Modern cinema

[Lizerd]

Crap, I might never live to see the day when star wars dies 

[Halichoeres]

Good point, paintingdinos. That's got to be a big part of it.

That makes sense, more profits, more sales, etc. But you have a point that dinosaurs are key to jurassic park. Then the question is, how will these huge franchises die?

I don´t think they ever truly will. They usually just take a break when a movie doesn´t do as well as expected and come back with a reboot once enough time has passed (Jurassic World, Star Wars, Terminator, Predator, Alien would be some of the more obvious examples).

Edit: What I find interesting is that despite the financial success that the Jurassic Park franchise has, there haven´t been any big budget dinosaur blockbusters by other studios. Usually when a franchise is successful, there are others who follow the trend. Think Transformers - Pacific Rim or MCU - DCEU for example. There even is the perfect niche of having realistic dinosaurs to differentiate yourself from JW, yet nobody seems interested to tap that market.

I wonder if the reason that there are fewer dinosaur copycats is that the handful of attempts in the 90s (such as Carnosaur) were not well received and didn't make much money. I for one would like to see the JW franchise upstaged by some better dinosaur stories.

[Lizerd]

That would make sense, modern cinematography is driven by profits.

[Sinornis]

I don't want to start a geopolitical debate, buuuut I'm going to leave this snippet from wikipedia here:

In 2012 the country became the second-largest market in the world by box office receipts. In 2016, the gross box office in China was CN¥45.71 billion (US$6.58 billion). The country has the largest number of screens in the world since 2016,[8] and is expected to become the largest theatrical market by 2019.[9]

Nowadays, a lot of films make their profit overseas. Films that can easily be adapted to and that are exciting to international audiences are going to turn a bigger profit, which I'm sure is very attractive to most studios. This surely is no small part of why we're seeing movies dump more into CG and visual effects vs. deeply fleshed out characters, meaningful political/social/whatever commentary, amazing dialog, and unique stories. Why bother? The less work studios have to do adapting films for international audiences (who are inherently going to relate to and be interested in different things than American audiences), the better. Which isn't to imply that well-written "big budget" films that don't rely almost solely on visual appeal aren't getting made- Mad Max Fury Road was a film that managed to skirt by with having excellent visual action sequences, little dialog, and still managed to tell a poignant story and brush up against some current social issues.

Those films DO exist, but they aren't going to appeal to everyone. I was really just poor luck that the JP franchise went down the road it did, but really, it makes sense. The original novel was a suspense/thriller that fell into the hands of the right people at the right time.... but great direction, good actors, and a wonderful musical score was never what got butts in seats. "Dinosaurs" is the draw, and as long as there are "dinosaurs" in the film, I'd argue that anything else hardly factors in getting those ticket sales.

.... great direction, good actors, and a wonderful musical score; in addition to landscape cinematography and tribal awareness, Black Panther had it all. Unfortunately, the Black Panther storyline connected back to the city of Los Angeles, going down a familiar road of american cultural issues. Did Black Panther really need the "African American" aspect to be successful?? It would have been a breath of fresh air to keep the storyline totally in Africa, among the wonderful tribes and incredible landscapes. Where does the Black Panther story go from here? Probably down the same road taken by the JP franchise, absurdity avenue and selling tickets to fools like me.

https://avianmusing.blogspot.com/

[Halichoeres]

.... great direction, good actors, and a wonderful musical score; in addition to landscape cinematography and tribal awareness, Black Panther had it all. Unfortunately, the Black Panther storyline connected back to the city of Los Angeles, going down a familiar road of american cultural issues. Did Black Panther really need the "African American" aspect to be successful?? It would have been a breath of fresh air to keep the storyline totally in Africa, among the wonderful tribes and incredible landscapes. Where does the Black Panther story go from here? Probably down the same road taken by the JP franchise, absurdity avenue and selling tickets to fools like me.

I believe it did. The "American cultural issues" gave the Black Panther a resonance that it wouldn't have had if confined to Africa. A movie set entirely within Africa would have elided everything that it means to be black in a world that is, to a first approximation, white dominated. I think such a movie might have had wonderful cinematography but would have had nothing interesting to say.

PS it was Oakland, not Los Angeles.

[Lizerd]

When something new and good shows up, its a big hit. Probably because we as people like change and new things.

[ITdactyl]

I'd hate to be the "little guy" working for big corporate modern cinema.  You get hired to create 10 creature designs, 2 get picked and the other 8 dissed.  Animators come in to attempt to render the design in moving 3D, find your designs too intricate for the available technology and revise it.  Cinematographers "recommend" additional tweaks to the design to fit the imagery they want.  The director (too) imposes his vision.  The producers also impose their opinions on what will make the film sell (more teeth).  One design gets cut out of the film for being in a non-critical scene.  The film flops because it ruined a generation's "childhood".  The bad reviews pour in.  A blogger picks your creature and mocks the design, saying it looks nowhere near what they imagine the beast would have been.  Other people chime in.

You grab coffee, get a call from another studio and start on 20 more designs for a movie that will "change cinema as we know it".


Haha, I'm going off tangent.  Here's a "Sea Dragon" from the upcoming Aquaman film from DC.


Yep, the Spinosaurs saw the asteroid, promptly dove and hid in the Marianas Trench.  Their descendants got domesticated by the Atlanteans.  Of course that's totally made up.

[Lizerd]

Corporation is corporation, and simply put nothing is perfect so someone will always be harsh on something. Modern society is not kind.

[John]

Modern cinema right now is totally devoid of originality...it's just an endless series of sequels,remakes and reboots.It was much better when I was a kid,with originals like Porky's 2,Meatballs 2,Police academy 4,Star Trek 5,Friday the 13th part 8,Halloween 3,Superman 3,A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, and Ghostbusters 2.

[DinoToyForum]

Modern cinema right now is totally devoid of originality...it's just an endless series of sequels,remakes and reboots.It was much better when I was a kid,with originals like Porky's 2,Meatballs 2,Police academy 4,Star Trek 5,Friday the 13th part 8,Halloween 3,Superman 3,A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, and Ghostbusters 2.

Haha! Point taken. Four of those in your list are from 1989 though, not even 30 years ago, that's pretty modern. And look at this graph... You could say that the 1980s was the birth of the 'modern cinema' being bemoaned in this thread...


From here: https://stephenfollows.com/hollywood-sequels-by-the-numbers/

In any case..

I'll see your Porky's 2 and raise you an original Scarface from the same year.
I'll see your Meatballs 2 and raise you an original Ghostbusters from the same year.
I'll see your Police academy 4 and raise you an original Predator from the same year.
I'll see your Star Trek 5 and raise you an original Honey, I shrunk the kids from the same year.
I'll see your Friday the 13th part 8 and raise you an original The Little Mermaid from the same year.
I'll see your Halloween 3 and raise you an original E.T. from the same year.
I'll see your Superman 3 and raise you an original Krull from the same year.
I'll see your A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and raise you an original The 'Burbs, from the same year.
I'll see your Ghostbusters 2 and raise you an original The Abyss, from the same year.

OK, some of those are weak, but 1989 was a particularly bad year! It was also the year of Burton's Batman, which pretty much invented the modern superhero movie, so you could give 1989 that if you were feeling generous, but I didn't include it because it is technically a remake. Someone will have to crunch the numbers and bring the graph above up to date to see if the trend has changed since 2009.

[John]

Modern cinema right now is totally devoid of originality...it's just an endless series of sequels,remakes and reboots.It was much better when I was a kid,with originals like Porky's 2,Meatballs 2,Police academy 4,Star Trek 5,Friday the 13th part 8,Halloween 3,Superman 3,A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, and Ghostbusters 2.

Haha! Point taken. Four of those in your list are from 1989 though, not even 30 years ago, that's pretty modern. And look at this graph... You could say that the 1980s was the birth of the 'modern cinema' being bemoaned in this thread...


From here: https://stephenfollows.com/hollywood-sequels-by-the-numbers/

In any case..

I'll see your Porky's 2 and raise you an original Scarface from the same year.
I'll see your Meatballs 2 and raise you an original Ghostbusters from the same year.
I'll see your Police academy 4 and raise you an original Predator from the same year.
I'll see your Star Trek 5 and raise you an original Honey, I shrunk the kids from the same year.
I'll see your Friday the 13th part 8 and raise you an original The Little Mermaid from the same year.
I'll see your Halloween 3 and raise you an original E.T. from the same year.
I'll see your Superman 3 and raise you an original Krull from the same year.
I'll see your A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and raise you an original The 'Burbs, from the same year.
I'll see your Ghostbusters 2 and raise you an original The Abyss, from the same year.

OK, some of those are weak, but 1989 was a particularly bad year! It was also the year of Burton's Batman, which pretty much invented the modern superhero movie, so you could give 1989 that if you were feeling generous, but I didn't include it because it is technically a remake. Someone will have to crunch the numbers and bring the graph above up to date to see if the trend has changed since 2009.

Ah the 80's,back when a reboot was called a remake...
In all seriousness,I don't really have a problem with remakes and sequels,otherwise I would be the biggest hypocrite for having seen The Avengers in the movies...

[Lizerd]

Reboots, squeals, prequels, and remakes =money
I love that infographic You just made my day

[Gwangi]

People, original movies are still being made. Hollywood makes what sells, who can blame them? But droves of independent and foreign movies are released each year too, and don't forget all the Oscar bait films released at the end of the year, many of which are also original stories.


https://stephenfollows.com/how-many-films-are-released-each-year/

[Lizerd]

Its all about money, looks like more non-hollywood movies are coming out. Money money money 

[ITdactyl]

I decided to contribute my meager coins to the great American money pool and saw the fish man movie.

Fish man went through a wormhole and ended up in Jurassic Park.

Spoiler

Micro-theropods with dubious integument and floppy hands.  Recycled pterosaurs.  Pliosaurs (aside from the token one shown in the trailer)

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And yet, based on the audience reviews online, people loved the prehistoric cameos (I have yet to see complaints, even from reddit).  I guess modern popcorn cinema will always be driven by whatever tickles extra coin from pockets of the masses.

[stargatedalek]

I haven't seen Aqua Man, I'm low-key refusing because even if it's good it's only going to be good in a half ironic way given the negative reputation of it's source material (and yes, I'm aware that reputation is likely undeserved). And yet it's beating out Bumblebee and Into the Spiderverse which are both incredible movies, worthy of spots among the best of their respective genres.

As someone who would never touch the Bayformers films again with a ten foot pole, Bumblebee is simply everything that it needs to be. Lighter on the action without sacrificing intrigue, designs are true to their originals, human cast that can actually act, and the humor was both clean and genuine.

Into the Spiderverse is in every possible way the perfect Spiderman movie. I haven't had to chose a new favorite animated picture in nearly a decade, so I guess it was about time.

[ITdactyl]

@stargatedalek , I'm taking note of that recommendation for "Bumblebee".  I'm glad the Transformers franchise is somehow redeemed.  I do admit to buying a premium ticket and turning my brain off just to see dinobots in the big screen (from the original Michael Bay run).

After seeing your comment, I kinda regret not catching the screening of "Into the Spiderverse" now.

You might change you mind abour "hombre de agua".  A lot of the scenes/plot either improve on or make fun of the source material.  I'm no good at recommending film though... I mean, I preferred Thor: Ragnarok over Black Panther, despite the popular opinion.

[stargatedalek]

I also preferred Thor: Ragnarok, though Black Panther is (quite justifiably) "more than a film" for a lot of people so I feel it's popularity is very well deserved.

I will see Aquaman someday, though I probably won't see it in the theater unless I go with friends or family.

Transformers 4 (with the dinobots) was arguably the most redeemable of the Bay films. The fifth movie was so truly terrible that it was hard for me to even enjoy it as relaxed action fun.

[Lizerd]

I do agree that Black Panther was a good movie, as well as having deeper meaning in today's society and current issues. When you have the money you can easily make a film that has not only a good story but also has a deeper meaning. Then there is aqua man, a buff merman.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Spoiler

odd no one has mentioned the obvious.....Aquaman is a retold story of King Arthur and Excalibur

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