I'm talking movies and TV. And yeah, every year or two there's a journalistic burst of "Everything at the cinema/on the streaming service is a sequel and/or a superhero movie. Where's the mature cinema/TV for adults we used to enjoy? Why can't Hollywood give us more original stories? etc etc" Perhaps the Covid break from cinema going cooled down that talk for a while, but now that we are out of that, I get the feeling we genuinely are in a particularly clear "stale idea" crisis.
I don't write this out of particular disappointment with current movies - I still haven't even seen the Top Gun movie, or the new Thor. The latter is definitely suffering a bit of a Marvel fan backlash (it's too jokey for many, apparently, and feels more like a parody.)
But more generally, based on watching quite a few Youtube reviewers, it's safe to say that:
a. it's clear that Disney has milked the Star Wars universe dry. The critical reception to their series is just getting worse and worse, and as I didn't even care for the Mandalorian, it's not like I'm hanging out for anything new from that world. The universe, as I have written before, has a fatal flaw: no consistent view of the Force, which was the key appeal of the first couple of movies. The TV shows are not fixing that. It's incapable of retrospective correction, probably.
b. Similarly, the same can be said of their Marvel content, with general dissatisfaction growing with the way the movies and series are messily dealing with a multiverse. (I also watched a long Youtube video by someone very keen to explain that the Endgame movie, and subsequent stuff, has dealt with time travel inconsistently. I never did like the Endgame explanation.)
c. The Jurassic franchise is dead - there are so many terrible reviews for the current one.
d. Hard to believe the (not Spielberg directed) Indiana Jones movie will be good. Due out next summer.
e. Honestly, who cares that there are at least two Avatar movies coming out. Had no interest in the first movie, less in any sequel.
f. People went to see (yet another) dark Batman. But I don't get the feeling it re-started any particular new enthusiasm for the character. DC based movies, few of which interest me, have a very high "miss" rate.
g. Has their ever been more knives sharpened to attack a series than those waiting for the Amazon Tolkien prequel-ly show to start?
It just truly feels that everything has been sucked dry, and everyone can see it.
Sure, there will always be a couple of exceptions such as the surprise quality, apparently, of the Top Gun sequel - although it is not like that is going to be a franchise as such. There's a good chance the next Mission Impossible will still be good, too. (Although I found the last one underwhelming.)
But overall, at no time have I have felt that the complaints about lack of creativity from Hollywood were ever more deserved.
Is it the fault of the culture wars, perhaps? It probably does have something to do with it, as even allowing for Disney and other studios being super keen to have "representation" of women and gay or trans, it is hard to imagine stories now that are unifyingly appealing to the extremes of politics now. The world views have become so divergent.
Can't remember what Substack it was on but this appears to be the thesis of one Substacker in particular, that we live in a time of cultural decadence - no new ideas, and the existing ideas are continually rehashed for the benefit of a tiny and diminishing group of big companies (not audiences or artists). It's a simplistic argument but seems fairly accurate.
ReplyDeleteI think I perhaps should have made it clearer that I wasn't complaining so much about story ideas being re-hashed, but rather how it seems to been such a long time since we saw a movie that set up a novel "universe" that was promising for further stories. It's not like it has to be a dozen movies I want to see from a new "cinematic universe" either - I mean, something like the original Pirates of the Caribbean had such scope and looked so fantastic that you knew you would happily go back to it at least a couple of times. (I'm a big defender of the initial 3 movies as a very impressive trilogy, even though most people found the third too bloated.)
ReplyDeleteI would like to see a new movie that had that type of appeal - wanting to go back to its 'world" - again.
I would like to see a new movie that had that type of appeal - wanting to go back to its 'world" - again.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind see some Michael Moorcock worlds on screen. The hard and enigmatic Brisbane Scifi Greg Egan is apparently having one of his novels brought to the screen. That could be interesting. He is original but his characters are poorly conceived and he tends to be too technical at times; almost as if the novel writing is a vehicle for his ideas. Very clever man though.
It's very difficult to find original material. I'm currently watching Night Sky with J B McKinnon and Sissy Spacek in the lead roles. Slow moving but the story has slowly drawn me in.
I'm done with hero movies. I enjoyed The Boys but that's it and for the greater part I never got into hero movies. They are just an extension of the big man coming to the rescue movies. I think those movies are popular because deep down we know in times of crisis no-one comes to our rescue, we just have knuckle down and see it through. Pure escapism and I really want to throw Chuck Norris throw out of a window, into jet exhaust, and then off a cliff.
I agree with you about Greg Egan - although I think I only read one, maybe two? Good on ideas, but not good on character.
ReplyDeleteI saw the trailer for Night Sky and it looked interesting, but I have trouble with watching Amazon on my main TV. (There's a sound lag problem, so I have to watch it via casting from a laptop or phone.) I think its on Amazon?
I've never read Michael Moorcock - I had the impression he is mainly a quasi fantasy genre, more so than science fiction? But I could be wrong. I'm very lukewarm about fantasy - for example, I know lots of people loved Terry Prachett, but I don't feel drawn to it. Is there a good title of Moorcock's you would recommend to a newcomer?
I've never read Michael Moorcock - I had the impression he is mainly a quasi fantasy genre, more so than science fiction?
ReplyDeleteTrue. Keep in mind I read him in my late teens so perhaps he hasn't aged well but Moorcock was a very highly regarded author. It's not sci-fantasy in the usual sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancers_at_the_End_of_Time
Hari Kunzru, writing in the Guardian, described The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy as "one of the great postwar English fantasies".[9]
Moorcock can be excellent. A huge talent, his early fantasy epics 'The HIstory of the Runestaff' and the early 'Elric' and a few others of that sort still stand up as models of their kind. He's a restless sort of genius, so has never been satisfied to be just a fantasy author or just a science fiction author, and quickly turned to more experimental and modernist forms - for this reason he hasn't made such a significant mark on the science fiction and fantasy fields as he might otherwise have had. But of his more explicitly modernist works, his Jerry Cornelius books are an undeniable masterpiece. I'd definitely seek out and read the first in that series, 'The Final Programme', fairly straightforward narrative with some very amusing James Bond style twists and turns.
ReplyDeleteOh, and he's a genial chap too - I'm his friend on Facebook!
Hari Kunzru, writing in the Guardian, described The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy as "one of the great postwar English fantasies".[9]
ReplyDeleteI am quite interested in that trilogy, but all that I've read is a (spin off?) novel from the trilogy about a Miss Mavis Ming and it is a rather thin and twee narrative.
He's still alive! I assumed he'd be at least 100 and look like Gandalf. 82, I see.
ReplyDelete"Can't remember what Substack it was on but this appears to be the thesis of one Substacker in particular, that we live in a time of cultural decadence..."
ReplyDeleteTotal full spectrum decadence. When the stupid are upwardly mobile and there is almost zero downward mobility at the top. Its like the mouse utopia experiments where the mice went extinct, every time, no matter how often the experiment was repeated. We have never been so close to nuclear war. Thank goodness the Russians AREN'T decadent. So they are pistol-whipping the entirety of the American alliance network. Making complete fools of everyone.