Yeah Wim Wenders made a documentary back in 1982 about this. It’s a series of interviews with world famous directors of the time talking about the direction of the movie industry.
The Slow Death of Hollywood
161–170 of 267 posts
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#162Great article. To me the weak part in this argument is arguing this all involves “lock in”. Specifically:
> The story is that users will buy Netflix streaming services and it will be too much trouble to switch to a different service, which is a variant of a phenomenon called “lock-in.”
And because of this they can get away with building bad content and losing money.
I don’t agree users won’t easily switch or leave if quality drops. Netflix is becoming a premium channel like HBO (or vice versa). It’s trivial to cancel the service like it is to cancel any premium channel (think HBO after GoT) and look at other options. If anything, eventually my credit card expires and I revisit all my subscriptions...
This does seem to be a problem in the case of a duopoly or monopoly, which is perhaps the real threat the author means to describe.
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#163Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually. This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old so…
> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. "catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure mos…
I can’t watch the original stuff they are making if it doesn’t come to my theater. My theater is a bunch of sequels and remakes, the Hollywood you are describing seems completely foreign to me in this era.
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#164Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually. This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old so…
> This won't work for them forever
You are under estimating the power of formula. Disney had a huge run with prince-princess stories for kids and they only recently toned it down because of huge negative effects on kids. They can easily go on forever on this theme if they want to. Vast majority of movies made in Indian cinema (aka Bollywood) are information-less and even story-less movies that just revolves around one thing: Two people fall in love and there is some problem. You can literally find identical story lines in other 100s of Bollywood movies. Very very few people there has given thought to making movies on something else. This has been going on for about 50 years there and no signs of stopping.
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#165There have been counter arguments that Netflix and Prime Video has in fact saved Hollywood. If you want to make a movie in hollywood, you have to know people who will fund you. You need big connections, close friendships, strong referrals. Even then terms are often not favorable to artists, budget cuts could happen at whims and non-established artists have little freedom. It's like a startup scene but how things used to be done before YC. With Netflix, I think what has happened is that humanity has collectively handed over $10B to one company to create entertainment for them. The budgets are deterministic and not at whims of few people. Artists can take risks because you don't have to count tickets sold. You can create artistic content that has expense and income numbers that don't make sense because eventually it balances out in the larger pool. Suddenly there is lot more money for artists and lot more freedom. It's still not quite like YC where you show up with idea for your movie and instantly get funded but its getting closer to that model.
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recycling culture nakedly has always been Disney's thing, the familiarity of the stories has always been a selling point with much of the market (and the “its just recycling what I've already experienced” has always been the refrain of another part of the market.) That's also true of Hollywood more generally. To the extent Hollywood is dying it's because new media (that are no less enthusiastic about recycling cultur…
Recycling concepts is one thing. Recycling a movie thats still popular only with slightly different acting is quite another.
It’s been well over a decade since the original Aladdin was released. This isn’t exactly complaining that people keep on staging Macbeth instead of newly written plays but it’s in the same direction. Critics and connoisseurs care far more about originality than casuals, who are always all about competent execution. Is the movie any good when judged as a singular work? Is it good if you’re not jaded by having watched a movie a day for years?
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#167Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually. This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old so…
> He told us he didn't want to see it because they(Disney) were just taking a 2D movie that he'd already seen and are just doing the same thing again Interestingly, the original Aladdin is no longer available for sale. Netflix, Amazon, Google Play, Walmart....whatever. You either need to buy a disc from a garage sale, or pirate it.
Not just an Aladdin thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault
> The "Disney Vault" was a term used by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment for its policy of putting home video releases of Walt Disney Animation Studios's animated features on moratorium. Each Disney film was available for purchase for a limited time, after which it is put "in the vault" and not made available in stores for several years until its re-release. With the announcement of Disney's forthcoming streaming service Disney+—scheduled for launch in the United States on November 12, 2019—Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that the service will contain Disney's entire film library, which would de facto retire the concept of the Disney Vault for good.
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is partly due to new media however lets consider some other things which are really important. 1) The problem is that a lot of the remakes/sequels and reboots are quite frankly crap. I don't care too much about Disney. But other remakes and sequels are generally awful. So lets take some case studies: * Robocop (2013). The movie except for on 2 minute scene was dire. It was a PG-13 remake of what was at the time a…
>There is a guy who made loads of mini-documentaries about old defunct computers systems and the quality now is on par with the Discovery Channel shows of the late 1990s. What channel is this? sounds great
I would also recommend XboxAhoy aka Ahoy. Stuart Brown's work is stunning and belongs could easily be broadcasted by the BBC.
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#169Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually. This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old so…
> This won't work for them forever You are under estimating the power of formula. Disney had a huge run with prince-princess stories for kids and they only recently toned it down because of huge negative effects on kids. They can easily go on forever on this theme if they want to. Vast majority of movies made in Indian cinema (aka Bollywood) are information-less and even story-less movies that just revolves around on…
Yes. Pixar has a template:
Once upon a time there was ___.
Every day, ___.
One day ___.
Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___.
Until finally ___.
Pixar movies are "nobody becomes somebody due to external event". That's a common pattern, beaten to death in the Star Wars franchise. But it's not the only pattern. It's not Game of Thrones. It's not Star Trek. It's not even most winners of "Best Picture" Oscars.
Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood
#170Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually. This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old so…
I would posit if you want new original programming you might want to watch documentaries.
Then again, I have a backlog of many many 5-star documentary movies to watch, but I rarely watch them... in favor of much more formulaic hollywood movies.