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Post by vegalyra on Jan 22, 2020 15:55:48 GMT
While there are obvious exceptions, the art form is dead. Culturally and creatively, Hollywood is at (or nearing) its nadir. There is no denying this. When they started playing for the Chinese (and taking their money) they started going for the lowest common denominator. In one or two generations (at the most) the communist Chinese have gone from mostly peasants to having a fairly good sized Middle Class that have never been exposed to Hollywood. The "creative" folk in Hollywood have no reason to make anything that deep or original when they can recycle the same junk and feed it to a hungry Chinese audience.
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Post by lenlenlen1 on Jan 22, 2020 17:23:38 GMT
In the 1980s great movies and instant classics came out every month but none made a billion at the box office. Now horrible movies often make a billion like Transformers, Captain Marvel, and The Rise of Skywalker. It seems society has become mindless consumers with no critical thinking skills. Discuss. In all fairness many, many other things have changed in the movie industry that make it even possible for a movie to make billions. Its not the audiences. The truth is when you adjust for inflation LESS people are going to the movie nowadays than ever before.
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Post by jamesbamesy on Jan 22, 2020 17:34:17 GMT
None made billion(s) because the inflation wasn’t as high back then.
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Post by towncaller on Jan 22, 2020 18:09:06 GMT
In the 1980s great movies and instant classics came out every month but none made a billion at the box office. Now horrible movies often make a billion like Transformers, Captain Marvel, and The Rise of Skywalker. It seems society has become mindless consumers with no critical thinking skills. Discuss. Some didn't even make millions, and some were box office failures but great films, like Carpenter's The Thing. But, as that same movie shows us, there's really no such thing as an "instant classic".
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Post by johnspartan on Jan 22, 2020 18:16:47 GMT
In the 1980s great movies and instant classics came out every month but none made a billion at the box office. Now horrible movies often make a billion like Transformers, Captain Marvel, and The Rise of Skywalker. It seems society has become mindless consumers with no critical thinking skills. Discuss. Some didn't even make millions, and some were box office failures but great films, like Carpenter's The Thing. But, as that same movie shows us, there's really no such thing as an "instant classic". The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, and The Natural are all instant classics. Fact.
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Post by sostie on Jan 22, 2020 18:32:38 GMT
Ticket prices are now higher
Booking tickets to see the fil you want is easier
There are more cinema screens
There are more screenings
Releases are simulatneous worldwide rather than staggered over a year
There are films being shown in markets they were not in the 80s, most significantly China
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Post by johnspartan on Jan 22, 2020 19:04:24 GMT
Ticket prices are now higher Booking tickets to see the fil you want is easier There are more cinema screens There are more screenings Releases are simulatneous worldwide rather than staggered over a year There are films being shown in markets they were not in the 80s, most significantly China Ah, yes! So it was in 1994 China started allowing foreign films in to their country. I always noticed the mid 90s was the time Hollywood movies started steeply declining in quality. I think this is a huge piece of the puzzle and the reason 80s Hollywood movies always felt like they were made for Americans but now they just seem mostly generic.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 22, 2020 20:04:32 GMT
Yeah, it was the 90s when the changes became noticeable to me. By the later half of the 90s I stopped hearing about lower budget films. Also, the video market became so cheap--this started after the mid 80s--direct to video started to look very bargain basement in production values and cinematography.
The earliest Hollywood film China let into their country, supposedly, was the 1976 Nightmare in Badham County starring Mr Brady - Robert Reed as a Mark Twain-ish prison warden and Ginger - Tina Louise as a sadistic white trash prison guard in a women's prison where slavery never ended. It depicts the rural US as a slave worker colony.
This was a tv-movie which had additional scenes shot for a theatrical release--including the most unattractive lesbian rape scene you never wanted to witness.
I read the film was shown in China and the star (Deborah Raffin) went there as an ambassador for Hollywood.
This opened the door to Hollywood in China-supposedly.
But over the years we have seen some Chinese-centered films getting big promotions in the West like the Last Emperor, the Joy Luck Club, Crouching Tiger. been building for a long time.
Hollywood in the 80s and 90s ate up all the smaller production companies and distributors and then concentrated on a globalist outlook-they don't care that western audiences are being sidelined for China (if this is the plan). It is not good business sense to abandon your core market unless you feel you can't lose financially or it is about control and not money.
Even the so-called competitors like Netflix are Asia-centered--why does a South Korean film (Parasite) need so much patronage from a Western film company and media?
I thought something was amiss when Titanic was getting so much ridiculous attention--they were saying that old men in rural India were watching it.
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Post by johnspartan on Jan 22, 2020 20:13:32 GMT
Yeah, it was the 90s when the changes became noticeable to me. By the later half of the 90s I stopped hearing about lower budget films. Also, the video market became so cheap--this started after the mid 80s--direct to video started to look very bargain basement in production values and cinematography. The earliest Hollywood film China let into their country, supposedly, was the 1976 Nightmare in Badham County starring Mr Brady - Robert Reed as a Mark Twain-ish prison warden and Ginger - Tina Louise as a sadistic white trash prison guard in a women's prison where slavery never ended. It depicts the rural US as a slave worker colony. This was a tv-movie which had additional scenes shot for a theatrical release--including the most unattractive lesbian rape scene you never wanted to witness. I read the film was shown in China and the star (Deborah Raffin) went there as an ambassador for Hollywood. This opened the door to Hollywood in China-supposedly. But over the years we have seen some Chinese-centered films getting big promotions in the West like the Last Emperor, the Joy Luck Club, Crouching Tiger. been building for a long time. Hollywood in the 80s and 90s ate up all the smaller production companies and distributors and then concentrated on a globalist outlook-they don't care that western audiences are being sidelined for China (if this is the plan). It is not good business sense to abandon your core market unless you feel you can't lose financially or it is about control and not money. Even the so-called competitors like Netflix are Asia-centered--why does a South Korean film (Parasite) need so much patronage from a Western film company and media? I thought something was amiss when Titanic was getting so much ridiculous attention--they were saying that old men in rural India were watching it. Great, informative post! I never understood the huge push Crouching Tiger had from Hollywood and the Oscars. To me it was just generic wire fu nonsense. Now it makes sense why that push happened.
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Post by theravenking on Jan 22, 2020 20:28:15 GMT
Tickets were $4 , about $15 now True. On the other hand today we have streaming which has made watching movies cheaper than ever before. It has also made many classic movies available to audiences. And yet most people prefer to watch the latest blockbusters.
It is really sad to know that Adam Sandler’s Murder Mystery was the most popular film on Netflix last year. I’m sure there are also people who try to broaden their horizon by watching older classics, but I suspect it’s only a tiny minority of viewers.
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Post by Jason143 on Jan 22, 2020 21:26:00 GMT
Very true.
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