Hollywoods Folly
Hollywoods folly
I consider myself a bit off a film buff, by that I mean I like good films, original films, ive not seen every film ever made nor am I film snob. But I enjoy the medium of film particularly action films and sci-fi films. In recent years Hollywood which in the past has made films which even if they made a loss at the box-office could be relied upon to make their money back in DVD sales but now due to the advent of NETFLIX, HULO, PRIME and other video on demand and streaming services this revenue source has dried up, meaning that film studios have been forced to lean on big budget franchise films trying to capture some of the Marvel magic. However on the whole this has failed, Warner Brothers DCEU has mainly been a washout and all signs are that new Aquaman film will do the same, Universals Dark Universe tried to become Marvel without even having one film out, now that whole film series is in series's jeopardy, Disney Continues down the Road of live action remakes of their animated properties in the hopes of living of adult Nostalgia for our c***dhoods, as for the Vandalism of Star Wars, there isn't enough time in the day for me to write down all my issues with Disney's new star wars universe.
One of the main issues that Hollywood now has is the plethora of remakes, reboots (or as the trendy execs prefer re-imaging s) and endless sequels and prequels, take one of my favourite Horror Movies Alien and its Sequel Aliens, one of the Biggest draws of that series was the Mystery of what the Xenomorph was, where it came from why it had a near pathological need to hunt kill and preserve the species. Now the whole Mythos of the series has been trampled on quasi religious nonsense, weird Alien science experiments. This has totally demassified what was in my opinion the Scariest monster in cinema all down to Hollywood's need for cash. Another Ridley Scot great (he is one of the biggest offenders in this regard) is Bladerunner a superb film one of the greatest most beautifully shot films ever made with a perfect ending that pleased both sides of the is Dekhard a Replicant or is he human debate now that perfect ending has been wasted. This is just the one side of the needless explaining and rewriting off movies which is going on in hollywood these days it appears that every major franchise is doing or has did this, star wars, star trek, mad max, the thing every major series is falling prey to the execs need to make big budget movies but fear of Original ideas. Instead they are aiming at existing fan-bases expecting for them to be the building blocks of their future profits.
Another issue I have with Hollywood is their films are ether overly long with most franchise movies hitting the 2 ½ to 3 hour mark main culprits with this are the Pirates of the Caribbean films which went from around about 1 ½ hours in the first film to nearly 3 hours with dead man's chest, most of which if your totally honest is complete fluff and filler. Not to mention the films lost their Magic after Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly left leaving us with bland Replacements and the Johnny Depp show with every weird event in the world being some kind of contrived story revolving Captain Jack Sparrow instead of as him being a passenger on this wild adventure as originally intended. Other culprits in the overly long movies include the transformers movies, Harry Potter, the Hobbit (which should off been a TV series and not a movie)
Moving along the same lines with our last thought with the Hobbit why make the Hobbit into 3 movies? why make Mockingjay into 2 films? Avengers Infinity Wars aside because that left on a great cliffhanger. Take a book that I can read in about 5-6 hours and make it into a 9 hour movie that includes a whole heap of things not in the actual book, this was especially Grating as Peter Jackson managed to turn each of the Lord of the rings books into single movies which I consider to be Cinematic Master pieces the Movies that got me into High fantasy I cant tell you how much I owe to those movies, I put my love of Mythology, Game of Thrones, History all down to my going and watching those films on Christmas eve with my Parents and sister at 11 years old. But as for the Hobbit to me It just seems a bit of a Money Grab in all honesty as does Mockingjay and all the others that have divided one book into 2 or more movies.
Is there Franchises that I like, yes off course there is I love the Marvel movies I hope they keep making them in high quality, I enjoyed the recent Planet of the apes trilogy which told its own story and didn't play on the old 60's 70's series. I enjoyed the Force awakens although it was mostly derivative of a new hope but it had set up future films in the series, its just a shame Kathleen Kennedy and Rhian Johnston decided to go and throw out the baby with the bath water and disregard every rule set up in star wars, I thought wonder woman was a great film in what has been a extremely lacklustre DC film series which has been much too dark and serious, instead of light and breezy.
So is there hope for Hollywood which has allowed Stars to allow their egos and salary's to rise to high? Yes which makes producing low budget movies with a big star harder to do unless its a passion project for that actor. Where I believe they can make new fun original movies? Well we have some 5000 years of human history I would go and see a film about Lord Nelson as would many others, smaller low budget comic book movies could be made not ever film needs to be a Franchise movie and can fit into the overall Marvel or DC universe. Or there's little-known characters out there that could make great movies Rebellion all ready has Rogue Trooper in the works which is little known in the US and outside of the UK, more stand-alone films like what would happen in the 80's and 90's would be good self-contained stories with a beginning a middle and an end, no need to watch 17 other films before going in no characters who exist just to get a spin-off just simple story telling.
But if we are going to keep getting Franchise movies, try and avoid being the next avengers and do your own thing as the fans will go for that as long as the story's are well made well told and touch the souls of the viewer
Thank You
John
Please feel free to discuss my views with me in the comments and with each other.
I consider myself a bit off a film buff, by that I mean I like good films, original films, ive not seen every film ever made nor am I film snob. But I enjoy the medium of film particularly action films and sci-fi films. In recent years Hollywood which in the past has made films which even if they made a loss at the box-office could be relied upon to make their money back in DVD sales but now due to the advent of NETFLIX, HULO, PRIME and other video on demand and streaming services this revenue source has dried up, meaning that film studios have been forced to lean on big budget franchise films trying to capture some of the Marvel magic. However on the whole this has failed, Warner Brothers DCEU has mainly been a washout and all signs are that new Aquaman film will do the same, Universals Dark Universe tried to become Marvel without even having one film out, now that whole film series is in series's jeopardy, Disney Continues down the Road of live action remakes of their animated properties in the hopes of living of adult Nostalgia for our c***dhoods, as for the Vandalism of Star Wars, there isn't enough time in the day for me to write down all my issues with Disney's new star wars universe.
One of the main issues that Hollywood now has is the plethora of remakes, reboots (or as the trendy execs prefer re-imaging s) and endless sequels and prequels, take one of my favourite Horror Movies Alien and its Sequel Aliens, one of the Biggest draws of that series was the Mystery of what the Xenomorph was, where it came from why it had a near pathological need to hunt kill and preserve the species. Now the whole Mythos of the series has been trampled on quasi religious nonsense, weird Alien science experiments. This has totally demassified what was in my opinion the Scariest monster in cinema all down to Hollywood's need for cash. Another Ridley Scot great (he is one of the biggest offenders in this regard) is Bladerunner a superb film one of the greatest most beautifully shot films ever made with a perfect ending that pleased both sides of the is Dekhard a Replicant or is he human debate now that perfect ending has been wasted. This is just the one side of the needless explaining and rewriting off movies which is going on in hollywood these days it appears that every major franchise is doing or has did this, star wars, star trek, mad max, the thing every major series is falling prey to the execs need to make big budget movies but fear of Original ideas. Instead they are aiming at existing fan-bases expecting for them to be the building blocks of their future profits.
Another issue I have with Hollywood is their films are ether overly long with most franchise movies hitting the 2 ½ to 3 hour mark main culprits with this are the Pirates of the Caribbean films which went from around about 1 ½ hours in the first film to nearly 3 hours with dead man's chest, most of which if your totally honest is complete fluff and filler. Not to mention the films lost their Magic after Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly left leaving us with bland Replacements and the Johnny Depp show with every weird event in the world being some kind of contrived story revolving Captain Jack Sparrow instead of as him being a passenger on this wild adventure as originally intended. Other culprits in the overly long movies include the transformers movies, Harry Potter, the Hobbit (which should off been a TV series and not a movie)
Moving along the same lines with our last thought with the Hobbit why make the Hobbit into 3 movies? why make Mockingjay into 2 films? Avengers Infinity Wars aside because that left on a great cliffhanger. Take a book that I can read in about 5-6 hours and make it into a 9 hour movie that includes a whole heap of things not in the actual book, this was especially Grating as Peter Jackson managed to turn each of the Lord of the rings books into single movies which I consider to be Cinematic Master pieces the Movies that got me into High fantasy I cant tell you how much I owe to those movies, I put my love of Mythology, Game of Thrones, History all down to my going and watching those films on Christmas eve with my Parents and sister at 11 years old. But as for the Hobbit to me It just seems a bit of a Money Grab in all honesty as does Mockingjay and all the others that have divided one book into 2 or more movies.
Is there Franchises that I like, yes off course there is I love the Marvel movies I hope they keep making them in high quality, I enjoyed the recent Planet of the apes trilogy which told its own story and didn't play on the old 60's 70's series. I enjoyed the Force awakens although it was mostly derivative of a new hope but it had set up future films in the series, its just a shame Kathleen Kennedy and Rhian Johnston decided to go and throw out the baby with the bath water and disregard every rule set up in star wars, I thought wonder woman was a great film in what has been a extremely lacklustre DC film series which has been much too dark and serious, instead of light and breezy.
So is there hope for Hollywood which has allowed Stars to allow their egos and salary's to rise to high? Yes which makes producing low budget movies with a big star harder to do unless its a passion project for that actor. Where I believe they can make new fun original movies? Well we have some 5000 years of human history I would go and see a film about Lord Nelson as would many others, smaller low budget comic book movies could be made not ever film needs to be a Franchise movie and can fit into the overall Marvel or DC universe. Or there's little-known characters out there that could make great movies Rebellion all ready has Rogue Trooper in the works which is little known in the US and outside of the UK, more stand-alone films like what would happen in the 80's and 90's would be good self-contained stories with a beginning a middle and an end, no need to watch 17 other films before going in no characters who exist just to get a spin-off just simple story telling.
But if we are going to keep getting Franchise movies, try and avoid being the next avengers and do your own thing as the fans will go for that as long as the story's are well made well told and touch the souls of the viewer
Thank You
John
Please feel free to discuss my views with me in the comments and with each other.
6 years ago
