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Comment by mkaic | Hacker News Reader

Definitely disagree with this take. I'd argue that all it means is that filmmakers have learned to make more exciting films. Cinema is a young art form and hasn't even been around for 200 year, it's no surprise to me that the movies of today are fundamentally different and more engaging than movies from last century.

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> filmmakers have learned to make more exciting films

Filmmakers have learned how to optimize for a very specific kind of "excitement", but I disagree that movies are more exciting now than they used to be.

The most exciting and engaging movies I can think of are all pretty old.

There's a fun little fact most don't know. The typical meme is that modern movies suck, but they're being made that way to pander to "the masses." But the numbers don't support this! When you see headlines like record breaking sales, it's measured in gross revenue. When you actually look at tickets sold, movies have been dying for decades. Here are the data (US only): https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

Peak movies in terms of both tickets sold and total real revenue was 2002. Everything since then has been a rapid decline, paired with lots of inflation and ticket prices going up even faster than inflation. I'd also add that those data don't consider another aspect. Since 2002 the US population has increased by more than 45 million. Seeing ticket sales plummet alongside this is especially telling!

So, while you may personally find what passes for a movie now a days as "more engaging", even "the masses" would beg to differ!

> The typical meme is that modern movies suck, but they're being made that way to pander to "the masses." But the numbers don't support this! When you see headlines like record breaking sales, it's measured in gross revenue. When you actually look at tickets sold, movies have been dying for decades.

Alternative read: the industry is dying so they double down on pandering in an ultimately futile attempt to bail out the sinking ship.

Consider anime: It has been a dying art ever since Japan's economic stagnation/recession in the early 90s. So the anime industry (generally, with some exceptions) turned hard into pandering to their most base fans, lonely dudes. Lots of waifu characters designed to sell body pillows and trash like that. This hasn't improved quality and sales continue to slump, but they're still trying.

Oddly, the rate of change seems to be a fairly consistent rate of change at around 3 frames per shot per year since 1930[1], with changes like MTV, the reduction of the role of the studio in the 60s and more creative freedom having not much change in the overall rate. Non-English films have also for some reason only had a 40% decrease in shot lengths over the same period. My hunch is that video literacy has increased as people are exposed to video with faster cuts than their parents, and we'll reach a bottom eventually. A rough comparison can be made to the word count of NYT best seller books steadily decreasing.[2]

[1]http://cutting.psych.cornell.edu/pubs/cutting&candanProj15.p...

[2]https://wordsrated.com/bestselling-books-have-never-been-sho...

They are more dumb tho, scripts and dialogues are so much simple. They rarely give you the feeling of once a lifetime seeing experience. Most of them have too much CGI and sometimes not even looking rea at all.

Sorry, but you are just generalizing based on the top blockbuster movies. Films have never been more diverse in their style and quality and, in my opinion, offer something for everyone.

If you are looking for movies that focus on strong dialogue and character work those movies are still being made and are fantastic.

But they all seem to be locked up in streaming services and the like.

Mind if I pick your brain? I enjoy compelling era pieces, though some fantasy or sci-fi is also great. I dislike identity politics and infantilizing exposition. By contrast I enjoy subtle metaphor and stories with nuance.

My favorite films would include Das Boot, I Claudius, and Seventeen Moments of Spring. For something more contemporary, I also enjoyed The Expanse. Any recommendations? Films or series in any language are okay.

Trumbo, Lincoln, Let The Right One In (Swedish). Raised by Wolves (tv).

Great! I'll look into these.

In terms of recent releases, Banshees of Inisherin was the first thing that sprung to mind.

more exciting != better

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