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Movie plots are getting worse.

Archive: 21 posts

After watching '12 Angry Men' (1957) and 'The Watch' (2012) in the same night, my beliefs that movie plots are getting more and more rubbish got a lot stronger.

Even though I'm one of the relatively young doods roaming the forums, it's easy for me to see that more effort is being put into spectacular computer generated explosions than telling a decent story today. I know that Avatar has been spit on heaps of times because it's the perfect example of this, but seriously, I could explain the whole plot in a few words.

Future, Alien, Human, War.

I thought movies were a way of telling a story, not showing off how good you are at making things collapse or explode. Although there is sometimes a really good computer generated movie (I'm quite fond of 'Up&apos, most of them are just excuses to wow everyone with your 'mad computer skillz'.

Thought it would be interesting to see where people go with this. Fire away. :3		2013-01-22 03:31:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

I would agree with you. Seems quite a few movies I have seen in the last few years are more worried about the effects than any type of captivating story.

..there are still some that are great, but Avatar wasn't one of them. Up was exceptional as well as Despicable Me for animated ones. The Hobbit I thought was really good too. For non animated.. Seeking a friend for the End of the World I thought was pretty good, but one of my favs for just quirky and funny was Moonrise Kingdom.

There are others I really liked... just a few that came to mind before bed. 		2013-01-22 03:53:00

Author:
jwwphotos
Posts: 11383

I thought Wreck-It Ralph had a really creative plot and Disney/Pixar were really doing their gaming homework.

...I dunno, really, I usually don't go to movie theaters that much. I only watched like 3 new movies last year (Wreck-It Ralph, Avengers, and the Hobbit)		2013-01-22 03:59:00

Author:
TheUltraDeino
Posts: 1274

@OP It's a bit unfair to compare one of the enduring great dramas of the last 50 years with a critically panned sci fi that came out in the last 6 months.

Movies are funded on the premise of getting a return on investment. The smart money is rarely on a smart movie. Smart movies don't sell tickets and don't make profits like big, dumb genre movies with explosions and slapstick.

Smart movies still do happen, and I would argue they're smarter than ever. They just get buried under the overpromoted and overproduced spectacles -- of which there are MORE than ever, because of the scales of economy. Moviemaking as a craft is also, in every technical way, better than ever. But while smart movies don't get the budgets or the attention of dumb genre movies, that doesn't mean the movie industry overall is dumber than it used to be. Maybe crasser, though.

You know where I think smart scripts are found in kind of shocking abundance these days? Television. Dramatic television has outclassed dramatic cinema for at least a decade with provocative scripts and minimal special effects. In fact, to a series, critically acclaimed and dramatic television has featured at LEAST the same volume of good, claustrophic, character-centric scriptwriting as 12 Angry Men per season, and those are often the "lazy" episodes that work with a single set to give actors and crew vacation days and funnel the budget into, haha, other episodes with more spectacle. Incidentally, 12 Angry Men was written as a play and originally produced for television.

I will say that movies are less tasteful than they used to be. That's partly a change in culture, and a change in censorship laws. You never would have gotten something like the utterly crass Scary Movie series in the 1960s. But we certainly got plenty of bigoted, insulting blackface and asianface "comedy" up through that era.

So much to talk about! But bottom line, I don't think movies are dumber today.		2013-01-22 05:33:00

Author:
Unknown User

@OP It's a bit unfair to compare one of the enduring great dramas of the last 50 years with a critically panned sci fi that came out in the last 6 months.

Movies are funded on the premise of getting a return on investment. The smart money is rarely on a smart movie. Smart movies don't sell tickets and don't make profits like big, dumb genre movies with explosions and slapstick.

Smart movies still do happen, and I would argue they're smarter than ever. They just get buried under the overpromoted and overproduced spectacles -- of which there are MORE than ever, because of the scales of economy. Moviemaking as a craft is also, in every technical way, better than ever. But while smart movies don't get the budgets or the attention of dumb genre movies, that doesn't mean the movie industry overall is dumber than it used to be. Maybe crasser, though.

You know where I think smart scripts are found in kind of shocking abundance these days? Television. Dramatic television has outclassed dramatic cinema for at least a decade with provocative scripts and minimal special effects. In fact, to a series, critically acclaimed and dramatic television has featured at LEAST the same volume of good, claustrophic, character-centric scriptwriting as 12 Angry Men per season, and those are often the "lazy" episodes that work with a single set to give actors and crew vacation days and funnel the budget into, haha, other episodes with more spectacle. Incidentally, 12 Angry Men was written as a play and originally produced for television.

I will say that movies are less tasteful than they used to be. That's partly a change in culture, and a change in censorship laws. You never would have gotten something like the utterly crass Scary Movie series in the 1960s. But we certainly got plenty of bigoted, insulting blackface and asianface "comedy" up through that era.

So much to talk about! But bottom line, I don't think movies are dumber today.

Hmmm... some really good points. Thanks for that!

Maybe better to say there have been really terrible movies all through movie making history and easier to pick out the real gems from way back when. Especially when considering how the really great ones stack up against their modern counterparts minus all the abilities of the newest special effects and HD quality cinematography.

I think for me though there have been quite a few that I have been so excited to see and then upon seeing have been horribly disappointed as it just didn't measure up to either the hype or my expectations. I guess great marketing and I got hooked by the bait... lol

For example a few movies I have seen recently have had some of the most amazing special effects and sci fi wiz bang awesomeness I have ever seen, but the story was a bit stupid and upon hindsight really didn't make any sense at all. I also really didn't like any of the characters. Like watching a movie with a well done train wreck and not caring if anyone you get to meet prior walked away or not.		2013-01-22 12:15:00

Author:
jwwphotos
Posts: 11383

There are a lot of movies that just shouldn't be, we're barraged with film after film that are all destined to be forgotten as soon as the tickets are sold, I don't see why good ideas are so hard to come by, people say "everything's been done", but that's the simple minded way of saying "I can't think of anything else." Don't make a movie that deserves nothing more than plane screening for people desperate not to look at cloud after cloud, make something that people are going to remember.2013-01-22 16:12:00

Author:
Ironface
Posts: 432

I don't think the movies are getting worse. The movies seemed to be getting better now in these days due to the improvement of screenwriting. The 2000s wasn't a good decade for movies because too many of them rely more on special effects than story, despite the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Pixar movies, and "Avatar". However, we began to recently see the balance of both visuals and plot. Some films turned out to be a critical and commercial smash, some went completely wrong because of the director and writer choice. Here's my do's and don'ts on modern movie examples:
DO'S :
THE AVENGERS: Josh Whedon does a great job focusing on the characters and plot, and it has great action effects too. One of the examples of movies that recently have that balance.

THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY: Unlike the four Batman movies around the 90s (Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman and Robin), it has true acting and neater story. No one can make "Batman" movies better than Christopher Nolan.

AVATAR: Most of the movie may have CGI effects, but it also relies on the importance of protecting the planet's environment. The action scenes are well executed, too.

PIXAR MOVIES: Not only does the company make wonderful CGI animated movies, but it knows how to protect the story. Well, not all of Pixar movies ("Cars 2" bombed, while "Brave" did okay).

INCEPTION: The movie that has everything it needs to be a story-driven movie with clever special effects.

OTHER GOOD EXAMPLES OF MODERN MOVIES: The Hunger Games, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, District 9, Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger, Harry Potter movies, Shrek, Star Trek (2009), Lord of the Rings movies.

DON'Ts :

BATTLESHIP: Why does the great board game based movie had to have aliens?

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN: The first installment was fun to watch, but not so much on the second installment. The movie may have earned around 400 million dollars in U.S. box office, but too much bad acting and bad jokes ruined the entire movie. At least "Dark of the Moon" has improved over Michael Bay's worst movie yet.

THE LAST AIRBENDER: As a huge fan of "Avatar: The Last Airbender", I was expecting this to be M. Night Shyamalan's first great movie since "The Sixth Sense". Sadly, it turned out to be a disaster. The plot was confusing and not Avatar material, plus the editing and acting looked like it was made way too fast. Shyamalan's style should have been not part of the Last Airbender world.

JOHN CARTER: Great special effects, but terrible story. It's not all of the crew's fault, it's the writer's fault. It would have been in the same level as "Star Wars" and "Avatar" if it wasn't for the writer's choices.

The more you know 		2013-01-22 19:45:00

Author:
JustinArt
Posts: 1314

I just saw Life of Pi (2012) last night, it is a beautiful use of special effects to tell a story. I actively reminded myself all the way through that I was watching CG for a lot of things -- not just the animals but most scenery, including the water and the sky. It's very, very well done.

Life of Pi reminds me that we have this "modern fable" trend in movies, maybe a subgenre of fantasy. It started with Forrest Gump and continued with Big Fish, The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button, etc. These are spectacles that use cutting edge special effects in nearly every shot but are really dramas about people. Without the special effects the movies wouldn't work, yet the effects are not the star of the movie. They're in every shot, but they serve to augment the story about people.		2013-01-23 02:02:00

Author:
Unknown User

I have to agree with the OP. After seeing the trailer for Oblivion, it's easy to see how old plot elements are being recycled immensely nowadays. Honestly, I could probably guess the entire plot from Oblivion just by its trailer...

That being said, every now and then a gem is released. A few that come to mind.. Moonrise Kingdom (wholly original and eccentric), Django Unchained, or Perks of Being a Wallflower... but the proportion of terrible movies to these gems is too **** high!

Random pet peeve: since 3D is all the rage right now or whatever it bothers me so much when some things in scenes are filmed specifically for 3D effect. I've seen this in Amazing Spiderman, MIB3, etc.. Prometheus, Avatar (though I don't like it), and the Hobbit are the only movies I've seen that have actual good use for 3D.		2013-01-23 02:15:00

Author:
anoken
Posts: 1654

That being said, every now and then a gem is released. A few that come to mind.. Moonrise Kingdom (wholly original and eccentric)

I am so glad someone else has seen that movie! That was so darn cool that I had to buy the bluray to watch it a few more times at home! 		2013-01-23 02:38:00

Author:
jwwphotos
Posts: 11383

3D has always been a joke! It is really distracting to have parts of a movie shot one way and parts shot another way. This goes for Imax as well. It's like a picture flipbook where every tenth page is twice as big as the rest of the book. Stick with one format, moviemakers. At some point all the technical experimentation degrades things to a point that it's no less distracting to watch a handycam rip of the movie filmed in some Russian theater than to watch the supposed "full cinematic experience", the way they intercut 2D camera, 3D camera, full frame, wide frame, 24FPS, 30FPS and 48FPS shots in a single action scene. Batman 3, I am looking at you. >:/


Honestly, I could probably guess the entire plot from Oblivion just by its trailer...

Be grateful you're not in Japan. We often get voiceovers, retitles and reedits to trailers that explicitly spell out the entire movie. It's all about assuring the audience will not be surprised or "tricked" into seeing something different. Better to ruin ticket sales by spoiling the movie than boost ticket sales and deal with claims of false advertising. Weird thinking, huh? Even for movies where mystery and intrigue should be protected, Japanese distributors will spell it out: a trailer for such as Sixth Sense may be the original American footage, but they'll add a voiceover and titles that say "The Ghost Story About The Man Who Haunts A Boy And They Solve Ghost Problems. In the End It's Heartwarming That The Boy Is Able To Embrace His Supernatural Powers Of Ghost Sight... But There Is A Secret... The Man Doesn't Know He's Already Dead!"

Sigh.		2013-01-23 02:39:00

Author:
Unknown User

@OP It's a bit unfair to compare one of the enduring great dramas of the last 50 years with a critically panned sci fi that came out in the last 6 months.

Smart movies still do happen, and I would argue they're smarter than ever. They just get buried under the overpromoted and overproduced spectacles -- of which there are MORE than ever, because of the scales of economy. Moviemaking as a craft is also, in every technical way, better than ever. But while smart movies don't get the budgets or the attention of dumb genre movies, that doesn't mean the movie industry overall is dumber than it used to be. Maybe crasser, though.

Some very good points. I suppose my comparison was a bit (very) unfair, but it's sad to see that '12 Angry Men' was a commercial failure just because it was shot in black and white.



THE AVENGERS: Josh Whedon does a great job focusing on the characters and plot, and it has great action effects too. One of the examples of movies that recently have that balance.

AVATAR: Most of the movie may have CGI effects, but it also relies on the importance of protecting the planet's environment. The action scenes are well executed, too.

PIXAR MOVIES: Not only does the company make wonderful CGI animated movies, but it knows how to protect the story. Well, not all of Pixar movies ("Cars 2" bombed, while "Brave" did okay).

INCEPTION: The movie that has everything it needs to be a story-driven movie with clever special effects.


I had a lot of fun watching The Avengers, but I personally found the story a bit rubbish. They didn't bother to fully explain anything, like how Captain America is still around after so many years.

But Pixar movies (apart from Cars 2) were all fantastic, and Inception was such an enjoyable movie with a complex story.


3D has always been a joke! It is really distracting to have parts of a movie shot one way and parts shot another way.

Be grateful you're not in Japan. We often get voiceovers, retitles and reedits to trailers that explicitly spell out the entire movie. It's all about assuring the audience will not be surprised or "tricked" into seeing something different. Better to ruin ticket sales by spoiling the movie than boost ticket sales and deal with claims of false advertising. Weird thinking, huh? Even for movies where mystery and intrigue should be protected, Japanese distributors will spell it out: a trailer for such as Sixth Sense may be the original American footage, but they'll add a voiceover and titles that say "The Ghost Story About The Man Who Haunts A Boy And They Solve Ghost Problems. In the End It's Heartwarming That The Boy Is Able To Embrace His Supernatural Powers Of Ghost Sight... But There Is A Secret... The Man Doesn't Know He's Already Dead!"

Sigh.

3D only seems impressive the first time you see it. After that, it quickly grows old.

And they do that with the trailers in Korea too. I think it's kinda obnoxious.		2013-01-23 10:56:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

Isn't the Avatar story just a rip-off of Pocahontas? I've seen comparisons of the plots on t'internet and they're virtually identical, though I haven't actually seen Avatar myself.

@Kaboosh - what you need to think about is how these movie plots are remembered in 50 years..... will you remember the bad ones? Unlikely. Only the good ones will be remembered. There were bad movies plots back in the 1950s too, yet people only tend to remember the classics.

In 50 years time, if society hasn't devolved into a Mad Max-esq scenario, someone may well make this very same thread.

You could have a guy saying that he sat and watched the screen classic, 'Life of Pi' (2012), then went and watched 'The Tale of Timothy Bobbins and His Bobcat' ( 2058 ) and decided that movie plots are getting worse.		2013-01-23 11:59:00

Author:
Ali_Star
Posts: 4085

It's even worse than that: plots aren't being created anymore. They are only making easy sequels, prequels, adaptations, reboots, spin-offs... Instead of working with new ideas, they just like to rehash old plots.

But when something completely original comes up, chances are it'll be pretty good. Action movies are becoming more and more generic, then Christopher Nolan shows everyone how it's done.

Rom-coms constantly reuse the exact same story: man meets woman, they fall in love, one of them does something stupid that drives them apart (usually it's the guy), then the offending party does something selfless to win back the other half, and they live hapilly ever after. People are getting tired of seeing that, but then 500 Days of Summer does something different, and it's amazing.

Same with horror flicks: the usual horror clich?s and tropes are ridiculously overplayed, then mad genius Joss Whedon makes The Cabin in the Woods, a movie that deconstructs and satirizes the genre, and it's awesome.		2013-01-23 12:43:00

Author:
SnipySev
Posts: 2452

I am so glad someone else has seen that movie! That was so darn cool that I had to buy the bluray to watch it a few more times at home!

Haha me too! There are too many good quotes from that movie...

The bonus features were lacking on the blu-ray though :kz:		2013-01-25 00:54:00

Author:
anoken
Posts: 1654

http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/

Neat series that seems applicable here, it goes over movies and music and such. The last episode kinda takes everything in a different direction though, but it's still cool.

I suggest you watch it.		2013-01-25 06:23:00

Author:
warlord_evil
Posts: 4193

I think that The Dark Knight Rises has the second best story in any MOVIE ever and it relatively new. I couldn't expect the direction it was going to go to.2013-01-25 12:47:00

Author:
FreeAim
Posts: 2462

The Hobbit I thought was really good too. For non animated.

Thats because Tolkein lived in the 19th century. Todays ignorance is ugly also, with everybody saying "ERMAGHERD GANOLF IZ A RIP UF DUMBLEDURE LUL"
Anyway, The plots of games and movies are probably getting worse so they wont be called "ripoffs"
Think about Littlebigplanet Karting, its plot was terrible! (Racing, Robbers)		2013-02-02 16:13:00

Author:
TinyMoMo
Posts: 132

I think that The Dark Knight Rises has the second best story in any MOVIE ever and it relatively new. I couldn't expect the direction it was going to go to.

I think the villains' plan is too convoluted to be credible. And the gaping plot holes don't help.		2013-02-02 17:56:00

Author:
SnipySev
Posts: 2452

Think about Littlebigplanet Karting, its plot was terrible! (Racing, Robbers)

You have to consider how difficult it would be to come up with a decent plot for a karting game that allows the placement of prize bubbles and sackboy.

Also, I don't care much if a video game's plot is bad... after all, the point is to have fun, not tell a story, like movies should.

When we're told to think about the people behind the creation of any kind of media, it's easy to imagine a large corporation using money as wallpaper. But somewhere in the process is a special effects guy, or programmer, or whatever that deserves more than to have their talents stuffed into badly written movies or thoughtless games. Yet we're demanding more of this 'stupid' stuff.

Just a random thought, yah.		2013-02-03 05:03:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

Well, some things got mentioned here allready, its rather easy to find older gems than newer ones. I allways enjoy to view some personal lists on imdb.com and generally looking most movies up on it, before watching, since it allways delivers some good hint, if the movie is worth your time or not.... there is some hype going on with newer movies with the rating, but it evens out after some time... more informative, most of the time, are some user reviews.... i kinda got used to imdb.com alot to find good movies, and i found tons of them... there are so many excellent movies out there, i couldnt watchem all in a life time.... another good way to find good movies is to check out the cannes film festival winners, i dont really care about the oscars and such things, i watched many of some of the best movies, which where winners of the cannes film festival... i know this topic isnt about ways for finding good movies, but..

.. the thing is, why complain about newer movies in any way? If u are unhappy with the directions their heading, there are hundreds and hundreds of great movies, from all different decades of the 20th Century, which are timeless in every way, like for example "12 Angry Men"

U can rarely ever watch all of the real great movies in one lifetime... and since i believe there are alot of americans on this board, if u never really saw alot of foreign movies, there are films of pure greatness out there to discover, if u are tolerant enough to listen to foreign languages and read subtitles. There are some great spanish, french, scandinavian, russian and german (im german ^^) movies out there.

Well, but i cant understand that there should be some newer movies worth to watch, especially for some magical cinema experiences, well my last watched movie was django, and it was excellent, before that it was The Hobbit, which was quite cool... but it rarely happens, that i wanna see a movie in the cinema... im kinda annoyed by all those superhero movies in the past... lol... temperarily that was the only genre hollywood was coming out with... and its still there lol...

With movies it kinda reminds me of searching for good levels in lbp ^^ if u go on the cool pages u will rarely find any good level, just from time to time, but mostly crap, some crap doesnt even look like crap in the first place, but turns out the be crap.... if u have a system to find good levels, besides the "Teampicks" u will find alot of gems, which kinda are sometimes the most enjoyable ones... and sometimes some weird japanish titled level turns out to be awesome ... its similar with movies... does this make sense lol?		2013-02-04 21:43:00

Author:
Rough-Tea
Posts: 422


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