Things Everyone Hates About Modern Movies

[soliloquy]

not reading through the entire thread, but something i've been picking up over the last several years:
1) the volume in movies is, not only inconsistent, but also inaudible. background, more often than not is too loud, and music is also too loud. the FX on VOX is not clear.

I thought this was just me aging and complaining as a boomer-wanna-be, but apprently i'm not the only one either. Lots of articles and youtube vids citing that even GenZs are noticing sound quality just getting worse and worse.

not sure why that is.....




another issue i've been having with modern movies is some weird sentiment that in order for anything to be called a 'movie' it has to be dark and moody. A childs show? Dark and moody! a cooking show? Dark and moody! a car show? DARK AND MOODY.

not sure why everything to just be so dark. Sure, its more adult oriented. But stuff that was catered to children from the get go, why are they now dark? Catering to the children that watched it when young? Maybe. But its getting really tiresome and irritating.

 

[Drew]

1) the volume in movies is, not only inconsistent, but also inaudible. background, more often than not is too loud, and music is also too loud. the FX on VOX is not clear.

You know, we accidently turned on closed captions for an Andor episode or two, ended up leaving them on since it made it a lot easier to make sure we were getting all the names right and keeping everyone straight...

...and one of the thngs that really surprised me were how many things that were in the closed captions, but were absilutely inaudible or completely indisctinct in the actual audio. Something being said in the background that was either so rolled off so as to be indistinct, like listening to conversation through a wall, or sometimes was just not even audible ahinast background sounds, would be clearly transcribed. It was interesting.

another issue i've been having with modern movies is some weird sentiment that in order for anything to be called a 'movie' it has to be dark and moody. A childs show? Dark and moody! a cooking show? Dark and moody! a car show? DARK AND MOODY.

Also, I mean, hi, have you seen the world around you? My wife doesn't like this because usually at the end of the day she wants a distraction, but if art mimics life, then I'd say it makes a fair amount of sense.

 

[thraxil]

The Primer? I just rewatched that, so good.

Similarly, Tenet was so bad. So, so bad.

Yeah, Primer avoided the technical issues around time travel (at least conceptually to me, it works to think about the devices as fixing a point in space-time, allowing you to return there). I give them credit for that.

But, Primer is also the shining example of my own pet peeve around time travel plots where the writers substitute a convoluted timeline (you literally need to draw a huge diagram to fully understand what happened: https://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/primer-chart.jpg) for actually just telling a compelling story. To me it feels like a cheap trick so that if anyone criticizes the film, they can be written off as just not being smart enough to understand it.

And, yeah, Tenet does the same thing, just with a bigger budget and even worse writing. I'm at least willing to forgive Primer some because it's impressive how well they did on such a scrappy budget.

 

[soliloquy]

You know, we accidently turned on closed captions for an Andor episode or two, ended up leaving them on since it made it a lot easier to make sure we were getting all the names right and keeping everyone straight...

...and one of the thngs that really surprised me were how many things that were in the closed captions, but were absilutely inaudible or completely indisctinct in the actual audio. Something being said in the background that was either so rolled off so as to be indistinct, like listening to conversation through a wall, or sometimes was just not even audible ahinast background sounds, would be clearly transcribed. It was interesting.


Also, I mean, hi, have you seen the world around you? My wife doesn't like this because usually at the end of the day she wants a distraction, but if art mimics life, then I'd say it makes a fair amount of sense.

Though I get that art is mimicking life, but here's the thing:

Imagine a movie on carebears. Children's classic. Right? But if the movie is being made in 2022, I won't be surprised if one of the carebears got to see their mom thrown into a meat grinder, turned into a burger patty, and eaten by the villian, which inspired the bear to show even more care for the world, and make it better.....

Okay...the story could have been told by the carebear getting bullied, and the bear wanted to be better.

But nope, they will go the extra mile to make it even darker than reality.

Or better yet, any/every super villain is to get a sappy back story. Ursula, Gaston, captain Hook, etc can't be asses for the sake of being asses.






Also, yes! I've been watching everything with subtitles for a few years now! Close caption isn't a bad idea, now that I think about it! Should give it a try

 

[bostjan]

Or better yet, any/every super villain is to get a sappy back story. Ursula, Gaston, captain Hook, etc can't be asses for the sake of being asses.

+1

If my school bullies want to take credit for me turning out as an asshole, fuck 'em. I was just destined to be this way.

 

[Louis Cypher]

Or better yet, any/every super villain is to get a sappy back story. Ursula, Gaston, captain Hook, etc can't be asses for the sake of being asses.

Actually that really winds me up, aside from the backstories for no reason, the idea of making a villian "good" in their spin off origins tale. The Disney re-imaginings of their best and most famous villians is such BS. Maleficent, Cruella..... worst tho is making Anakin Skywalker a hero in the prequels to then suddenly remember in the last 45 mins of Revenge of the Sith that ohh yeah we need to make him Darth Vader, one of the greatest movie villians of all time.... quick, lets have him kill a load of kids!

on the subtitles thing, I do that a lot too

 

[zappatton2]

Though I get that art is mimicking life, but here's the thing:

Imagine a movie on carebears. Children's classic. Right? But if the movie is being made in 2022, I won't be surprised if one of the carebears got to see their mom thrown into a meat grinder, turned into a burger patty, and eaten by the villian, which inspired the bear to show even more care for the world, and make it better.....

Okay...the story could have been told by the carebear getting bullied, and the bear wanted to be better.

But nope, they will go the extra mile to make it even darker than reality.

Or better yet, any/every super villain is to get a sappy back story. Ursula, Gaston, captain Hook, etc can't be asses for the sake of being asses.






Also, yes! I've been watching everything with subtitles for a few years now! Close caption isn't a bad idea, now that I think about it! Should give it a try

I dunno, some of those bears were pretty dark already, the raincloud one, you can't tell me he hasn't seen some shit in his day, lol. That's a tortured past right there.

But in all seriousness, there were moments in 80's kids programming that went pretty dark. The Secret of Nimh definitely left me unsettled, from what I can recall of it. Disney movies, even if they were sanitized folk tales, could still go morbid, and I made the mistake of both assuming the Dark Crystal was a carefree Muppets spin-off, and that Watership Down was kids programming because it was cartoon. Man, that one left some scars!

 

[soliloquy]

oh absolute! Brothers Grimm stories that turned into Disney stuff have very dark/morbid backgrounds.
Additionally, there should have been no reason, in my opinion, for Hunchback of Notre Dame to be turned into a Disney movie. Partly being that that movie is essentially saying 'All religion is bad! All power is bad! All man is bad! Everything is bad! Stop seeking safety in anything as all is bad!' Fine for adults...but kids? idk...

though....as a post-modernist, I can sort of see the reverse in that making us understand how the villains became bad may help us enhance our empathy...but its also a bit unnecessary in my opinion


moreover, I always thought that our favorite superhero from the 80's, Capitan Planet was kind of pointless. Throw a crushed popcan at him and he starts dying of pollution. Kind of not giving any hope for the future, in that if we are to fight climate change, may as well not fight and let it come to us all.

 

[bostjan]

moreover, I always thought that our favorite superhero from the 80's, Capitan Planet was kind of pointless. Throw a crushed popcan at him and he starts dying of pollution. Kind of not giving any hope for the future, in that if we are to fight climate change, may as well not fight and let it come to us all.

"The power is yours" put too much faith into humanity. Remember the old "Only you can prevent forest fires?" Well, the idea was that if everyone stopped being a shithead, there wouldn't be any more forest fires from people being shitheads. But, the problem is, was, and always will be, that 99.9999% of people can be responsible, but if one person is a shithead, it completely torpedoes that whole model.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

+1

If my school bullies want to take credit for me turning out as an asshole, fuck 'em. I was just destined to be this way.

Fuckin' asshole! /s

Lol

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Actually that really winds me up, aside from the backstories for no reason, the idea of making a villian "good" in their spin off origins tale. The Disney re-imaginings of their best and most famous villians is such BS. Maleficent, Cruella..... worst tho is making Anakin Skywalker a hero in the prequels to then suddenly remember in the last 45 mins of Revenge of the Sith that ohh yeah we need to make him Darth Vader, one of the greatest movie villians of all time.... quick, lets have him kill a load of kids!

on the subtitles thing, I do that a lot too

The only reason I would want to do that, if I were a writer, filmmaker, etc. is to have the opposite of a redemption arc (I believe I'll get corrected here, but basically a corruption arc).

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

"The power is yours" put too much faith into humanity. Remember the old "Only you can prevent forest fires?" Well, the idea was that if everyone stopped being a shithead, there wouldn't be any more forest fires from people being shitheads. But, the problem is, was, and always will be, that 99.9999% of people can be responsible, but if one person is a shithead, it completely torpedoes that whole model.

So then what you're saying is that not only should we have no freedoms, but we should also have no freewill. (I'm reading really far into what you are saying.)

 

[soliloquy]

The only reason I would want to do that, if I were a writer, filmmaker, etc. is to have the opposite of a redemption arc (I believe I'll get corrected here, but basically a corruption arc).

that could have worked if they writers were a bit better. Case in point: the X-men first class.
the relationship between Magneeto and Xavier was beautiful. It was heading in such a great relationship where they both see the same issue from polar opposite perspectives. they could have enhanced that more, but drop it all and never bother exploring that arc more.

very rarely explored for some reason.

 

[thebeesknees22]

that could have worked if they writers were a bit better. Case in point: the X-men first class.
the relationship between Magneeto and Xavier was beautiful. It was heading in such a great relationship where they both see the same issue from polar opposite perspectives. they could have enhanced that more, but drop it all and never bother exploring that arc more.

very rarely explored for some reason.

all of the x-men movies were atrociously mishandled. the whole cinematic universe needs to be scrapped and redone.

 

[bostjan]

So then what you're saying is that not only should we have no freedoms, but we should also have no freewill. (I'm reading really far into what you are saying.)

Well, that's the thing. Say I want to have the freedom to swing my arms around all crazy as I see fit. It sounds reasonable, except for the person who is standing less than an arm's length away from me. In their case, my freedom is their punishment. So, if we want to have a free society that stresses equality, everyone needs their own little bubble of rights, such that, anything a person wants to do that doesn't interfere with another person's right to do as they please, ought to be allowed. But it'll never work, because there is always one asshole. So, honestly, the whole idea of libertarianism, i.e. freedom only limited by the idea of equality of personal liberties, won't ever work.

Same goes for freewill. There's no such thing as freewill. It's all an illusion, because your freewill is limited by what the people in power want you to do. So you can do anything you want, as long is it's also what they want you to do. Otherwise, they'll tell you to get bent. Even if what you want to have freewill to do is just something outside of the box that doesn't interfere with the master plan, it's still you not doing whatever it is that you are supposed to be doing. Think about it for a minute. Did you choose when you were born or what family you got to have or even who your friends were? Those are basically all of the things that fundamentally shape you into whomever you are. Well, I didn't think so. So freewill is a myth.

That's why capitalism and socialism are both shit. It's all the same limitations just with different perspectives on them.

 

[bostjan]

all of the x-men movies were atrociously mishandled. the whole cinematic universe needs to be scrapped and redone.

You lost me at "redone." At the time, I didn't think that they were quite that horrible, mainly because I was comparing them to the likes of the old Superman movies, the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies, and the mixture of decent and abysmal Batman movies.

 

[Drew]

Imagine a movie on carebears. Children's classic. Right? But if the movie is being made in 2022, I won't be surprised if one of the carebears got to see their mom thrown into a meat grinder, turned into a burger patty, and eaten by the villian, which inspired the bear to show even more care for the world, and make it better.....

TBH, I was with you right up to the bold bit.

I mean, I guess anything can be taken to extremes... but then you get something like Thor: Love and Thunder, which is anything BUT dark and gritty, and is actually kinda cute and uplifting. And, scored a rather dismal 64% on rotten tomatoes. So I guess it's what most people want..?

 

[soliloquy]

TBH, I was with you right up to the bold bit.

I mean, I guess anything can be taken to extremes... but then you get something like Thor: Love and Thunder, which is anything BUT dark and gritty, and is actually kinda cute and uplifting. And, scored a rather dismal 64% on rotten tomatoes. So I guess it's what most people want..?

I dont think Love and Thunder scored bad because of it being cute, and light/ariy. I think it did poorly because the story line, and character development just didn't make sense. It wasn't a necessary story line.

the motivation for some of the characters was there for the sake of having a motivation.

even with its 80's overture, you could have expected more 80's homage, but nope, they kept all that for the trailer.


though i've always felt that with 3 of the 4 Thor movies (Ragnarök being different); that they are insanely entertaining...but from the grand scheme of things, of the overarching MCU story line, or even character development, they were very unnecessary. didn't help us learn anything particularly new, or helped us understand Thor any better. Thats, in my opinion, also the reason why all other Thor movies did rather poorly (again, Ragnarök being an exception), when you compare to the Iron Man and Cap'n America movies.

I feel that with Thor, the writers really dont know what to do with him, so they try making him into the punchline of every joke that just fails to hit its mark. The entire Thor series just seems flat and mindless at times.

again, Ragnarök being an exception, as it was very uplifting, hilarious, great character development; refreshing; and written really well.

 

[Drew]

I don't really give a shit about the broader MCU, so if they stand apart from it, so much the better.

But, there really arent that many light, fun, not dark and brooding movies I can think of lately that HAVE been successful.

 

[ShredmasterD]

l

I don't really give a shit about the broader MCU, so if they stand apart from it, so much the better.

But, there really arent that many light, fun, not dark and brooding movies I can think of lately that HAVE been successful.

in recent times, yes. doom is what they push. in the not long ago past happy, lighter movies were common. comedy is all but dead now too.