Is it just me, or do 98% of new movies suck?

[bikingjahuty]

Let's get the low hanging fruit out of the way; yes, there are way, way, way too many reboots, remakes, and sequels and have been for over a decade now. However, even most original movies just look like utter trash, and upon release it seems like most people seem to agree. So my question is, why is this happening?


I'd like to believe it's not just me, and that I've just become cynical and jaded, but I hear a lot of other people complaining about the same thing with new movies. What do you think, and do you think movies will ever have the specialness and magic they once had? And yes, I realize that not every movie from 20 or 30-years ago was a masterpiece or even good, but I feel like way more effort went into creating something fresh, original, and of a higher quality. Now, it just seems like films are almost pumped off an assembly line rather than being a creative vision of a passionate individual. What the hell is happening?

[kamikazekeeg]

I wouldn't say anything close to 98% myself, there's still a lot of really good movies out there, and even the "assembly line" stuff can be quite enjoyable, though there are definite problems for sure.   For every mishandled franchise like Star Wars, or unnecessary sequel like Fast and the Furious, we get something awesome like Pacific Rim, The Raid, or Annihilation, or a bunch of other good stuff.  Even sequels/reboots can have their day with the likes of Planet of the Apes, Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049, etc...

I think we certainly are in a weird place, but to me, it's a situation of it being both the best things have been in a long while, but also possibly the worst in a long while.

[oldgamerz]

Let's get the low hanging fruit out of the way; yes, there are way, way, way too many reboots, remakes, and sequels and have been for over a decade now. However, even most original movies just look like utter trash, and upon release it seems like most people seem to agree. So my question is, why is this happening?


I'd like to believe it's not just me, and that I've just become cynical and jaded, but I hear a lot of other people complaining about the same thing with new movies. What do you think, and do you think movies will ever have the specialness and magic they once had? And yes, I realize that not every movie from 20 or 30-years ago was a masterpiece or even good, but I feel like way more effort went into creating something fresh, original, and of a higher quality. Now, it just seems like films are almost pumped off an assembly line rather than being a creative vision of a passionate individual. What the hell is happening?

I can agree with you because I don't watch tv or movies anymore, however when I was younger I used to watch tons of movies.

 Some of the favorites that stick out for me are, the "Alien series" of movies especially the movie called "Aliens" in which was the 2nd of the Alien series. I loved and watched movies like original Predator  with Arnold, and The Terminator series also comes to mind,. lets see there was Batman, Beetlejuice, Robocop, Ghost Busters  and the boxing Rocky series with Sylvester there was many great quality shows in my opinion. and movies in the late 1980's early 1990's there were a lot of fantastic cartoons also back when I was younger that seem to be replaced with a lot of low quality cartoons that not even the kids on this generation want to watch them anymore.

I was just talking about a seen in this Incredible Halk movie by marvel (not from the original 1970's series tv show) or the cartoon either. but that one marvel movie that has a computerized Incredible Halk. I slightly remember a funny stupid scene in that movie

 watching people standing there shooting at the halk, with all the bullets bouncing off his mussels and how the men were not even running they just kept shooting, and the hulk is just getting more angry, and I think the men are even reloading their guns and standing there shooting while everyone can see, like Hello, does anyone seem to notice that the Hulk is not even getting hurt by your bullets

Yes most movie and tv shows stink now aday. The TV depresses me

[Cartagia]

I'd like to believe it's not just me, and that I've just become cynical and jaded, but I hear a lot of other people complaining about the same thing with new movies. What do you think, and do you think movies will ever have the specialness and magic they once had? And yes, I realize that not every movie from 20 or 30-years ago was a masterpiece or even good, but I feel like way more effort went into creating something fresh, original, and of a higher quality. Now, it just seems like films are almost pumped off an assembly line rather than being a creative vision of a passionate individual. What the hell is happening?

Ok, so the first thing I have to ask is; what are you watching that makes you feel this way?  Because I can somewhat understand the feeling if all you are looking at is major studio releases, but

I wouldn't say anything close to 98% myself, there's still a lot of really good movies out there, and even the "assembly line" stuff can be quite enjoyable, though there are definite problems for sure.   For every mishandled franchise like Star Wars, or unnecessary sequel like Fast and the Furious, we get something awesome like Pacific Rim, The Raid, or Annihilation, or a bunch of other good stuff.  Even sequels/reboots can have their day with the likes of Planet of the Apes, Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049, etc...

I think we certainly are in a weird place, but to me, it's a situation of it being both the best things have been in a long while, but also possibly the worst in a long while.

I agree with this assessment 100%.  I'd even throw Marvel into the ring.  While not everything is amazing, I'd say that they haven't released a film yet that was worse than "OK".

And if you venture outside the major releases there is incredible stuff all over the place.  The Best Picture race at the Oscars this year was the strongest it has been in years, with the weakest of the year probably being Joker and Jojo Rabbit, which were still both pretty widely beloved.

Then you've got productions studios like A24, who has, arguably, yet to release a bad film.  Blumhouse is more hit or miss, but they are giving money to young, new, hungry filmmakers to try an make their mark.  I'd say that these two companies alone have brought us into a new golden age of horror with stuff like Get Out, Hereditary, and Midsommar.

Hell, the last year alone has seen the release of easily the best two video game movies of all time - while they aren't great, they are a damn sight better than anything we have gotten before.

And this may be a controversial opinion, but "I didn't like this movie" =/= "This movie sucks".  I like plenty of movies that are close to objectively awful, and am bored by some that are supposed to be masterpieces.  I've also found that a lot of people that like to say things like "This is the worst movie ever!" don't have a huge well of experience to dig from.  I think more people need to watch something truly horrendous to really get their expectations in line or as a 'palette cleanser'.  Check out The Room or Troll 2 or Plan 9 from Outer Space or Birdemic and then come back to me about how [your Star Wars of choice] is the worst thing you've ever seen.

[courtlyhades296]

Back in the glory days of Classic Hollywood, people cared about film as an artistic medium. Walt Disney was an artist before he was a businessman. He said "I make money to make movies." His successors clearly forgot about that part. Once Iger took over Disney, mainstream Hollywood stopped caring about art and began to focus purely on money.

[hoshichiri]

98% of most media sucks, we just forget most of it as time goes on. It makes it far easier to dismiss the stuff directly in front of us as worse than the past becuase all the bland, uninteresting, or simply less than memorable titles fade away.

I've never watched a lot of movies, so it's easier for me to equate to my old anime obsession. I've been largely out of the loop for several years now. If I try to think back on what was around when I was into it, I mostly just remember the big titles that briefly held people's focus (all of which are basically irrelevant now). You know what I don't remember? The names of the dozens of shows whose DVDs I sold/gave away, many still shrink-wrapped, becuase I bought them during clearance blowouts & assumed I'd get to it later. There's just so much stuff being made at any time, if you only focus on what's new it's always going to look bad.

I poked around real quick, & I grabbed this list of  American movies of 2010. I'm curious- how many do you remember? How many were good? How many could you name without having this list in front of you? It's worth noting, this isn't a complete list either- so there's more movies from 10 years ago so forgotten they never made the Wikipedia list. To even see everything on this unfinished list, you would have needed to go to the movies 4 times a week on average. It's not so surprising that many movies look cookie cutter when you only look at the newest things available- they ARE. They HAVE to be for this kind of pace to be maintained. Eventually time pushes most of it into obscurity, & movie houses will get to have special events showcasing 'the films of the 90s' (or whatever era) and spend 3 months playing a dozen or so movies of the literal hundreds that would have been available, and everyone will say 'boy, weren't movies better in the 90s (or whatever)?' That's hindsight for ya.

[Flashback2012]

I was just talking about a seen in this Incredible Halk movie by marvel (not from the original 1970's series tv show) or the cartoon either. but that one marvel movie that has a computerized Incredible Halk. I slightly remember a funny stupid scene in that movie

 watching people standing there shooting at the halk, with all the bullets bouncing off his mussels and how the men were not even running they just kept shooting, and the hulk is just getting more angry, and I think the men are even reloading their guns and standing there shooting while everyone can see, like Hello, does anyone seem to notice that the Hulk is not even getting hurt by your bullets

Yes most movie and tv shows stink now aday. The TV depresses me

The world definitely needs more of the Incredible Halk




I'm betting he got them big mussels from drinking lots of Vitamin D Malk. 

Funny enough, they did have an advert for the "Got Milk?" campaign using the Hulk 



Milk has protein for muscles! 

[tripredacus]

Let's get the low hanging fruit out of the way; yes, there are way, way, way too many reboots, remakes, and sequels and have been for over a decade now. However, even most original movies just look like utter trash, and upon release it seems like most people seem to agree. So my question is, why is this happening?

I'm not really sure that there is any real increase in reboots, remakes and sequels happening. It is surprising how many old movies are also just reboots and remakes. I think the reason it seems to be like this is because you have lived through the time where movies got a sequel or a remake. Movies people saw for the first time years ago could well have been the same thing but they did not realize it at the time. Last time I heard someone complaining about this was when the remake for The Thing was announced, and they referenced that... but the argument is faulty since John Carpenter's The Thing was also a remake.

Take this other example: I Am Legend (2007) was a remake of The Omega Man (1971) which is a remake of The Last Man on Earth (1964),

There are two main trends in movie making:
1. The current artistic fad
2. Business

For #1 you can consider how movies look. The artistic element I refer to is either in direction or in presentation. All fields go through "schools of thought" and from an outside point of view this becomes themes in products. For movies an example of one of these elements is the blue/orange presentation. WHICH I might add, once you notice this, it may change your opinion of movies you see after you first notice it. For example, you may notice this is most obvious in Tron: Legacy, and you may otherwise not like movies you see afterwards that use this theme just because you noticed it being present.

For #2 you have to understand how business works. Big budget movie companies are only going to pay for sure bets. This means a lot of movies end up being the same, because it is rare for an original concept to bring in money. A movie may need to adhere to multiple current or popular themes in order to be made.

[betelgeuse]

98% of most media sucks, we just forget most of it as time goes on. It makes it far easier to dismiss the stuff directly in front of us as worse than the past becuase all the bland, uninteresting, or simply less than memorable titles fade away.

I poked around real quick, & I grabbed this list of  American movies of 2010. I'm curious- how many do you remember? How many were good? How many could you name without having this list in front of you? It's worth noting, this isn't a complete list either- so there's more movies from 10 years ago so forgotten they never made the Wikipedia list.

I went down that partial list. I own over 50 of em. You’re correct, I prob couldn’t tell you what a lot of them are about or who even starred in it, without seeing the cover art. There were some greats in there though, IMO anyway. Everybody has their own view on what they enjoy.

[Warmsignal]

I honestly wouldn't know. Movies are largely a form of media I have never been highly intrigued by. I would say that on average, I see about 3 movies per year. To say that I've seen about 90 in my lifetime would probably be an over estimate, lol.

But I find that when I sit down to watch one, I rarely have an objection. I could get sucked into a Lifetime movie, so it's probably obvious that I have no standards. Or maybe I'm just a charitable consumer of the medium, much like with games? There's a lot of negativity surrounding video games nowadays that I don't understand, at all. "This is the worst game ever made" is what I often hear regarding a lot of games. I think it's jadedness. People grow tired of the same experiences, and the bar for what they consider amusing is raised to higher and higher standards. Then you have those who flatly reject change and risk, and ensure that those somewhat unique efforts crash and burn a fiery death. So producers really can't win when people don't want different, and also don't want something that's cliche or tired. The only way they stand a chance is to try and remake something that was successful in the past and cash in on nostalgia, and that sometimes works with movies, and sometimes with games as well.

Apparently the Sonic movie wasn't bad, if that's any consolation.

[Cartagia]

98% of most media sucks, we just forget most of it as time goes on. It makes it far easier to dismiss the stuff directly in front of us as worse than the past becuase all the bland, uninteresting, or simply less than memorable titles fade away.

I poked around real quick, & I grabbed this list of  American movies of 2010. I'm curious- how many do you remember? How many were good? How many could you name without having this list in front of you? It's worth noting, this isn't a complete list either- so there's more movies from 10 years ago so forgotten they never made the Wikipedia list.

I went down that partial list. I own over 50 of em. You’re correct, I prob couldn’t tell you what a lot of them are about or who even starred in it, without seeing the cover art. There were some greats in there though, IMO anyway. Everybody has their own view on what they enjoy.

I went through as well.  I've seen at least 47 of them.  While I couldn't tell you offhand which ones actually came out in 2010, except for a few like The Social Network, if you gave me just the title I could drop a synopsis and stars of at least 30 - hell, I could do it for a few of them I haven't seen, but I only own maybe 5 of them.