Hacker News Reader

Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. I'd just been thinking about this. The last two new releases I tried watching were so bad that I couldn't finish either of them. I know this is only 2 data points, but they were both bad in the same way: they were completely predictable. That's something you commonly see in a declining medium. People recycle old ideas instead of having new ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spolia

View on HN

How much of this is a failure of the medium, though, rather than of individuals' jaded palates coupled with the availability of almost all hit movies from the past for instant home viewing? We tend to glamorize earlier generations of the movie industry because some of their products have stood the test of time so well, while overlooking the abundance of terrible films that came out around the same time.

I do think that plotting, which is only one element of a film, tends to get more predictable as viewers age. There are only so many basic dramatic situations, and nowadays genre tropes are so well-defined and well-known that almost anything is going to look familiar and derivative to somebody, and be blogged about in such terms. On the other hand, a good film can be enjoyed repeatedly, despite the element of surprise being gone after the first viewing; the pleasure is in the quality of the execution rather than in the novelty of the story development.

To be fair, writers have been doing this for a long time...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_style#Similarit...

Did you watch The Social Network? Did you like it? I think we all knew how it ended, it was the writing, cinematography, etc. that account for its popularity. And the fact that the writers stretched the truth so the story would be somewhat fresh :)

And the fact that the writers stretched the truth so the story would be somewhat fresh

Actually I'd argue that they changed the story to make it less fresh, but more understandable/appealing to the non-tech audience. After all, who doesn't understand jilted love as a motivator? Whereas the "hacker's ethic" -- try something to see it it'll work -- is tougher to convey to a general audience.

(For the record, I thought it was still a great movie.)

Ehh, I haven't seen more geeky hacker stuff references in a movie so while it was given broad appeal at leas they retained a decent amount of the hacker feel to it.

It's one thing to adapt a classic story or classic elements in a new form, that's how all writing works. It's another thing entirely to work within a narrow confine of sequels and reboots of a single story.

I find most movies to be predictable. "Hero's Journey" and all that. But I assume you mean less structural, and more like knowing exactly what they are going to say (or what jokes they'll use for a situation). I hate that.

But still, movies are (generally) business first, and art second. They don't even want to be "new"... just "fresh".

Nothing wrong with predictable, humans have been telling the same basic stories plot-wise for thousands of years. It's about how well you tell the story, not whether the story is original or not; originality is great, but it's too rare to be a requirement.

You'd be crazy to make a movie, and not try and pull on the well known well loved plot lines. It'd be like trying to make music with chords no one has ever heard; it'd be terrible. People want something familiar.

Out of curiosity, what were the two movies?

It's been my theory that now we have movies that are more inspired by computer games and other movies than real life. This is subtly manifesting itself in a bizarre circular feedback loop.

It has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with the universal appeal of comic book/superhero/fantasy mythologies.

Major studio economics have changed in recent years and it is now critical that movies have a global, universal appeal.

Their major profit centres are evaporating before their eyes (back catalog tv licencing and dvd sales), along with declining domestic audiences.

In order to turn a profit the movies must be as generic and acceptable as possible: lots of children, the hero's journey and other myths, no sex or swearing, "fake" comic book violence or none at all.

Any kind of NC-17/Restricted rating is the kiss of death. Anything controversial will be a flop.

The problem is the death spiral of risk-aversion, unoriginality, and plot refinement to the point where the "movie" will be perfected and there will be nothing left to film.

Lord or the Rings is the new mythology.. the archetype of the Hero's Journey. Once you print it to film.. what's the point of retelling the story?

I didn't say it had anything to do with technology exclusively. But there's a relatively new medium in which people experience narrative and action scenes. It doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to believe that current or new moviemakers will be influenced by the action in, say, Modern Warfare 2, and make scenes that take from it rather than reality.

I don't disagree with you in other respects at all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com