movie that is not ashamed to completely play it straight, and I'll love it for eternity.
James Cameron is a king of sincerity
The movie fucking blows.
I yearn for moments like in revenge of the sith when anakin screams at obiwan that he hates him. I never rly got over that scene and those movies. Go back and watch those. For me the campy sincere and dramatic dialogue is extremely refreshing and welcome in today's age.
The only big flaw in Hayden's acting is his voice.
I watched the prequels dubbed as a kid and never thought of him as pathetic. Now I rewatched them in English and, although there are a couple of scenes where his emotions are strange, the dialog isn't sticking together too well, yet the biggest offenders are his weak voice and frequent voice cracks.
To his credit though, the yelling he's done was emotional.
@@Halo_LegendWhich dub did you watch them in?
And let's not forget, "You were my brother, Anakin, and I loved you."
This is incredibly true when you remember Ep9 and that "joke" when stormtrooper with a jetpack appears: "they flying now" repeated few times. As if they were so scared of adding new thing that might piss people off (and let's be fair, with TFA and TLJ people were less than pleased with Disney already) that they started to laugh it off instantly.
It’s possible that the dedicated sincerity to the ridiculous Star Wars universe is what has helped the prequels gain traction with the rising generation.
I grew up on Hollywood epics like The Ten Commandments and I was used to the earnestness in which the characters delivered some honesty kinda wacky lines (just look for clips of The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur and you’ll see what I mean) and I honestly attribute my okay-ness with “corny” dialogue to those movies and the Star Wars prequels. They believed in themselves.
The most egregious example, imo, was Hawkeye in Avengers two talking to Wanda. "The city is flying and we're fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense." Yes, that's the current situation, and pointing out that it doesn't make sense _in the context of this film's universe_ ruins any suspension of disbelief in the audience.
Nah, I disagree with this. Quips are 100% overused, especially in Age of Ultron, but I really like that Hawkeye moment. He’s taking a moment to break the suspension of disbelief to COMFORT a character who is extremely overwhelmed BY the severity of the situation. He doesn’t just crack the joke and move on; he says “none of this makes any sense. But I’m going back out there, cuz it’s my JOB. Stay here if you want. But you step out that door, you’re an Avenger.” I think it’s a great scene that allows Wanda to consciously step forward and CHOOSE to enter this wacky world of superheroes that we love so much. Joss’ quips leave much to be desired, but I think this one is actually great
@@jacoolzi Yeah I find myself agreeing - in that moment the joke has an actual purpose within the scene instead of being there purely for the hahas
Absolutely. I think I first noticed this consciously when watching "The Force Awakens", which was a movie I had very high hopes for. Within the first few minutes, when Kylo comes face to face with Poe in the desert, there is a brief moment where they stare each other down, and then Poe says "So who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?" *cue audience laughter*
I found that line to be so incredibly jarring. It completely undermined the intensity of the scene and told me that this was not a film that took itself seriously, which means I'm not going to either. Once I noticed it there, I started noticing it everywhere.
I actually had fond memories of that movie, then I remembered I was in elementary school when it came out.
I think that line could have worked to establish Poe as a fast-talking spy who uses his wit to defuse a tense situation in-universe, maybe he's afraid and very good at hiding it like Leia standing up to Vader and Tarkin, and especially if his antics get shut down quickly to show that the bad guys do not stand for such nonsense. but it's clearly not meant to be that, it's supposed to be snarky ironic comedic relief out-of-universe. It happens too quickly to be natural dialogue, and it only exists to poke a finger at narrative convention.
That line aged poorly since it now feels like “well that happened” but I think the original intent was just trying establish that the tone would be funnier like the old Star Wars. It kind of spiraled from there though…
@@GioTheVaxin a different movie it could have been fine but it was completely at odds with the tone of the all previous SW movies
Moments like the octopus scene are exactly why I loved Aquaman. It took the 'you talk to fish' concept and made it matter. Arthur doesn't win because he's stronger or faster or better skilled. He wins because he is the son of two worlds, and struggles to learn about them both. And those kinds of scenes are dead and gone now that comic book movies are either Marvel or a basically guaranteed failure. This was something Fox did well with the X-Men films, going so far as to take the 'We need you to...hope again.' line into the coda of their most successful trailer for Days of Future Past.
There is definitely a middle ground to be found, and some films from the decade before this trend started did lean hard enough into sincerity that they were ridiculed, and rightly so. But the alternative isn't stuffing anything made for more than 150 million with bathos. Even Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - the forth sequel in a pulp action franchise which should have been about friends going on a final journey together and solving everything with a good right hook - was stuffed to the brim with insufferable 'witty' dialog.
Ironically, the new Indiana Jones movie also suffers from being too depressing. We don't want to see classic characters become old and miserable!
@@genericname2747 Precisely! On paper I think i understand: Logan was a triumph, and the thought of doing it again with another aging hero nearing the end of his life was enough to get things moving. But that fundamentally misunderstands what Logan was about and what Indi has always BEEN about! Wolverine as a character has always had a tragic past while Indi is cut from a different cloth. We didn't need to find out he feels he wasted his life, we didn't need his son to die in Vietnam (just maybe not be in the movies anymore? thanks.) and we didn't need someone else to solve his problem for him, especially offscreen!
Man, you remember how absolutely pragmatic Wolverine was in those films? Someone does a dramatic table flip because they're angry and he just calmly talks them out of their fit, then just as calmly asks "You want to pick that shit up now?" Wry, yes, but very true to the character, salt of the earth take on things. I miss that.
I actually think that the rise of “the golden age of television” might have an effect on this too. So many sincere and emotional moments have been done in popular streaming shows so now I think a lot of people think tv is the only medium that can have sincerity. A two hour movie doesn’t feel like enough time to earn the emotion it’s presenting. I don’t agree, of course, but it could be a contributing factor.
At the same time though, I feel like a lot of TV shows started leaning so far into grimdarkness that they still lose the sincerity in it. The Walking Dead was practically a glorified snuff film, it was depressing and exhausting. The first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery were the same way. There were no lighthearted, sincere moments to make the dark moments worth anything and most of the characters feel like the perpetually-depressed people that are tough to be around.
The golden age of television is five.
I was thinking about this after watching the latest Spider-Verse film. There's plenty of humor in the movie, but none of it is really poking fun at the absurdity of the world in a way that makes the world feel undercut. And it has plenty of moments where characters are sincere and it really hits home.
The Spider-Verse movies have been a ray of light amongst a sea of mediocrity in the superhero movies world.
I think that the trick that the movie uses is that it never feels like the characters are winking towards the audience for a gag. Though characters like Gwen and Miles do point out the absurdity of the situations and characters they're surrounded by, it never feels like they're making a joke for the audience. Their reactions feel genuine and authentic to the kinds of people they are. This is actually rather interesting given that Spider-Verse is and incredibly meta film. It's just that instead of using "meta" as an excuse to cram in stale memes and elbow the audiences' ribs as they make their super fun and relatable references, it instead creates genuine metafiction that questions the necessity of tropes within its own genre and the main characters' place as a character both within the fictional world and in ours. It's genuinely one of the few films I've seen in recent memory to actually understand what being meta can do for a story and utilizes it to enhance the storytelling rather than distract from it.
@@Hemlocker What I love is that they're going for a trilogy. I think Marvel and DC have both kinda abandoned the idea of trilogies, of the three act structure, because they know they're just going to keep making movies or reboot them in a few years anyway.
Especially compared to mcu spiderman movies... the difference is so noticeable!
Emotions and sincerity makes people uncomfortable because it forces them to immerse themselves into the world and face the emotions and situations of the scene head on, face to face. And that’s a good thing.
This is why Sam Raimi Spiderman was the best superhero film, it's not afraid to be earnest and sincere, and actually it makes the whole thing more grounded and believable and human
I personally think thatThe Dark Knight is the greatest superhero hero movie, but I also agree with you regarding the heart and sincerity of the Raimi Spider-Man movies and the love poured into them.
"Rocket is kind of a deconstruction of the snarky, quippy hero..."
Well, in the third movie, he's also a deconstruction in more ways than one, so you're not wrong!
...dark
Deconstruction, reconstruction, over and over and turned into some little monster...
But yeah, I'm really glad he brought up Guardians of the Galaxy. Obviously the third has those highly emotional moments, but no one ever talks about how those kinds of moments exist in all three movies, and the movies take them seriously. And it fits the characters that they themselves avoid those kinds of things. Even the part I quoted in the first one where Rocket talks about the experiments they did on him, he only shares that because he's drunk!
Weirdly, I think this kind of dialogue has actually affected younger generations. I've noticed a lot of younger people experience difficulty expressing sincere emotion, opting for jokes and quips instead. It's sad to see how influential awful Hollywood writing can be.
Don't forget all the snarky kids shows where everyone's super sassy and witty.
This is the real goal of it
Hasn't that notion of teenagers being incredibly insecure about themselves been in pop culture for decades? It's just a new expression for an existing idea. Before, the trope was extreme sarcasm, eye rolling, and the all-time classic of "Whatever". The sarcasm of yesterday and constant humor of today accomplish the same purpose: concealing their true feelings from the other, equally cynical teenagers who they were always around
Young people have always been like this, that’s what they do best lol. Kids will express themselves in whichever way is most comfortable, and if the environment that they’re raised in (friends and family, not media) doesn’t give them room for sincerity, they’ll use humor instead. It’s almost like they’re humans who haven’t had a whole lot of experiences in life yet.
@@aetranm I understand that these people are products of their environments. I just hate when I listen to zoomers trying to interact and it sounds like an Avengers straight-to-dvd sequel.
Self awareness is also a cop-out for when you can't mantain the suspension of disbelief. Your superhero/fantasy/action movie has to have a lot of crazy things happening, and if you can't immerse the audience enough to make it look natural then self awareness is your last resort.
Yeah, pretty much. Lame MCU Bathos...
it's okay you can say the Fast and Furious franchise (at least the movies after the 6th one)
Pacific Rim (my favorite movie of all time) vs Pacific Rim Uprising (a sheer embarrassment) are the perfect embodiments of max sincerity vs none at all.
god, what a disappointment uprising was lmao
Oh ain't it the truth. Newt was my favorite character in the first one, and while I wasn't big on the direction his character took in the second, I wanted to have it seen through at least. The sequel was so unforgivably disappointing, though, that it's likely a third will never be made and we'll never see closure on the character. Newt was left on such a cliffhanger. It was not the sequel the first one deserved at all.
And the fact the huge battle took place in daytime where the weather is sunny...
if Pacific Rim is your favorite movie then you desperately need to watch more movies
@@luigiwiiUU I've seen tons of movies spanning the whole history of film. My only blind spot really is horror films.
Have I seen plenty that are *objectively* better than Pacific Rim? Yes.
Does objective quality determine what's my *favorite*? No.
Hope this helps :3
@@Neogeddon personally id put Bayformers 1 over Pacific Rim cause at least its not boring
Spot on the the death of sincerity. I think another way to express that is cynicism. I remember listening to a podcast discussing Andor and one of the people there was saying one of the strengths of the show is how uncynical it is. And that might sound peculiar considering the show's incredibly bleak tone, but he wasn't using the the word cynical in terms of tone, but in style. There's never a "wink wink" moment in Andor. No 4th wall breaking, no cheeky callbacks. Every character is 100% sincere and committed to what they are saying on the screen. Which in comparison to most of the stuff out there that is super cynical about that stuff, it was just so refreshing to watch a show about characters that CARED about what was happening on screen.
Another example to me is the difference between the Raimi Spider-man films and the MCU films. The MCU films are fine, they're not bad films, but they totally fall into that "Well that just happened" type of humor that the MCU is so known for. The scene where Otto Octavious tells MCU Spider-man and his friends his name and they all laugh and go, "No but seriously." That's a scene that simply would never exist in the Raimi films. The Raimi films are sincere, super sincere, almost to the point of parody. But there's a reason why those films have stuck around the public consciousness for so long. It resonates with viewers in a way that a lot of the new stuff simply don't. The new stuff is sacrificing emotional honesty for a momentary laugh.
I instantly thought of the Raimi Spider-Man vs the MCU Spider-Man
True. And there was a 'wink wink' moment in Spider-Man 2, in regards to Doc Ock, but do you know who did that?
Jameson, the belligerent chief of the Daily Bugle.
"Guy named Otto Octavius ends up with eight limbs. What are the odds?"
No one but him. And it works, because Jameson is _exactly_ the type of guy who'd make a joke like that, but the rest of the cast do not.
funnily enough, the infamous dance scene from spiderman 3 was one of the moments where raimi showed unsincerity, and it was heavily criticized lol
@@stardusstlmao what are you talking about? That scene is extremely sincere. The fact that people perceived it sincerely is the very reason why it was criticized.
"The new rebels are artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the ‘Oh how banal’. To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness."
- David Foster Wallace, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction", 1993
Great video man! You articulated your thoughts so well, and your memes are solid to boot.
So this has been going on for a long time, huh
@@Woodside235 yes, although I don't think it was ubiquitous in Wallace's time. He wa probably among the first to decry the then-nascent trend
Sincerity, or the lack thereof, is the real reason I've checked out of movies in the last few years.
Its become uncool to have characters care about things or show actual friendship or respond to the stakes of a situation with anything other than pithy quips that immediately lower the tension, and I absolutely hate it. Its hard to get invested in a world when the characters so clearly DON'T.
One of my favourite movies is the Legend of Zorro with Antonio Banderas. That movie is charming and funny and has plenty of witty banter, but only ever in situations where bantering makes sense. When Zorro is facing down the villain at the end, he's seriously fighting for his life without a quip in sight, as you would if it were real! I connect so much more with Zorro than any Marvel hero because the movie treats his stakes as serious and isn't afraid to expect that I'll be invested enough to do the same.
You can still find good movies that don't this, you just have to be a bit careful with where you look. Avoiding all superhero movies is probably a good rule of thumb.
Also, anime is honestly a good place to go if you want sincerity. They really don't give a fuck in Japan, they'll have their characters in the most insane scenarios and it'll be taken seriously. The Ghibli movies are obviously great.
You could always just watch actually good movies
You gotta watch movies by Jim Jarmusch and Hirokazu Kore-eda
When the new D&D movie came out I saw it praised in multiple places for how sincere it was. I loved that movie because it succeeded in being genuinely fun and funny without relying on this kind of self-aware humor, or making its characters feel annoying and unlikeable. I’d love to see more fantasy blockbusters like it.
Yeah I kept waiting for the moment they would ruin it with a fourth wall break, but they tip toed the line very nicely.
But it flopped which for Hollywood is the same as, don't make films like this anymore
Okay, quick pause to defend Civil War. The point of that battle was that it wasn't all or nothing stakes. Everyone involved knew they were friends, and the quips were a reminder that no one was quite on top of why the conflict had come to blows at all, why they weren't all talking it out. Everyone was pulling punches. And it was all fun and games until someone got hit so hard they lost their ability to walk. Permanently. That was the whole point of the scene. It was light, until it wasn't. Pulling punches is no substitute for, ya know, talking. And listening. And no one was listening. To dismiss the quippiness as the movie itself pulling punches is to forget how dire that scene becomes in its final moment.
That's a good way to put it
This is the correct take. Glad I scrolled through the comments to find it so I didn't have type it out. That whole scene is friends trying to subdue each other other and using humor as a defense. There are no quips in this scene between Bucky and T'Challa (one is trying to kill the other) and also no jokes during the final fight between Bucky, Cap, and Iron Man.
@@rileylederer8800 Thank you. I mean, I get it. The homogeneous nature of the Marvel films, the way every story is tailored to fit the umbrella style, invites criticism. Now the experiment is failing, it's easy to look back and say it never worked all that well. But I think it's a mistake to go looking for faults. That's not good criticism practice. And complaining that the mid-point fight in Civil War pulls its punches is just looking for something to complain about, whether it's actually a flaw or not. It's less an insight than an amateur attempt to mimic insight.
I think there are a lot of weird takes on Marvel movies lately, looking for things to critique for the sake of having something fresh to say about movies that have been so picked over. This whole "bathos" complaint seems like that, taking the weak attempts at humor in Doctor Strange and turning it into a pervasive problem throughout the franchise. The critique doesn't actually hold water, especially when leveled on a film like Guardians of the Galaxy, that's built on mixing pathos with humor. Sincerity is great, but assuming that irony cancels out sincerity is, well, a tad immature.
What made Doctor Strange fail wasn't that it undercut its sincerity, but simply that its attempt at sincerity wasn't that convincing in the first place. Meanwhile, Guardians succeeded because it was genuinely sincere, while also being genuinely funny. Doctor Strange was neither.
@@rottensquid Wow, very insightful and I couldn't agree more. Thank you for the thoughtful commentary. Glad I commented. Do you have a letterboxd account you'd be willing to share?
The thing people forget is that even Joss Whedon knew not to have characters constantly quip and make sardonic/sarcastic remarks. I mean, sure his writing often used self-referential humor, but it had a time and a place and when he needed to get serious he did so.
This is why avengers worked so well.
Avengers 2 though, that's when it started, then Civil War made it worse and it kept getting more and more annoying.
To paraphrase a popular saying, who's the bigger trendsetter? Is it the trendsetter or the trendsetter who follows the trendsetter?
It reminds me of that second gold rush of animated shows for adults post-South Park that JUST copied the political incorrectness, so all you got were jokes that were mean for the sake of being mean.
@@gabe_s_videos I mean, following trends in itself isn't a bad thing.
@@themadoneplays7842 Obviously not, I just think this particular trend has run it's course (and wasn't really that good to begin with).
@@gabe_s_videos Eh I don't mind this kind of humor but will agree it's way overused in modern storytelling. I mean there is nothing wrong with self-referential meta humor in small doses IMHO, but yeah it's become a crutch nowadays. Personally, I say anyone who uses this kind of thing must watch Buffy the vampire slayer at the very least and see how to implement it in a good way or even the first avenger's movie. Humor is subjective, of course, but still if you are going to ape Wheadon do it properly.
The way I normally explain my deep distaste for this kind of writing is:
If you don't take yourself seriously (something that seems to be praised and encouraged for some reason), nobody will.
Out of all the emotions and feelings you could try to inspire in people, as an artist, you choose to sacrifice all of them to a single one, quick inhale air bad humor. It's not worth it.
The humour in these films stems from insecurity with regards to the source material. This same insecurity leads to the writers forcing themselves to fill any silence with quips and make sure that they make fun of something before the audience does so that they remain in control. They are afraid to let a moment breathe, without satire, for fear of making an audience uncomfortable.
In fact the humour in Marvel films is very obviously wish-fulfilment on the part of the viewer by way of the writer. The jokes do not come naturally from the character, but are rather the jokes that a passive third-party observer would make about the situation if he believed himself to be 'witty'.
This approach was what ruined Thor: Love and Thunder for me. I just couldn't enjoy it after a while, because there had to be a quippy little joke every ten seconds. I couldn't get invested in the emotional stuff, because I was expecting someone to undermine it with a quip.
Have you seen the deleted scene where Zeus gives some fatherly advice to Thor before he has to set off to stop Gorr? He doesn’t act like an asshat and has a realistic personality, while making subtle jokes that aren’t distracting and flow with the dialogue. Thor 4 had a shot at being a legitimately good serious movie, and they turned it into a stereotype of shitty marvel movies
I'm still mad at that movie for wasting Christian Bale that badly. The premise had such potential. But it was just another mediocre, 90% green screen mess. At this point, the MCU is really only hanging on by the great performances their actors still somehow manage to give.
I'm still halfway through the video so it might be mentioned at some point, but in case not, that trope is called "lampshading". And yeah, it definitely can become a crutch for when the writer is not so secure about the sincere moment so they can come across as though they're "in on the joke". Overtly Sarcastic Productions has a great video on it.
But I'm mostly commenting because I had somehow forgotten or missed that "Illumi-what-i?" joke in Doctor Strange 2, and oh my god it's awful. Not so much for the pun itself, but because it makes no sense coming out of that particular character's mouth. Of all characters, you really choose the one who's a scholar and a WIZARD to somehow never have heard the term Illuminati? Sure, he could be confused at this particular group of individuals calling themselves that, but the name Illuminati as "the enlightened" has been around since the 15th century. It would have immediately taken me out of the movie.
Exactly this guy has a PHOTOGRAPHIC memory, meaning he remembers EVERYTHING, yet that simple ass name went over his head?
That presumes that knowledge of the illuminati exists in the marvel universe. Sort of like how their norse mythology is presumably a big different. But uhh, I think he could also be expressing surprised at him being part of an organisation that has named itself after one of the biggest conspiracy theory hotpoints of the past hundred years. Like it's such an unabashedly 'bad guy' name that you'd laugh at anything with that name in real life. The same way you would if Bill Gates announced he was creating an organisation called 'The New World Order'. You'd think he'd actually gone insane.
God you're 100 percent right it makes absolutely no sense for him to not know what that word meant. Like, if they HAD to make him quip at least make it believable for the character saying it!
He should've just simply said "On my world, that's...not a good name for a superhero group"
It reminds me of that claymation film where a bunch of kids meet Satan, who calls himself an angel. When they react with stunned silence at his name, he asks what's the matter to which one of them responds "It's a pretty sorry name for an angel." I think that's what they were going for, but it definitely just came across like he had somehow never heard the most obvious cliche name for a group of bad guys.
There was a scene in Guardians 3 where Starlord was pouring his heart out to Gamora, then it was just ruined with a "You realise everyone can hear this conversation, right?" snarky comment that completely ruined it. James Gunn isn't immune to this style of humour either.
5:55 The irony is, if it was JUST Hawkeye and Widow bantering, itd just be a fun character moment that highlights their long history together. Its the unfocused snark that ruins it.
(And I guess Spiderman but since thats his Entire Thing I'd give it a pass)
Right?? Hawkeye and Black Widow aren't really invested on the fight, and Spiderman and Antman are just here for the ride. Everyone else should be serious, like how Black Panter refuses to banter with Hawkeye.
Exactly! I think that quip would have worked if everyone else was taking it seriously.
I still remember how Great of a scene scene was when in Iron Man Armored Adventures Tony has a mental breakdown after learning that his Father built weapons in the past & start to become paranoic, just to be consolated by Roberta Later by telling him: _"You are the reason why your father stop selling weapons, & where ever he is right now, he's proud of the man you're becoming"_
Good luck finding that moment in MCU films
How about you learn the singular and plural versions of the most common words, hm?
@@Halo_Legendhe reads ESL. Relax.
@@Halo_Legend you are the problem this video is talking about, this person was sincere in their appreciation for a scene they like and then you just had to undercut it with one eyebrow raised and a smug grin. And while it is obvious this person struggles with english that doesn't give you the right to be a douchebag.
Howard's record in Iron Man 2 is kind of this, no?
The blockbusters of old, like Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, all had great quippy humor, but it wasn’t attached to the plot. The humor came straight from the characters personalities playing off one another. When the humor depends on the characters and not the plot, it doesn’t dampen the sincerity of the story.
Wholeheartedly agreed...
the way I saw Joss Whedon's avengers was that during the time when super hero movies where still trying to find their footing, we had an abundance of super hero films take a serious/realistic approach within cinema. the reason avengers' quippy blend with action and sincerity worked was cause it appealed to the die hard fans of the comics while also being open to more skeptical audiences. meaning when a skeptic sees a giant killer whale fly through New York and a joke or quip is made, the skeptics are relieved to know even the movie is aware with how ridicules situation is. Now that superheroes are fully accepted into the mainstream the need to appeal to skeptical audiences fall more flat. ages ranging from 13 to 40 (even the odd 50 to 60) are more open to the idea outlandish story telling. It feels like in todays filmography producers are scared to let the movie breath or feel, which is a shame cause it makes the audience feel like they're being talked down on. This might just be me but if you feel the need to have a character poke fun at an idea or name or storyline or whatever. maybe instead of that, write something else. cause if a creator doesn't care for their work why should the audience?
I think you got it in one
Totally agree. Yeah actually I think that's is the reason why this sort of "Well That Just Happened" humor is so annoying in such large doses is that it generally feels like the movie is talking down to you, like the movie is making fun of you by making fun of itself and saying "Who the hell would ever go to see a movie like this? You paid for this, what the fuck is wrong with you?"
This is a great essay, thank you! I never realized that this was such a huge thing.
I used to be a big fan of Buffy and its sense of humor, and the thing about that show is while all characters made those jokes, Whedon and the other writers on staff had the sense back then to balance out those jokes with some real heavy shit. And in a long, 7 season TV show, I guess they had more space to experiment with funnier and more dramatic episodes/scenes. They never felt out of balance. Even in the first Avengers movie, he let those heavier scenes breathe, so it wasn't just funny, it was allowed to be funny AND dramatic, and epic, when it needed to be. It was only after other writers attempted that same sense of style, where it got out of balance for me at least.
Gunn is an expert in using those funny lines to serve into the drmatic aspects of this writing, so the two styles can live side by side.
Looking forward to more videos you make!
Exactly. There are jokes in Buffy, characters making smart allec remarks about the crazy thing that happened, but it's not constant. Even when they do make a quip, the threat is still a threat, actions have consequences, people suffer. Honestly one of the reasons I love the tone of Buffy and Firefly is that it feels more real than straight drama or comedy. Life, in my experience, is tragedy and comedy interwoven. So in that sense those shows are descendants of shows like MASH, where they joke about the war, but also suffer the war.
Agreed, Whedon's work up until Justice League (which tbf was already partially done when he got it) was a refreshing balance between humor and heart. It's mainly the Marvel (and other studios) writers that have tried to emulate his formula that have lost the heart
@@claudiadarling9441 100%
Life itself is not just dramatic, but sometimes unnecesarily funny in those sincere moments as well. Best example to me is Anya's speech in "The Body" where she is still quirky as hell, and yet, is allowed to proess the absurdity of death, in her own style, in a bit of a childish and innocent way, that makes things all the more heartbreaking.
@@claudiadarling9441 And in the real world, a common way of dealing with intense situations or jobs is humour. in BtVS, the characters were high school students who found out their town is overrun with monsters and each night could potentially be their last, so finding a way to cope with that fact feels entirely appropriate. But the show knew when the characters would NOT be laughing or being ironic, and some of the best moments come from when the joking suddenly stops.
Yeah and Buffy still takes itself seriously even during episodes that have goofier premises. One of the saddest episodes in the show is a musical episode, a stock plot that never gets used seriously. As much as Joss sucks as a person he used to be really good at balancing the winks and nudges with actual storytelling.
I've noticed this in so many movies, it's the modern day equivalent of a laugh track on sitcoms, like the studio thinks the audience is so dumb that they need to be told how to feel about each moment in the movie.
It is pure projection. Period
This is just what happens when everything has to be a franchise. You can't have every film leaving a crater in the audiences' hearts if you plan to bombard them for the next 20 years, or have them compare your new stuff to the oldies they remember. The brighter the flame, the sooner it'll burn out, and we can't have that in our perpetual money machine. Keep things mild, manageable, and appropriately forgettable, artistry be damned to nine hells and back. This is all planned and measured by the studio.
Interesting. "Just enough above average to keep us going" does seem to be the motto. I think (or hope) that it's starting to run its course though. At least in terms of the superhero franchises.
@@Hemlocker People became somewhat interested in superhero movies in the second half of the 2010s, and that’s about it. It was a fad that came and went. Also, when I say superhero, I mean marvel
It's like the characters are embarrassed to be in their own movie
THAAAANK YOU FOR POINTING THIS OUT. I could never put my finger on why i absolutely HATE modern superhero movies.
I remember when i first saw Rocky 1 in 2008 for the first time of my life and i really enjoyed it a lot. When I was telling my sister about it she said "ugh that movie is just too much. Its so melodramatic."
I thought that was the stupidest opinion ever. The characters weren't feigning or heightening their emotions unnecessarily. They genuinely felt things based on their circumstances and let it out.
Another thing is that, the writer thinks that if the goofiness is pointed out by some character then it is okay.
Which is not. It is still goofy but now you pointed it out, those who didn't understood it at 1st, now they also realised that. 😂
I can't remember which comedian talked about this, but when a comedian is bombing on-stage, the absolute worst thing they can do is say something like "well this is awkward, isn't it?". The only way they can salvage the situation is to just stick to whatever emotion or situation they were playing. Pointing out that something is goofy doesn't make the audience okay with it. Or in other words, audiences are much more likely to believe goofiness if the writer believes it themself.
So something that stuck out to me that I once heard regarding super hero movies. I don't remember where it was, but the speaker juxtaposed the X-men movies against modern marvel. In particular he referenced a scene where cyclopes mockingly asks wolverine, 'What did you expect, yellow spandex?' mocking the comicbook costumes.
I think the point was that Comicbook movies had 'arrived' now that they were taken 'seriously'. But the truth is that comic book movies never took themselves seriously. They've been ridiculing themselves like the kid in school who has the popular table's attention but has no idea why.
I would point out Top Gun Maverick as another example of a modern movie playing it's emotion straight, to great effect and big box office numbers
I hope it’s rereleased in theaters at some point. Most fun I’ve had watching a movie at the cinema in 20 years
It's like when your enjoying a really good meal and the waiter keeps coming to your table and asking "how's the food?"
Stan Smith: “Wa-ter?”
It's like you're enjoying a good read and you learn that the author is a complete moron by just seeing one word.
"Your"
@@Halo_LegendYou have a weird and rather childish obsession with grammar, to the point where it feels like you're a middle schooler trying to sound grown and mature.
@@PrincessOrionThe8th laughs in George Bernard Shaw.
Illumawhaty is such a bad line
Imagine watching Paul Atreides crash in the middle of the desert at midnight, with only his mother and himself as the only surviving members of his friends and family as far as he knows.
He also knows that the Harkonnens would never have brought them so far out for no reason. Chances are, they're in the domain of Shai'Hulud. Sandworm territory.
Lost, scared, tired and alone, Paul gazes out across the rolling Dunes of spice and sand. His eyes turn to his mother. Then he just smirks and says "Well *that* was something!"
You're right. It makes many Hollywood films feel both inconsequential (when the characters don't take anything seriously, the audience can't either) and samey, as if the same guy is doctoring all of the scripts. I can see why they do it: because it's safer. If a film aims for genuine emotion then it risks failing and becoming unintentionally laughable, but if everything is played for "it's a laugh, innit?" then there's no comparable fail-state; it's all just "pantomime" and it won't be held to the same standard as something that's shooting for real drama.
Up until Resurrections came out, Matrix 3 could have been considered the worst of the series.
But there's this scene near the end of 3 where Neo and Trinity are in the real world, flying this ship up into the sky to escape the sentinels.
The only real sky the people of that world knew was one always covered in clouds, but when the ship broke through them, Trinity got to see the real sky, and she said to herself, "It's beautiful."
That one great, uninterrupted scene in a mediocre film is better than anything in Matrix 4.
Well pointed-out. That moment struck a chord with me too.
Matrix 3 is diamond compared to the lump of coal Resurrections is. I still distinctly remember giving the latter a go when bored one night, and in the VERY FIRST SCENE there's this quirky girl being spotted by Agents, only for everything to pause for a few cringey seconds for her to make some kind of joke.
My mind instantly went back to the first scene of the original movie, and Trinity running desperate and scared (pointing her guns at the broken window, imploring herself to keep moving as her hands tremble slightly) from a single Agent.
The stark comparison instantly nuked my enjoyment and patience for Resurrections, and to this day I've never watched past that opening scene and I never will.
Sorry for the rant it feels good to express such things sometimes.
I almost never sleep in movie theatres when watching a movie, regardless of i'm enjoying it or not...
I slept halfway through Matrix Resurrections, don't remember most of it only the goofy scenes, and for me the movie was 1 hour long because of how much i slept through it
hating on Matrix 4 will not make you cool schmuck. you're still boring as shit
Resurrections is the second-best Matrix movie, though.
In the latest Jurassic World movie, there’s a scene in which Dallas Bryce Howard’s character, Claire, is talking with her adoptive daughter, that is currently going through an identity crisis not only because she is adopted but because she is a clone of another person (which is crazy, but doesn’t matter), the scene starts with sincerity and Dallas is a good actress, she can convey emotion of a concerned mother, but then it abruptly changes tone with her saying “I am not good at this, ain’t I” and the girl replying with “no you’re not”.
This snarky moment was so unnecessary, the scene was going fine having a more emotional feeling and it didn’t really needed humor, I mean, a snarky response by a teenager girl to her mom is not something unrealistic, but it the scene it was so not earned and insincere.
I know right. This Joss Whedon type of humor is what's killing Hollywood Movies.
Excellent video! The death of sincerity in a lot of Hollywood blockbusters has made me and others flock to the tokusatsu genre with shows like Kamen Rider and Ultraman. There, everything feels sincere and genuine, and it's such a breath of fresh air.
I’ve been flocking to Turkish dramas like Resurrection: Ertugrul
Fr
I have been watching the first kamen rider (and I keep forgetting to continue) and it feels nice to see people actually care for each other
But even Kamen Rider and Sentai have been having a similar problem ever since the 2000s. It's accelerated since the 2010s. The difference is Toei displays a "lack of commitment" differently than Hollywood is doing, and layers everything with dumb slapstick that dilutes the serious material of the shows.
Very nice assessment. These phrases date a television show or a movie. It's like the "seriously?!" line that got old, yet continues to zombie along. Or the, "wait, what?" But I think fans are very much to blame for this interruption of emotion in movies. Where once they criticized DC for taking itself too seriously, now they criticize Marvel for making everything a joke. But fans had signaled to studios for years that "light-hearted comedy" is exactly what they want.
Perfect example of why you shouldn't just give the fans what they want. They know what they like but they don't respect the structure that it takes to let the moments they love so much, land.
The first time I heard a character say "Well that just happened!" was Daria in "Is it Fall Yet" after the camp councilor threw a chair through a window and everyone else ran outside. It was about the year 2000 and that was hilarious and on the nose for Daria. But I have recently been rewatching "Daria" and Daria is one of my least favorite characters now - maybe some of it is no longer being a teenager myself, but the other part of it is being so burnt out on that style of humor.
NB: I found that clip on TikTok. It was a sink thrown out the window (not a chair), and Daria says deadpan "Well even I'll admit I found that amusing." But it was the "that just happened" style.
This video is so cathartic! This stuff has been bothering me for a while and it’s great to hear someone articulate it so effectively
Lethal weapon is imo the perfect example of a serious movie saga that while having tons of hilarious scenes it doesn’t let that stray away from the fact that it’s a more serious buddy cop action thriller. Or the first 3 die hards.
Well said, I couldn't agree more. I like many people have grown to tired of movies that try and be self aware because they're too scared to just be genuine. This is part of why older movies are so fun they were unapologetically sincere and people like that.
The reason people love movies like No Way Home and Deadpool even though they both have the same humor is because it fits the characters. Spider-Man is a wise cracking teenager and Deadpool makes pop culture remarks and 4th wall breaks all the time. It is part of their personality. But characters like iron man and doctor strange don’t.
Iron Man kind of started the trend. Can't speak for the comics because I'm not a comic guy, but his snarky personality was already set up in his very first movie. He's the dickhead billionaire playboy who refuses to take anything seriously... Until he's fundamentally changed by being kidnapped. After he then gets back, the snark becomes a kind of shield he keeps using throughout every appearance to mask fear or insecurities. It's a core part of who he is. Doctor Strange though, no. Not half as well integrated.
"Im not a comic guy" is why comic movies fucking suck.
This is the reason why anime has gotten so much more mainstream in the last decade, it tells stories without calling itself cringe or stupid.
So THAT'S why since 2020 i could finally start having japanese media on my pfp without getting banned or "anime pfp, opinion invalid"'d
4:50 The sad thing is, for all the snark and quips in Firefly, the characters can often be very sincere as well and that sincerity is never played for laughs; it's clear all the main characters genuinely care for each other and Mal, the snarkiest of them all, can shut his humour down at the drop of a hat when the situation calls for it. Whedon knew when to make quips to break the tension and when *not* to, and it's a shame that that subtlety seems to have been forgotten with time.
"So that just happened" is like a not so distant cousin to "Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation"
This is one of the many reasons I've been turned off modern media. Having one character per movie like that is fine but now every character is the same. Everythings undermined by a joke or quip.
another similar bit is when a character starts making a sincere speech … only for it to be revealed that the bg music is being played by another character mockingly
You deserve more subs. You're pretty smart. One suggestion, and this is something even big creators do, work on your volume levels. When you cut in things like B-roll laughs it was WAY louder than your own voice track. Try and equalize them a bit