Mercurius
Legend
Hollywood has a creativity problem, and one that is, I don't think it is too crazy to think, largely based on the financial bottom line. Regardless of whether or not this is a good thing or not, it is the reality of big business and, like all businesses, the goal is (always) making money, and that impacts creativity.
Of course the problem is that film is generally considered a form of art - like writing, painting, music, etc. But the vast majority (if not all) of Hollywood films are not "films made for their own sake." That is, for the love of film-making. Here we might find the difference between Hollywood and independent films which, regardless of their quality, tend to be made by people who love making films for their own sake -- at least at the beginning (which is also true of Hollywood directors...at the beginning).
In other words, the typical Hollywood big budget film is not the result of a garage band that started gigging and then made it to larger and larger stages. it is a "boy band" that was conceived of and constructed by corporate suits.
The creativity problem is illustrated by the reality of the re-make (in whatever variation, including re-boots and homages). More and more films seem like copies of copies of copies. Cynically we can call this a "cash-grab," though in some cases it may be borne out of a more noble intention; maybe, for instance, a director thought, "I really loved that film when I was growing up and would love to re-envision it." Or we can see how two Millenials wanted to embody the nostalgia they felt for a time they never lived through, and created the fresh-at-first Stranger Things (which, while still remaining good, has diminished over the seasons).
There's also an obvious socio-political element that is evinced in many cases (e.g. Walt Disney's obsession with regendering...hey Walt, here's an idea: why not create a new character? Oh, and one that is interesting and nuanced, and not just amazing at everything?). I'll leave that topic largely untouched, not only because it treads into touchy areas but is ultimately secondary to the economic causative factor. But I mention it, because it also impacts creativity by missing--or rather, not taking up--the opportunity to create and depict, for instance, new female leads that were conceived organically and holistically as female, rather than as a "re-envisioning" of a previous male character. Meaning, we get more Reys than Ripleys.
The creative problem is basically synonymous with the Law of Diminishing Returns. Or, more viscerally, trying to squeeze just a little more (and more and more) juice out of an orange. As if there aren't other fruits in the basket...
So we have....
Star Wars...The prequel trilogy displayed moments of beautiful visual imagination, but was marred to the point of ruination by poor casting and George Lucas's over-fascination with technology (meaning, he ironically became Vaderized). And then we have what is, more or less, the Abrams trilogy. Perhaps more than any other person in film-making, Abrams essentializes "Hollywood remake culture." And to compound it further, Disney+ has churned out a string of shows of varying quality.
Star Trek...This is interesting, because, at first, Gene Roddenberry did the impossible: after a magical first cast, he assembled a second great cast (TNG). How did he do that? Well, he didn't try to copy the first...he imagined new characters, new dynamics. He didn't say, "Let's do a female Kirk." Now of course ST peaked with The Wrath of Khan, but it maintained a pretty high plateau after that, even if the course has generally followed the inevitability of diminishing returns. There have been, at least, a few later peaks (e.g. Strange New Worlds). But the overall diminishment is rather stark, perhaps best exemplified by the destruction of the Federation in Discovery (but I'm sure Michael Sue will fix everything), or what I've heard (but not watched) of Picard. It is almost as if the showrunners of those two series wanted to destroy Roddenberry's Star Trek, replacing flawed-but-noble utopia with edgy-but-soulless dystopia.
In both of the cases above, Hollywood depends upon the cash-cow of name brand recognition, and leaves countless great story worlds untouched. Rather than another Star Trek series, why not explore Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space or NK Jemisin's Broken Earth?
LotR...We start with a surprisingly good film trilogy that endeared itself to even many of the most diehard Tolkienistas. But then Peter Jackson--again, presumably economically "inspired"--created a way-too-long CGI extravaganza follow-up trilogy. But then we have Rings of Power, which essentially colonized Tolkien's ideas and remade them into a distorted simulacrum, recognizable only by surface similarities like names and the occasionally swirly set-piece, but inferior to Jackson's original trilogy in nearly every way, and bordering on mockery of Tolkien himself.
But we need more Tolkien on film, right?! Why not Moorcock's Elric or Le Guin's Earthsea?
Game of Thrones...In a way, this series ruined all of us for fantasy on the screen: it upped the quality level by several degrees from most of what we'd seen before. House of the Dragon is good, but the problem is that it doesn't include the very best of what made GoT great: It lacks the endless supply of great and multi-dimensional characters, there's absolutely no humor, and it is grim to the point of why bother? But it is well-made and overall pretty good.
Willow...haven't seen it, have little interest in it, though will probably give it a shot at some point. But the original film is a great example of how our adult sense of nostalgia overrates childhood favorites. I liked the film, even enjoyed a re-watch a few years ago, but it is really only a cut above most of the 80s fantasy films. But Madmartigan was great (with the emphasis on past-tense).
I mean, there can't be any other good big epic fantasy worlds to depict in a series, nothing like Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen or Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive...
Ghostbusters...The problem started back in the 80s, with the forgettable sequel with that guy from Dragonslayer as the villain. But then we had the terrible 2016 film, which perhaps started the tendency of Hollywood to blame its lack of creativity on Ists and Isms of whatever suits the contexts, as if the many who didn't like it are all synonymous with the few who are legitimately trollish. Afterlife was better, but still rather forgettable. In a way it was The Force Awakens of the Ghostbusters universe: It revisited the greatest hits, but didn't add anything new or evocative and felt like less than the sum of its parts (wait, was JJ Abrams involved?!). More than any film that I can think of, Ghostbusters embodies the idea that some things are better as one-offs and rarities, be it making fondue or riding a roller-coaster as an adult.
Indiana Jones...Raiders remains the best, imo, but the original trilogy was all good, even the markedly inferior Temple of Doom. To be honest, I enjoyed Crystal Skulls, but it was clearly a huge step down. But now we have....Dial of Destiny? I mean, it could be good, but all things (e.g. the trailer) point to yet another creatively-deprived disaster and mockery of a formerly great franchise. I can't wait until we get 2030's Indiana Jones 6: Indy Goes to Space, in which a CGI-version of Harrison Ford - brought back through cloning tech - travels to Mars in a Bezos-built space wiener.
James Bond...it remains to be seen which direction the franchise takes, but we can hope that A) Bond will be back, as a dude, and B) We get to see more of the strong female characters--even their own feature film--from the last one, especially Ana de Armas. In other words, this is a great opportunity to display that depicting strong female leads doesn't require regendering a male character. Just make a new character and story, for Q's sake! It is possible to be inclusive and honoring of tradition.
And finally, the MCU. This was so fresh and fun, and had a well-conceived arc (the "Infinity Saga") from Iron Man in 2008 to Avengers: End Game in 2019. Sure, there were some forgettable films in there, and some of us were experiencing MCU Fatigue by the end, but it was a great ride, carried especially by Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans. But now we have the so-called "Multiverse Saga" as the follow-up, aka "Let's plug every gap we can conceive of, but without the epic meta-story, and with a focus on all the less interesting characters." As one article put it, the focus became on quantity over quality, with the films supplemented by a barrage of tv shows, because more is more, right? It remains to be seen whether the upcoming Phase 5 will build up steam for the culminating Phase 6.
In truth, there's another missed opportunity here. Rather than just squeeze out whatever juice can be find from the secondary cast of Infinity Saga, why not do a soft reboot of Marvel with mutants front and center, and then tie it together with "MCU classic" via Secret Wars?
The very best fantasy and science fiction of the last decade or so have been fresh, new stories. Films such as Arrival, Interstellar, Annihilation, Ex Machina, and even the weirdly good Raised By Wolves all told new stories, all created new worlds, at least on film. Sure, there were classic elements, but they weren't trying to ride on the coat-tails of anything that came before. And of course we can look to the first film, or in some cases, early films, of each of the above franchises, and find something fresh. So there are new ideas being offered. But in recent years, the remake and reboot has far outweighed--and obfuscated--anything new that comes out.
Now I get it: Sturgeon's Law ("95% of everything is crap") applies. Not to mention, everyone has their own preferences, and I'm sure some reading this will disagree with a lot of what I say above, whether because they think Star Trek Discovery is edgy and cool, or everything Walt Disney excretes is golden. But it still saddens me: Both because of the "tainting" of great, original ideas that are probably best left as one-offs (e.g. Ghostbusters) or kept in the fault of film mythology (e.g. Indiana Jones), and because of the missed opportunities to create and depict actual strange new worlds, as well as new characters and archetypes of humanity that aren't just remaking, reskinning, and idealizing what came before.
There is a vast wealth of books and comics and other stories waiting to be put to film. There are many great characters of every race, color, gender, age, and demographic, that would be wonderful to see depicted as their own, holistic and original creations. Yet again and again, Hollywood takes the obviously financially incentivized and too-easy route: just remake, reboot, re-hash, as if the viewing audience isn't hungry for anything else but more of the same: just show up to our film, eat your popcorn, and watch a film that has the creative nutritional content of, well, popcorn.
I'd like to think that this will eventually back-fire, that the audience will say, "Enough is enough, we want more creative and original offerings." But I'm not so sure, and am of two minds. I do hear plenty of folks who share variations of my view, yet at the same time, the endless churning out and regurgitation continues unabated...
Of course the problem is that film is generally considered a form of art - like writing, painting, music, etc. But the vast majority (if not all) of Hollywood films are not "films made for their own sake." That is, for the love of film-making. Here we might find the difference between Hollywood and independent films which, regardless of their quality, tend to be made by people who love making films for their own sake -- at least at the beginning (which is also true of Hollywood directors...at the beginning).
In other words, the typical Hollywood big budget film is not the result of a garage band that started gigging and then made it to larger and larger stages. it is a "boy band" that was conceived of and constructed by corporate suits.
The creativity problem is illustrated by the reality of the re-make (in whatever variation, including re-boots and homages). More and more films seem like copies of copies of copies. Cynically we can call this a "cash-grab," though in some cases it may be borne out of a more noble intention; maybe, for instance, a director thought, "I really loved that film when I was growing up and would love to re-envision it." Or we can see how two Millenials wanted to embody the nostalgia they felt for a time they never lived through, and created the fresh-at-first Stranger Things (which, while still remaining good, has diminished over the seasons).
There's also an obvious socio-political element that is evinced in many cases (e.g. Walt Disney's obsession with regendering...hey Walt, here's an idea: why not create a new character? Oh, and one that is interesting and nuanced, and not just amazing at everything?). I'll leave that topic largely untouched, not only because it treads into touchy areas but is ultimately secondary to the economic causative factor. But I mention it, because it also impacts creativity by missing--or rather, not taking up--the opportunity to create and depict, for instance, new female leads that were conceived organically and holistically as female, rather than as a "re-envisioning" of a previous male character. Meaning, we get more Reys than Ripleys.
The creative problem is basically synonymous with the Law of Diminishing Returns. Or, more viscerally, trying to squeeze just a little more (and more and more) juice out of an orange. As if there aren't other fruits in the basket...
So we have....
Star Wars...The prequel trilogy displayed moments of beautiful visual imagination, but was marred to the point of ruination by poor casting and George Lucas's over-fascination with technology (meaning, he ironically became Vaderized). And then we have what is, more or less, the Abrams trilogy. Perhaps more than any other person in film-making, Abrams essentializes "Hollywood remake culture." And to compound it further, Disney+ has churned out a string of shows of varying quality.
Star Trek...This is interesting, because, at first, Gene Roddenberry did the impossible: after a magical first cast, he assembled a second great cast (TNG). How did he do that? Well, he didn't try to copy the first...he imagined new characters, new dynamics. He didn't say, "Let's do a female Kirk." Now of course ST peaked with The Wrath of Khan, but it maintained a pretty high plateau after that, even if the course has generally followed the inevitability of diminishing returns. There have been, at least, a few later peaks (e.g. Strange New Worlds). But the overall diminishment is rather stark, perhaps best exemplified by the destruction of the Federation in Discovery (but I'm sure Michael Sue will fix everything), or what I've heard (but not watched) of Picard. It is almost as if the showrunners of those two series wanted to destroy Roddenberry's Star Trek, replacing flawed-but-noble utopia with edgy-but-soulless dystopia.
In both of the cases above, Hollywood depends upon the cash-cow of name brand recognition, and leaves countless great story worlds untouched. Rather than another Star Trek series, why not explore Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space or NK Jemisin's Broken Earth?
LotR...We start with a surprisingly good film trilogy that endeared itself to even many of the most diehard Tolkienistas. But then Peter Jackson--again, presumably economically "inspired"--created a way-too-long CGI extravaganza follow-up trilogy. But then we have Rings of Power, which essentially colonized Tolkien's ideas and remade them into a distorted simulacrum, recognizable only by surface similarities like names and the occasionally swirly set-piece, but inferior to Jackson's original trilogy in nearly every way, and bordering on mockery of Tolkien himself.
But we need more Tolkien on film, right?! Why not Moorcock's Elric or Le Guin's Earthsea?
Game of Thrones...In a way, this series ruined all of us for fantasy on the screen: it upped the quality level by several degrees from most of what we'd seen before. House of the Dragon is good, but the problem is that it doesn't include the very best of what made GoT great: It lacks the endless supply of great and multi-dimensional characters, there's absolutely no humor, and it is grim to the point of why bother? But it is well-made and overall pretty good.
Willow...haven't seen it, have little interest in it, though will probably give it a shot at some point. But the original film is a great example of how our adult sense of nostalgia overrates childhood favorites. I liked the film, even enjoyed a re-watch a few years ago, but it is really only a cut above most of the 80s fantasy films. But Madmartigan was great (with the emphasis on past-tense).
I mean, there can't be any other good big epic fantasy worlds to depict in a series, nothing like Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen or Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive...
Ghostbusters...The problem started back in the 80s, with the forgettable sequel with that guy from Dragonslayer as the villain. But then we had the terrible 2016 film, which perhaps started the tendency of Hollywood to blame its lack of creativity on Ists and Isms of whatever suits the contexts, as if the many who didn't like it are all synonymous with the few who are legitimately trollish. Afterlife was better, but still rather forgettable. In a way it was The Force Awakens of the Ghostbusters universe: It revisited the greatest hits, but didn't add anything new or evocative and felt like less than the sum of its parts (wait, was JJ Abrams involved?!). More than any film that I can think of, Ghostbusters embodies the idea that some things are better as one-offs and rarities, be it making fondue or riding a roller-coaster as an adult.
Indiana Jones...Raiders remains the best, imo, but the original trilogy was all good, even the markedly inferior Temple of Doom. To be honest, I enjoyed Crystal Skulls, but it was clearly a huge step down. But now we have....Dial of Destiny? I mean, it could be good, but all things (e.g. the trailer) point to yet another creatively-deprived disaster and mockery of a formerly great franchise. I can't wait until we get 2030's Indiana Jones 6: Indy Goes to Space, in which a CGI-version of Harrison Ford - brought back through cloning tech - travels to Mars in a Bezos-built space wiener.
James Bond...it remains to be seen which direction the franchise takes, but we can hope that A) Bond will be back, as a dude, and B) We get to see more of the strong female characters--even their own feature film--from the last one, especially Ana de Armas. In other words, this is a great opportunity to display that depicting strong female leads doesn't require regendering a male character. Just make a new character and story, for Q's sake! It is possible to be inclusive and honoring of tradition.
And finally, the MCU. This was so fresh and fun, and had a well-conceived arc (the "Infinity Saga") from Iron Man in 2008 to Avengers: End Game in 2019. Sure, there were some forgettable films in there, and some of us were experiencing MCU Fatigue by the end, but it was a great ride, carried especially by Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans. But now we have the so-called "Multiverse Saga" as the follow-up, aka "Let's plug every gap we can conceive of, but without the epic meta-story, and with a focus on all the less interesting characters." As one article put it, the focus became on quantity over quality, with the films supplemented by a barrage of tv shows, because more is more, right? It remains to be seen whether the upcoming Phase 5 will build up steam for the culminating Phase 6.
In truth, there's another missed opportunity here. Rather than just squeeze out whatever juice can be find from the secondary cast of Infinity Saga, why not do a soft reboot of Marvel with mutants front and center, and then tie it together with "MCU classic" via Secret Wars?
The very best fantasy and science fiction of the last decade or so have been fresh, new stories. Films such as Arrival, Interstellar, Annihilation, Ex Machina, and even the weirdly good Raised By Wolves all told new stories, all created new worlds, at least on film. Sure, there were classic elements, but they weren't trying to ride on the coat-tails of anything that came before. And of course we can look to the first film, or in some cases, early films, of each of the above franchises, and find something fresh. So there are new ideas being offered. But in recent years, the remake and reboot has far outweighed--and obfuscated--anything new that comes out.
Now I get it: Sturgeon's Law ("95% of everything is crap") applies. Not to mention, everyone has their own preferences, and I'm sure some reading this will disagree with a lot of what I say above, whether because they think Star Trek Discovery is edgy and cool, or everything Walt Disney excretes is golden. But it still saddens me: Both because of the "tainting" of great, original ideas that are probably best left as one-offs (e.g. Ghostbusters) or kept in the fault of film mythology (e.g. Indiana Jones), and because of the missed opportunities to create and depict actual strange new worlds, as well as new characters and archetypes of humanity that aren't just remaking, reskinning, and idealizing what came before.
There is a vast wealth of books and comics and other stories waiting to be put to film. There are many great characters of every race, color, gender, age, and demographic, that would be wonderful to see depicted as their own, holistic and original creations. Yet again and again, Hollywood takes the obviously financially incentivized and too-easy route: just remake, reboot, re-hash, as if the viewing audience isn't hungry for anything else but more of the same: just show up to our film, eat your popcorn, and watch a film that has the creative nutritional content of, well, popcorn.
I'd like to think that this will eventually back-fire, that the audience will say, "Enough is enough, we want more creative and original offerings." But I'm not so sure, and am of two minds. I do hear plenty of folks who share variations of my view, yet at the same time, the endless churning out and regurgitation continues unabated...
