The Dark Age of Film, Pt. II

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Welcome back my friends. Today is the day we get into the meat and potatoes of the modern film issue: How can the flow of mediocre films be stopped?

The Cure

Though things are looking pretty bad (good for the companies, bad for the smart viewer), there are ways that exist for stopping the flow of sub-par content. First and foremost, stop making so many movies. If the pacing of companies slowed down, their content would obviously increase to some capacity because they wouldn’t be so rushed to write a script, shoot it and release it. Marvel used to release two to three films a year (maximum) in its prime, and most of them were fantastic. Now Marvel is churning out upwards of 10 projects or more every year and 90% of them are terrible.

Coincidence? I think not.

Second, the entertainment industry needs to keep its fingers out of the political pies. What they have been doing lately is destroying their works because they decide to add “representation” for every person in every story, even if it makes no sense. As a result, you get characters that are completely worthless and bland, like the “new 007” in No Time to Die, who happens to be a black woman…and does nothing interesting or worthwhile throughout the film’s runtime.

To me, this proves that what studios are starting to care about isn’t making an awesome new 007, it’s about having some random person show up to display their race and declare they are now the character that you grew to love.

Third, make up new, interesting stories. Yeah, J.J Abrams…we saw A New Hope, you don’t have to make another Death Star. Really Tim Miller? Are you just going to keep making the Terminator come back to the past over and over again like the last five movies? Okay. Ah, Marvel, rebooting The Fantastic Four for the third time…and making Thor’s girlfriend turn into…Thor.

Does NO ONE get tired of this?

How hard is it to sit down and come up with a brand-new chapter to an existing property, make a new character or wipe the slate clean and just make a new movie from scratch? If good stories were formed and/or made into films rather than just hijacking something that already exists to make it stupider (such as Amazon did with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), then the industry would be in a good place.

Finally, stop making reboots, remakes and sequels of/to existing films. This problem in particular is honestly the fault of the viewers for blindly accepting whatever labeled work is handed to them. This only feeds the fire of the film industry turning out garbage to fill their paycheck. If reboots/remakes and sequels stopped being such a major part of the industry, there would be room for new stories to be told.

Conclusion

We live in a world full of people that look only for that which they recognize and find comfortable and familiar. But like any other product that is waved in front of a customer to be sold, “why have the old one when you can have the new, improved version?!”

I find this mindset to be not only a disgrace to film as a whole, but also to society itself. Individuals demand more and to them it is given. Like a drug, we turn to the now endless supply of media and entertainment before us; a distraction from reality that we don’t even have to get off the couch and go to the theatre for anymore. It is important that we remain vigilant and aware of where we stand so that we don’t trick ourselves into wasting our lives on infinite trash.

I would implore you, as I often implore myself: don’t praise stupid movies. No matter what galaxy it comes from.

Dylan

Fellowship Studios