On the last episode of "Agnostic reacts to Star Wars trailers," we learned what the new trilogy will amount to -- a cosplay fanfic sequel for Millennials.
And now that they've released the next installment of "Trailers for That New Star Wars Movie," that assessment is certain. You can almost see the Millennial in stormtrooper costume walking up to Harrison Ford and nervously asking for his autograph. I wonder whether that'll be relegated to a making-of sequence during the credits, or be included in the main narrative itself.
("Gee Mr. Solo, you're some legend around these parts... It sure would do me the honors if you'd, uh, do me the honor of signing my toy lightsaber!")
I still don't know what the hell the movie is going to be about, but contemporary audiences don't want any SPOILERS whatsoever.
Trailers are no longer meant to reel you in on the first viewing. They have become a serial drama form unto themselves. The first reveals a tiny bit, and leaves the audience on a cliffhanger. The next one recaps the last one (barren desert landscape, speeder bike battle, lightsabers), but reveals a little more (Vader helmet, Han and Chewie, TIE fighter pilots).
Who knows how many more episodes there will be before the series finale -- the trailer that tells you what the hell the movie is going to be about.
Not following the hype cycle of modern movies, I was unaware of the trend of trailers as soap operas (gossip about them online when the new episode comes out!). I'm even more out of touch with video games, but their hype cycle is so huge that even someone who doesn't play them anymore may know about it. First there's a hint from the developers, then a spectacle teaser during E3, then a beta version, then a playable demo, and finally two years later, the actual game.
I remember when the movie trailer was a terse stand-alone format, and when new video games were announced once they were released, not years ahead of time.
But, that was back when people still had a life. Folks in outgoing times have too much of a dynamic social life to tolerate a serial format stringing them along and keeping them waiting. Soap operas were huge in the Midcentury, but were marginal by the '80s. Short film serials were popular at theaters in the Midcentury, but were also absent during the '80s, whose climate was similar to the Roaring Twenties. Only since the cocooning climate returned during the '90s did serial dramas return to mass entertainment, this time on TV.
They could have made a string of teaser trailers for movies back in the '80s, to be shown on TV commercials or in theaters, but they didn't. Those are a new development -- since when exactly, I don't know, although I have a hunch the Lord of the Rings movies had serial trailers.
Cocooners are bored out of their minds, so they crave a steady and regular fix of anything meant to wake them up. Previously, on "dissecting popular culture," we looked at entertainment as a mood stabilizer vs. experimentation, making the link to stabilizing vs. destabilizing types of drugs.
The stabilizing kind were popular in the Midcentury and have become popular again since the dawn of Prozac circa 1990. Ward Cleaver had Kellogg's Pep and Geritol, while his grandson has Monster energy drinks and Viagra. The destabilizing kinds like LSD are meant to be taken in stand-alone sessions, as though each trip were to somewhere different.
Movie trailers have clearly joined the mood stabilizer family of entertainment. Life is boring, but don't worry, another teaser trailer for Whatever Part Four comes out next week. And don't worry, it won't contain any spoilers -- which would ruin the fix you ought to get from the next trailer after that one.
Spoilers may not answer every question about who, what, when, where, why, and how, but they do close off certain paths through which the trailer-makers could have strung you along. And now that the function of trailers is to provide a regular dose of stimulation to bored nerds, they no longer tell you what the hell the movie is going to be about.
I won't deny that Millennials can be dorky. It should be noted though that a lot of Gen X culture is kinda nerdy. JJ Abrams is obviously a Gen X-er and Kevin Smith has been throwing Spielberg/Lucas (and even dorkier comic book) references into his stuff from day one.
ReplyDeleteGen X artists can sometimes resonate but all too often they either go too heavy on the angst or too heavy on the self aware goofiness. I have a hunch that the Abrams Star Wars is going too have too much of both elements if his Star Trek movies are any indication. A Beastie Boys song in Trek? Really? For shame.
On top of that, Abrams is a Jew so it's a given that his Star Wars take will flirt with greater dorkiness and a less convincing spirituality. Star Wars, at least at the beginning, was kind of the soulful gentile to the preachy Jew of Star Trek.
The self-aware goofiness was already evident among late Silent and Boomer creators in 1989 -- the Back to the Future sequels, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Christmas Vacation.
ReplyDeleteThe angsty/emo and campy/goofy trend continued with Boomers in the '90s -- Tim Burton, the Farrelly brothers, the Coen brothers, and so on.
Almost all of the pandering fanfic tentpole movies of the 21st century were created by Boomers. Kevin Smith has had no influence on popular audiences or devoted film culture. Look at boomer Peter Jackson -- an even bigger, more delusional, self-indulgent nerd who will never retire from emo geek serials that come in 3-hour installments. And Smith couldn't dream of topping Tarantino ('63) for spastic fanboy geek-outs.
Three loathsome cases are on the borderline of late Boomer and early X-er, all born in '65 -- Michael Bay, Bryan Singer, and Sam Mendes. Maybe that's an argument for lumping '65 in with late Boomer births.
Since most movies these days stink, it's better to look at who makes the exceptions. Christopher Nolan has been the most consistent, and he was born in '70. Zack Snyder ('66) made a decent Superman movie, relative to other movies of the day. I don't keep up with comic book movies, but people say the Iron Man ones are more enjoyable than the typical tentpole superhero movies; they're directed by Jon Favreau ('66).
Tom McCarthy('66) is another good director from the early Gen X generation, though his movies are less well-known.
ReplyDeleteFilm Noir showed a similar generational influence.
ReplyDeleteMost hit movies from the Midcentury were tiresome epics, adaptations of musicals, and melodrama (at least not as offensive in tone as their counterparts in today's cocooning era). Film noir was a breath of fresh air.
The previous incarnation of Gen X was the Greatest Gen, who were children or adolescents during the peak of the crime wave of the early 20th C. Say, 1905-1924. Before them was a generation we don't have a name for, but who by all accounts were like the wild-child late Boomers. Call them the Fitzgerald generation, born roughly 1885-1904.
Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, John Huston, Robert Aldrich, and Nicholas Ray were Greatest Gen (so was the director of Sweet Smell of Success).
The Fitzgerald generation made a decent showing too, including film noir, but were also behind the pandering tentpole movies of their age -- Ben-Hur, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Gone with the Wind, etc.
Hitchcock is an interesting case. Christopher Nolan has been compared to him, but Hitchcock was not very introspective -- he had more of a black-humor approach to the grotesque, akin to the Coen brothers. Fargo is more Hitchcockian than Memento, which feels more like an introspective film noir than a black-humor thriller.
And sure enough, Hitchcock belonged to the Fitzgerald generation, not the Greatest.
One major difference about the two cocooning eras is that the Midcentury was part of the Great Compression, when competitiveness was falling. So the Fitzgerald generation stepped aside and let the Greatest Gen fill the director's role fairly early. All the directors mentioned before were under 40 when they hit it big -- Welles and Citizen Kane, Wilder and Double Indemnity, Huston and The Maltese Falcon, Robert Aldrich and Kiss Me Deadly, Nicholas Ray and In a Lonely Place.
This time around, the Silents and Boomers have dug themselves in. They must climb the status ladder at all costs (or at least hold on and not retire = slide down).
Who knows what movies would have been made if generational incumbency had not been so entrenched? I'm sure Nolan wasn't the only X-er with his basic sensibilities -- he was just the one who was driven enough to secure a foothold on the pyramid that has been monopolized by the Me Generation since the 1980s.
Thank you for your blog. Trailers rarely excite me but the biggest turnoff is seeing a trailer in January and watching it end with Fall of 2015. Really get a life. Tell me about a movie I can see in the next two months or forget about it. Corporate America sure isn't afraid to waste 90% of movie goers time with trailers remotely related to the movie they are going to see. Comedy trailers are almost always a turnoff. You always suspect your seeing their best stuff and most of the time it isn't very good. I wonder if a fair amount of the energy involved in trailers is competition with other movie studios trailers. Forget about competing with their movies.
ReplyDeleteFascinating. I have a friend who just got back from a huge Star Trek convention in Anaheim. He was going crazy over seeing the latest trailer there---for which he proudly bragged that he'd waited in line for more than 12 hours to see. He claimed it was awesome and proved the movie was awesome. So sad. He wasted a day to pay to see a fucking commercial.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'd pointed out people had said the same things about the Phantom Menace trailers, and that J.J. Abrams is a hacky director, he got wildly upset and said "this is different". And don't get me started on his reaction when I pointed out it looked like a chick-kicking-ass/black man on white woman preachy-message kind of film. Yes, my friend's a rabbit.
As to JJ Abrams, he's effectively ruined the Star Trek movies as a franchise-moneymaker. They are no longer "Star Trek" movies, but action movies in space with the name "Star Trek" on them. The second film had underachieving returns precisely because Star Trek fanboys---the ones, you know, who make the Star Trek films and TV shows successful---were largely uninterested, having watched the first incoherent "reboot" and realizing that the old Star Trek universe was going to be raped when it was not ignored.
That and the constant homosexual innuendo was a big turn off to fans. Innuendo: (1) Spock played as a bullied gay by a gay actor, despite an ostensible female love interest who just happens to be a sassy-mouthed bitch, like a gay man; (2) Kirk constantly ending up on his back, legs splayed in the air, when wrestling with another, stronger man (this happens at least three times, and the camera lingers on Kirk in this position); (3) Kirk played not as a macho military leader, but as a pretty-boy rebel-rent-boy leader; (4) McCoy and Scottie, two male roles who are flawed, human, and clearly straight , being downgraded to minor characters that serve as comic relief; (5) Sulu and Checkoff played by young pretty-boy gay-rent-boy lookers whose faces get plastered on screen like ads for gay-escort-cosplay services.
Whatever homo was making the final decisions on the Star Trek film clearly wanted to make it as close to gay fantasy in space as he could without making it a gay-message movie.
Also, the Khan character in the 2nd film (which I did not see) was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, whose fame is derived from his large homo-following; the gay innuendo of his Sherlock series; his "good friendship" with Zachary Quinto; and his androgynous, gay-dancer looks. Khan is supposed to be the pinnacle of human development---a genetically engineered superman. Does anyone really think the producers and Abrams aren't trying to say something?
ReplyDeleteFitzgerald was part of the Lost Generation, I believe the first generation to be given a name, as far as we're concerned. Gertrude Stein gave the name to the writers of that generation, and then sociologists ran with it.
ReplyDeleteThe trailer as serial is an interesting phenomenon. For big movies like the new Star Wars, where audiences (myself included) don't need to know what the movie is about specifically in order to buy a ticket, it's a fun build-up to an anticipated event. For smaller movies, it can peak the interest. It's manipulative, but then so is art in general. It's whether you're willing to let go and hop on the ride or not that determines how you'll respond to it.
Serialized drama certainly has made a comeback, and I'm all for it. Well done shows like The Sopranos and True Detective have characters that change in seemingly organic ways, and watching that arc over a period of a season (or many seasons) is gratifying in a way movies can't be. I suppose you could attribute the rise of serialized drama with a cocooning period when it comes to binge-watching. But then I'm fairly certain people in your idealized outgoing 80s, if they had access to something like Netflix, would have acted the same. I know I, as a teenager and young adult in the 80s, sure would have.
"Lost Generation" is associated too narrowly with the artistic expats in Paris during the '20s. Using it as a broad label would be like calling the Silents the Beat Generation.
ReplyDeleteUsing trailers to reel the audience in is fine, but when they become their own serialized entertainment medium, they don't pique my interest. They're deliberately vague and impressionistic about the basic framework of the plot, which is instead treated as the McGuffin of the trailer series.
Look at how much they revealed in the trailer to the original Star Wars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g3_CFmnU7k
Close-up shot of Luke saying there's nothing left for him here, he wants to journey to another planet under the guide of a mentor, and learn "the ways of the Force" and become "a Jedi knight like my father" -- wow, so, um, like, SPOILERS in the trailer??!?!?!! Thanks for ruining the movie you asshats!
They also make clear what some of the main themes are -- rebellion, romance. That it'll take the form of an epic or saga.
What are the themes of the new movie? We don't know, because no one tells us or shows us. There are battle scenes -- is that a rebellion against an outside empire, a civil war, terrorism, what? There's a chick character -- is there a romantic theme, or is she the standard butt-kicking babe meant to be gawked at by nerds but who doesn't get into a relationship arc with the male characters? Who dat nigga in da stormtroopah outfit?
Is it an epic fantasy, or is it an action movie set in space like the Star Trek reboots that Abrams directed?
These are basic things that potential viewers should be able to figure out before deciding whether to check it out or not.
Instead, we're supposed to just jump on the ride because of the instant brand recognition of Star Wars, and the promise that if we make this blind leap of faith, we won't fall as hard as we did when we made the same leap with the prequel movies.
"I suppose you could attribute the rise of serialized drama with a cocooning period when it comes to binge-watching."
ReplyDeleteCocooning doesn't just allow people to binge-watch a serial drama while they're holed up indoors all day, every day. The lack of social activity makes people crave a substitute, so serial drama swoops in to fill the void of relationships in their real lives.
Viewers in the '80s didn't want serial drama because they had the real thing going on in their everyday lives.
"But then I'm fairly certain people in your idealized outgoing 80s, if they had access to something like Netflix, would have acted the same."
You don't need Netflix or premium cable for serial dramas to thrive. Twin Peaks was on network TV, and Star Trek: The Next Generation was in first-run syndication. West Wing was on network, so was 24. Even the basic cable shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men are not on one of those channels above number 100. Those basic networks had been around since the early '80s.
There was still radio, if anyone felt like resurrecting serial dramas that way.
And movie trailers could have been serialized on TV commercials if that's what the audience was in the mood for.
With their everyday social needs already satisfied, audiences in the '80s turned to entertainment for stand-alone experiences that wouldn't interrupt their active social lives.
"That and the constant homosexual innuendo was a big turn off to fans. Innuendo: (1) Spock played as a bullied gay by a gay actor, despite an ostensible female love interest who just happens to be a sassy-mouthed bitch, like a gay man;"
ReplyDeleteWhen the original Star Trek was cast around 1965 people were starting to tire of vanilla pretty boy actors. So it's not surprising that the 3 lead characters and actors were definitely masculine. Stoicism was also in from about the 20's-70's so actors in general were going to come off as less bitchy.
"wow, so, um, like, SPOILERS in the trailer??!?!?!! Thanks for ruining the movie you asshats!"
This BS paranoia about spoilers does get old. You would think that the continuing revival of ancient plays would make people realize that the execution is more important than the idea. And the journey is just as important as the destination.
We know that sex leads to cumming but does that ruin the sex?
The fact that people lose interest when they know the outcome says a lot about how awful the acting, the music, the photography, and the editing must be. But how many people (esp. one born since about 1990) realize that the spoiler paranoia derives from the inability of artists to do anything even competently, let alone well?
"Three loathsome cases are on the borderline of late Boomer and early X-er, all born in '65 -- Michael Bay, Bryan Singer, and Sam Mendes. Maybe that's an argument for lumping '65 in with late Boomer births."
ReplyDeleteI don't recall very many white serial killers being born in '65 . There's a handful born in the early 60's and a ton born in the 30's,40's, and 50's. And it's not just because of how many people were born; there weren't very many people born in the 30's yet a lot of 30's births later became sleazy con men, gangsters, and predators.
That being said, i suppose that some '65ers could have the last vestiges of Boomer wildness and arrogance. Like how '85ers (or '86ers?) have the last vestiges of Gen X.
Singer is a gay Jew so I wouldn't exactly use him as a rep. for Gen X (or late Boomers). Hollywood is always going to be Jew town but at least they weren't as crass before the moronic 90's.
"Close-up shot of Luke saying there's nothing left for him here, he wants to journey to another planet under the guide of a mentor, and learn "the ways of the Force" and become "a Jedi knight like my father" -- wow, so, um, like, SPOILERS in the trailer??!?!?!! Thanks for ruining the movie you asshats!"
ReplyDeleteObviously, moviegoers had no idea what Star Wars was about, and the very idea of a big space epic at the time was thought of as silly. So, the trailer had to include more of the plot. And you know, there are plenty of movie trailers currently that show a lot of the plot, in many cases, too much to my taste. It's usually just the big familiar brand name movies that do the sneak peek thing.
"Instead, we're supposed to just jump on the ride because of the instant brand recognition of Star Wars, and the promise that if we make this blind leap of faith, we won't fall as hard as we did when we made the same leap with the prequel movies."
You're not suppose to do anything, but hell yes, I'm excited for the movie purely based on my love of the original 3. I hope it's good, might not be, but I'm willing to pay my 8 bucks to find out. I think you're just the kind of person, like I was in my 20s, who resents even the hint of being manipulated.
"Cocooning doesn't just allow people to binge-watch a serial drama while they're holed up indoors all day, every day. The lack of social activity makes people crave a substitute, so serial drama swoops in to fill the void of relationships in their real lives.
Viewers in the '80s didn't want serial drama because they had the real thing going on in their everyday lives."
You have a very romanticized view of the 80s and a very pessimistic view of the present. I reached adulthood in the late 80s, and being an adult now, aside from the fact that having kids puts a damper on the going out at night thing, I honestly see zero difference in the frequency of people socializing. Seriously. Some activities have changed, such as video games are much more central to people of my kids' generation. But, you know, they play those games with their friends while yakking and laughing it up. Texting is a huge change in the way kids interact, but they're still interacting. And they still somehow manage to find the time to play soccer, be in Boy Scouts, skateboard around the neighborhood, etc.
People see what they want in the world. If you're looking for evidence of how today doesn't match up to a past you were not there for, you're gonna find it. Lots of people are lonely and spend too much time on the internet or their smartphone. In the 80s, lots of people were just lonely. The available tools have changed, but people seem to be pretty much the same.
"You don't need Netflix or premium cable for serial dramas to thrive. Twin Peaks was on network TV, and Star Trek: The Next Generation was in first-run syndication. West Wing was on network, so was 24. Even the basic cable shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men are not on one of those channels above number 100. Those basic networks had been around since the early '80s."
Right, that was my point about the cocooning thing maybe applying to binge-watching, but no much else. Even before Netflix, in the 80s even, people watched serialized drama while also somehow sustaining a healthy social life.
"That and the constant homosexual innuendo was a big turn off to fans. ..."
ReplyDeleteWow. Interpretation really is everything. You saw a totally different movie than I did, and I'm not one to be blind to gay subtext. I agree that the Trek reboot was basically just an action movie that over relied on CGI, which is sadly the case for most of the big budget flicks these days. But all that hot gay action you were seeing in your head! I have some friends that would be jealous of you.
"Even before Netflix, in the 80s even, people watched serialized drama while also somehow sustaining a healthy social life."
ReplyDeleteNo they didn't. The basic cable networks were around back then, but they did not attract huge audiences and "water cooler" conversations about what happened on last night's episode. Dallas, that was about it. Serial drama was not popular on cable, nor was it top-rated on TV.
"I honestly see zero difference in the frequency of people socializing."
ReplyDeleteRight, all those peer groups of kids running around the neighborhood, teenagers loitering around the shopping center / 7-11, adults in night clubs, and the senior citizens at the mall. And all those people making eye-contact and talking to each other in the coffee shops.
Just like yesterday.
"Obviously, moviegoers had no idea what Star Wars was about"
ReplyDeleteWe have no idea what any movie is going to be about before we actually see it -- that's the point of the trailer. Even if our assessment after seeing the movie is, "Meh, it was just another movie like X, Y, and Z," we can't know that beforehand.
No two movies are the same, so we need to know the rough contours of what this one is that you're advertising.
Removing all hints of what makes this particular movie distinct is treating movies like they're fungible globs of stuff. No need to know what makes this Star Wars story compelling -- it's the next blob of product that got shat off some Hollywood assembly line, Star Wars division.
Then there's the blasphemous presumption that we're supposed to worship anything with the Star Wars name on it, just because the original movies 30-40 years ago were awesome. It's supposed to be such an automatic pilgrimage to the theaters that we don't even have to know what the story will be about.
And in any case, trailers in the old days spelled out the plot overview even for well-worn genres like the rogue cop movie. Here's the original trailer for Die Hard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TQ-pOvI6Xo
That voice-over sounds like he's reading the plot synopsis at Wikipedia! Who hadn't seen one of those kinds of movies by 1988? Nobody. So why all the detail about plot, characters, and motivation? Because they had to convince the audience that *this particular* rogue cop vs. the terrorist movie was compelling enough to see in the theaters.
That used to be the main question people asked when browsing the selection at the video rental store -- you're in the horror section, and you pick one up wondering, "Hmm, what's this one about?" "Sounds awesome / sounds boring." Not, "OMG, sequel to Poltergeist -- must be epic, must rent tonight, don't tell me what it says on the back of the box!"
Nobody wonders what a movie is about anymore. It's just "Action / Horror / Cartoon movie #643897 of year 2015, tags: STAR WARS / TOY STORY / MARVEL SUPERHERO"
The audience wants interchangeable chunks of "content," so that's what Hollywood serves up, advertising it as fungible "product".
The Russo brothers ('71 and '75) have directed some solid stuff. Captain America 2:The Winter's Soldier, Arrested Development, Community, some other stuff. And they have been tapped to direct Captain America 3, and succeed Joss Whedon on Avengers 4 and 5.
ReplyDeleteAs to JJ Abrams, he's effectively ruined the Star Trek movies as a franchise-moneymaker. They are no longer "Star Trek" movies, but action movies in space with the name "Star Trek" on them
The last decent Star Trek movie was First Contact which grossed 92 million domestic. Adjusted for inflation to 2009 that is roughly 125 million. Star Trek (2009) grossed twice that. So as a money maker JJ Abrams clearly saved the franchise.
In fact, whenever I think about Star Trek, I hope somebody like Netflix or Amazon picks up a 13-episode run. Because they get lured in by the $$$ he put up.
Good OP. I'm already sick of the ubiquitous cheerleading for these corporate franchise movies (should almost say "entertainment products"), and it's clearly going to get a lot worse before it ever gets better.
ReplyDeletere: the new Star Trek movies, they drew bigger audiences than the old ones by turning them into broad, generic action sci-fi and throwing an avalanche of marketing cash at the public. Score a big opening weekend and a decent multiple the next one, pay a bunch of websites to call it a bold new direction for the series, then move on and flush it down the memory hole before everyone figures out it was mediocre and forgettable. Finally let the franchise rest for 9 months or so until it's time to start teasing the next EPIC NEW DEVELOPMENT one drop at a time. This is the template for all these franchises. The reason they now put so much focus on teasing what's coming NEXT is to distract you from the fact that more often than now what you're watching NOW is shit. Find me one person who will say that Star Trek: Into Dorkness is one of their all-time personal favorite movies (or Thor 2 or Wolverine 2 or Fast & Furious 6 or Spider Man 2 or Iron Man 3...). In future years no one will ever watch these things outside of nerd marathons. Yet I'm not even a Star Trek fan and I can still watch Wrath of Khan today and enjoy it. At least it had personality and felt like the people involved gave a shit about telling that particular story.
For the record, Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine are flaming queers and are completely implausible as womanizers or even straight men period (Quinto barely seems human).
As for the guy defending teasers cuz now we all know what Star Wars is, that's missing the point. The point is that people today ENJOY getting cockteased for years with tiny drops of vague detail about these movies, in fact they crave it just so they'll have something in their miserable lives to get excited about. If the studios said "OK, here's the new thing we're releasing next month, here's the cast and the basic plot, hope we'll see you there!" they would screech about "neglecting the fandom" and then screech louder about spoilers. That is well deserving of mockery.
Lastly, this line bugged me:
"hell yes, I'm excited for the movie purely based on my love of the original 3. I hope it's good, might not be, but I'm willing to pay my 8 bucks to find out."
I suppose you also still go to every new M. Night Shyamalan movie, since Sixth Sense was so good? This soft touch attitude of "it's got the brand name on it and everyone will be talking about it, how could I possibly skip it?" is a Disney shareholder's wet dream. It is EXACTLY why the studios are doing what they're doing. "You mean you're not going to see the new Star Wars movie? Why not just stab your own childhood in the back while you're at it!" Sorry, George Lucas already did that 15 years ago.
It's all about getting people hooked, getting them to feel like they HAVE to go see it, because they're already too invested in the franchise, and besides everyone else is going to see it and they'll be talking about it and THERE COULD BE SPOILERS! Learn to just not care, it's freeing and it's the grown-up thing to do. At least wait until the initial media-gasm dies down and if people still seem excited about it days or weeks after the initial release, then maybe it's worth a damn.
I can count on one hand the number of directors I would watch anything they made just on the strength of their reputation, and even then they could easily drop off that list with poor output (Christ Nolan needs to step up his game after Interstellar). The huge majority of movies are shit, so it's on Hollywood to sell me on the next new thing, and I want to be nice and clear on what exactly it is and why I should care, not get blue balls just trying to discern who the main character is.
"As to JJ Abrams, he's effectively ruined the Star Trek movies as a franchise-moneymaker. They are no longer "Star Trek" movies, but action movies in space with the name "Star Trek" on them
ReplyDeleteThe last decent Star Trek movie was First Contact which grossed 92 million domestic. Adjusted for inflation to 2009 that is roughly 125 million. Star Trek (2009) grossed twice that. So as a money maker JJ Abrams clearly saved the franchise."
The pre-Abrams movies came out just before the Big-ass tentpole arms race really got out of hand. By 2009, boring-but hugely (over) produced movies were able to make tons of money via extensive marketing (with huge levels of fan service) and endless scenes of effects heavy spectacle.
I don't like the Next Generation movies all that much (the mid-late 90's were fairly boring) but Paramount didn't blow tons of money on the them (2002's Nemesis had a 60 million budget) and didn't market them to death. Meanwhile, the remake had a 160 million budget, "hot" young actors, and social media/convention pow wows in which the director and actors hyped the movie to kingdom come. And the aformentioned gimmick of trailers months in advance of the movie.
These turgid tentpole movies are basically guaranteed to make at least adequate money unless:
- They're based on a dead brand or really bad idea (see the Lone Ranger)
- They've received a lot bad publicity for a "troubled" production while the makers are too busy or embarrased to defend and promote the movie adequately (again the Lone Ranger
- The movie just, uh, sucks in spite of it's budget and the skill that such money brings.
In the later 60's - 90's movies were made and marketed much more modestly. Basically they were on a diet. Sometimes if the script wasn't happening or if the director or lead actor were in over their head the movie would turn out bad. Yet at the same time, not blowing tons of money and not prepping a movie months or years in advance also meant that the creators had to rely on talent and gut instincts. And relying on genuine spontaneous inspiration could produce great stuff.
Today's culture is so constipated and neurotic everything has to be agonizingly over thought. It's like they think that sheer technical razzle dazzle and having 700 people working for eons on every aspect of the movie is going to compensate for a lack of anything to say.
"It's all about getting people hooked, getting them to feel like they HAVE to go see it, because they're already too invested in the franchise, and besides everyone else is going to see it and they'll be talking about it and THERE COULD BE SPOILERS! Learn to just not care, it's freeing and it's the grown-up thing to do. At least wait until the initial media-gasm dies down and if people still seem excited about it days or weeks after the initial release, then maybe it's worth a damn."
ReplyDeleteGood point. When people stop clicking on these stories, stop retweeting hype, and for crying out loud, stop attending those damn conventions, maybe then we'll finally have some peace and quiet. Instead of wall to wall hype and teasing.
In the 70's and 80's, the majority of movies quietly slipped into theaters and if people liked them, word got around and the movie did business. And thanks to the better quality of stuff on average, cool poster art, and people being less uptight it wasn't that uncommon for people to go into all kinds of movies regardless of the "brand" or the hype. There's a reason for all of the damn sequels, remakes, and re-hashing of established characters.
Keep in mind also that the better quality of movies back then meant that some pretty good movies actually did fairly average to mediocre business. It was really tough to have staying power with so much competition. Which is also why the 80's had a lot of one hit wonders in music.
i've heard Sailer blame cocaine for the large number of artists who came and went fast in the late 70's/80's but I don't buy it. Record companies back then didn't do much promotion of a given artist since there were so many artists doing good stuff. The art sold itself. Between weak label support and the high competition between so many good artists, it's not surprising that a lot of acts struggled to stick around.
It seems pretty self-explanatory that the better art is, the less marketing is relied on. The likes of Taylor Swift are lavished with massive promotion and the best song writers and producers that money can buy. And there's hardly anyone out there doing anything interesting. So artists like Swift can stay in the spotlight essentially indefinitely. The only that will slow them down is some kind of injury or emotional melt down (see Maria Carey and Britney Spears).
Also with regard to drugs: If Sailer thinks that these Millennial starlets are stone cold sober HE must be high. In their defense, being a touring musician of any kind is tough (hence the endless "road" songs that have been made). Let alone someone whose performance is a huge deal to a bunch of elites. God knows what the Taylor Swift's of this era are doing behind closed doors to try and keep their psyche intact.
ReplyDeleteThe mid century also had performers (esp. women) who were ground to a pulp by the corporate hype machine.
I'd wager that 70's/80's performers were relatively well adjusted. Of course, artists in general tend to be off kilter no matter what.
"teenagers loitering around the shopping center / 7-11,"
ReplyDeleteyou still see this at Wawas in NJ.
I thought soaps like Dallas, Dynasty and General Hospital were popular in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteSnyder is a lousy director. He's basically a fanboy that somehow got studios to give him money.
"Dallas" wasn't sui generis. Just among primetime soap operas, there was "Dynasty" (#1 show in 1984-85, top 10 between 1982 and '86, top 30 from 1981 to '87), "Falcon Crest" (top 10 for three seasons and top 30 for five), "Knots Landing" (top 10 for 1 season, top 30 for eight), plus others, although those were the big four. Between 1980 and 1985 the top rated television series in America was always a soap, either Dallas or Dynasty. (The Cosby Show dominated the latter half of the '80s.)
ReplyDeleteNon-soaps like "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere" also had serial qualities, although they weren't as popular, apparently because they lacked the sturm und drang of the "Dallas" type shows.
"No they didn't. The basic cable networks were around back then, but they did not attract huge audiences and "water cooler" conversations about what happened on last night's episode. Dallas, that was about it. Serial drama was not popular on cable, nor was it top-rated on TV."
ReplyDeleteNot only Dallas, but Falcon Crest, Dynasty, Knots Landing, Hill St. Blues, etc. All very much water cooler shows. And daytime soaps were still very popular in the 80s. Aside from Hill St. Blues, those shows were very corny, but still popular and serial.
"Right, all those peer groups of kids running around the neighborhood, teenagers loitering around the shopping center / 7-11, adults in night clubs, and the senior citizens at the mall. And all those people making eye-contact and talking to each other in the coffee shops."
Yes to all of the above, only add in smartphones. Where do you live that you aren't seeing those things? I will give you that there are less groups of kids running around outside, but they can be found in droves at the mall, for better or worse. Coffee shops are FAR more popular now with everybody than they were in the 80s. Far, far more, believe me. And just because people are checking their smartphones while talking to the person at the table doesn't mean they aren't socializing (although I still think it's rude, because I'm old). As for adults in night clubs, any city is lousy with them. In the suburbs, sports bars are hopping, and clubs within Indian casinos are insanely popular. I live 10 minutes from one, not my scene at all, but it's extremely busy 24/7.
"We have no idea what any movie is going to be about before we actually see it -- that's the point of the trailer."
ReplyDeleteWe kinda know what the new Star Wars movie will be about, in general. And even if we didn't, it's perfectly legitimate and not part of some conspiratorial trend for a trailer to be vague about plot. It's a classic technique to whet the appetite, and not all that new. I remember seeing the trailer for the first Alien movie in 1979, it was quite opaque and ended with the chilling, "In space, no one can hear you scream." It was a brand new movie and everyone in that theater couldn't wait to check it out after seeing the trailer. Did Ridley Scott owe us a more descriptive trailer for some reason? Hell no.
"Then there's the blasphemous presumption that we're supposed to worship anything with the Star Wars name on it, just because the original movies 30-40 years ago were awesome."
Again, you're not supposed to do anything, but the filmmakers are pretty certain that a sizable audience will check out the movie based on their fondness for the original trilogy. Myself included. You can blanche at that assumption and forego seeing it on principle, but that's pretty silly, to my mind. Understandable, as I felt the same way in my 20s. I'm different, you can't manipulate me! Meh. You'll either get over that or you won't. If the new Star Wars movie is awesome, you'll end up seeing it, maybe a couple weeks later than me, and you can stew in your superiority. Or if it sucks, you can feel vindicated in it. In either case, I'll have spent 40 bucks taking my family out to a fun event with similarly excited folks.
"As for the guy defending teasers cuz now we all know what Star Wars is, that's missing the point. The point is that people today ENJOY getting cockteased for years with tiny drops of vague detail about these movies, in fact they crave it just so they'll have something in their miserable lives to get excited about. "
ReplyDeleteAh, the sweet smell of schoolyard misanthropy. I remember it well. People are lemmings, they have miserable lives and are unthinking automatons who crave visual stimulation. But not you! You know the score, you're onto the media elite's ruse. Stay strong. Ha. I do, in fact, enjoy a nice cocktease from the makers of a series that I enjoy. I'm gay as hell for Walking Dead, for instance. I can enjoy it while knowing it's just that: a fun little diversion. If you can't separate the two, or if you're still operating under the idea that the unwashed masses aren't smart enough to know what's good for them, then too bad for you. You're probably not very happy.
"I suppose you also still go to every new M. Night Shyamalan movie, since Sixth Sense was so good? This soft touch attitude of "it's got the brand name on it and everyone will be talking about it, how could I possibly skip it?" is a Disney shareholder's wet dream. It is EXACTLY why the studios are doing what they're doing."
I went to M. Night Shyamalan's second movie, Unbreakable, very much because I enjoyed the Sixth Sense. Unbreakable was mediocre with a similar twist ending structure. I waited to see Signs on video, it sucked and had yet another big twist ending. Haven't seen one of his movies since. See, it's not a zero sum gain. People can make distinctions because most of us aren't idiots. And yeah, no shit, the studios are out to make money. Most of us are fairly aware of that, yet still enjoy the occasional big tent picture because they can be fun. Hey, I also enjoy arthouse flicks. Gee, aren't people complex? Ha, not really, just people.
"At least wait until the initial media-gasm dies down and if people still seem excited about it days or weeks after the initial release, then maybe it's worth a damn."
Firstly, why? Is that what you do? Good for you. Secondly, sometimes I wait, sometimes I don't. For Star Wars, I'm not waiting. For the Harry Potter movies when my kids were younger, we didn't wait. For just about everything else, we wait. Lots of people are the same way. We're all intelligent enough to pick and choose, even if our choices aren't yours. For chrissakes.
"I can count on one hand the number of directors I would watch anything they made just on the strength of their reputation, and even then they could easily drop off that list with poor output..."
You truly hold the world in your hands. What's your next move? I gotta know. Ha. Yeah, I'm the same. Nolan is one of mine, too. So is Michael Winterbottom, Julien Schnabel, Linklater, and anything with Steve Coogan in it. So what?
Completely OT: are we in the beginning of one Of Peter Turchin's violence spikes? His theory says they happen every 50 years and the Harlem riot happened 1964 and the Watts riots in 65.
ReplyDeleteAs an addendum:
ReplyDeleteThe money-making for Star Trek was never the Big Opening Weekend or even the total sales of first run tickets, but the predictability of the box office gross combined with the success of the movie both being rebroadcast on TV during marathons (generating revenue for the studio that licenses it) + the DVD sales. Star Trek was a workhorse, not a thoroughbred.
In short, Star Trek was not a blockbuster franchise, but a consistent major cult industry that a studio could bank on as regular revenue so long as the product was adequate. It was about nerds coming back again and again for more, not about a teenage girl showing up with her gay friends on opening night.
That's how TOS made Roddenberry famous--not through first run success, but by syndication. That's how the TOS movies made money---decent box office + marathons. That's how TNG made money--through syndication and repeats. That's how TNG movies made money---decent box office + regular stream of marathons and DVD sales.
Abrams and co. removed the profitability of the franchise by making it Just Another Blockbuster. So it removes the repeatability factor for nerds, meaning it won't be a major seller for marathons + DVDs for the future, while the other Star Treks will be. That means a Star Trek movie now depends on being Just Another Blockbuster, and if it fails to deliver with good buzz, it will tank and never be saved by later nerd sales.
This was a very short-sighted move by the studio in the Age of Netflix. As time goes on, a studio's library of good movies will become infinitely more valuable. Ted Turner's genius years ago was to recognize this and get a huge library early and make a cable channel out of it.
In other words, which Star Trek movie do you think will provide its owners + stars more licensing fees merchandise sales, and convention buzz in 20 years: Wrath of Khan versus Into Darkness? Or First Contact versus the 2009 reboot? As a casual Star Trek fan, I've already forgotten everything about the 2009 reboot and haven't seen Khan or First Contact in a decade, but can still remember certain scenes, lines, and the general fun atmosphere. If one comes on TBS I'll stop to watch it; if Into Darkness or the 2009 reboot come on, I'm boredly switching channels.
How dense can a person be.
ReplyDeleteThe point of the OP is teasers and trailers are now treated as major media events in their own right, with countdown timers preceding them and hundreds of articles and hours of video devoted to breathless reaction and analysis. Not just by some small clique of nerds, but by virtually every media outlet in the country, including national news networks. This is an emerging phenomenon that only ramped up in the last 10 years or so, how anyone could dispute this is beyond me.
It's shameful for adults to act this way. Guilty pleasures are one thing, but it's sad and embarrassing to see how unabashedly grown-ups now embrace gaudy, juvenile entertainment, whether it's nerds cosplaying at a convention or CNN anchors feigning shocked excitement over a 30-second TV spot about magic space knights. It's a regression to childish escapism by people who can't or won't aspire to adult dignity, abetted by corporations who are happy to keep standards for their products as low as possible. When you were 10 years old, how would you have felt about it if your father cared deeply about who Black Widow was dating that month, or Han & Chewie's origin story, or the announcement of a new Pixar sequel? Is it "schoolyard misanthropy" to think bronies are pathetic for obsessing over a little girl's TV show? I mean, I'd hate to think I was being judgmental here...
And before you snark about "well aren't you a fancypants", this is not an argument against pulpy, crowd-pleasing tentpole movies, which I like very much (3 of my all-time favorite movies are The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, Heat, and Inception, none of which are remotely "arthouse"). It's me wishing we had separate movie cultures for small kids, older kids, and adults, and that people had the self-respect to at least be discreet when they liked age-inappropriate stuff for the sake of upholding social norms.
Personally I don't go to the theater much anymore because everything either is either the 6th movie in a series I don't care about, a lame comedy starring fat Jews, or SWPL awards-bait about blacks or fags. But when I do go, yes, I'm cautious about getting burned by hype covering for a shitty product. Hollywood doesn't care if you hate their movie once you've bought a ticket, so God forbid anyone should be a little skeptical and skip the opening weekend crush (this is also a good way to avoid the most unbearable nerds).
Finally, I realize plenty of people are perfectly happy we're getting these movies. I'm sure Avengers 2 and Star Wars 7 will make a skrillion dollars (though I do think audiences will eventually get tired of this assembly-line shit and a crash will happen, as Spielberg and Lucas have predicted). But when Homeland Security kicks my door down and drags me off to the FEMA camps for saying "fag" in the previous paragraph, I'll take solace in having dreamed of a better world instead of shutting up and shelling out for the crappy superhero retreads that fund Bryan Singer's underage twink orgies.
Interesting argument for 1980 being the best year in film since 1965. Interesting mostly for its attempt to compile ever A- film of every year starting with 1965. http://www.hitfix.com/news/why-1980-was-the-best-year-in-movie-history
ReplyDeleteNZT, the OP didn't make any of the points you mention, many of which I agree with. I was never a comic book fan and am sick to death of super hero movies, which are fine for kids but frankly ridiculous for adults. I too long for the separation between kids' and adults' entertainment that was clearly present pre-1980s. I don't get the fanboy thing or the ComiCon phenomenon, even as I am a fan of a show like The Walking Dead, which is smack dab in ComiCon territory. But, in some way, not much has changed. My dad, a Boomer, loved the Lone Ranger as a kid, and continues to this day to love Westerns. If there was a series of Western movies, he'd probably be all over it. He's quite discerning about it and can quote endlessly from all the classics, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, included. Is that so much different from comic book movies? I don't know, a little, maybe.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry too much about Homeland Security. Your attitude towards gays and Jews is odious, but not illegal.
It's refreshing to hear a "sophisticate" admit that the early 70's are overrated. Of course, they still are going to be hard on the mid-late 80's if for no other reason than the growing conservatism of the 80's. Homophobia, that's a a widdle too scawy.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, movies did start getting too ridiculous after about 1985 which I blame on growing levels of striving. Producers began demanding that the latest movies had to feature increasingly bombastic stuff so as to be "competitive". All the big shots wanted to make tons of cash and become household names. Look at Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson who didn't survive the 80's
Even though later 80's movies got to be a bit too much they at least were fun since people were unpretentious and wanted amiable entertainment.
Music is a lot more personal and less contrived than Hollywood movies so the best music in fact came out from about 1981-1989. In fact, since good music sells itself the majority of artists were under very little pressure from the labels .The music industry experienced a huge boom in the New Wave/MTV era. Why the boom? Because the music was excellent.
MTV played less and less videos in the 90's for a reason. Music got worse. Had MTV existed in the 70's, it probably would've been fairly popular but it would not have reached the level it did in the 80's.
Interesting too that the HitFlix article has 1988 as the beginning of a dry spell. Seems like we're not the only ones who think that was the dawn of our current malaise.
ReplyDeleteInteresting argument for 1980 being the best year in film since 1965. Interesting mostly for its attempt to compile ever A- film of every year starting with 1965. http://www.hitfix.com/news/why-1980-was-the-best-year-in-movie-history
ReplyDeleteRe: soap operas, over here (UK), I'm pretty sure soap operas were big in the 80s, actually... On TV I don't think they really existed until the 1960s, so I don't know about the Midcentury, radio there might have been some.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not sure exactly how "serial" in flavour they were then - I feel like many people complained that they lacked character development over time, I think, which is kind of what you would expect if they were had an episodic bias.
OTOH, looks from this article like soaps are a lot less popular today than in early 90s (91-92 is the comparison) in the USA - http://adage.com/article/media/tv-soap-operas-losing-viewers-marketing-dollars/145291/ - in terms of "daytime" soap operas "An average of 6.5 million people tuned in to watch daytime dramas during the 1991-1992 TV season, according to Nielsen. By the 2009-2010 season, that average dropped to 1.3 million.".
Part of this looks like its linked to the composition of the labour market.
The archetypal soap is aimed at a house wife who doesn't have *that* much social connection, and is home during the day, at times when her husband isn't - lots of interpersonal relationships that go on and on indefinitely and are good to gossip about, beautiful domestic interiors and are full of melodramatic grandstanding in the way women find exciting.
More women in the labour market, the more women end up watching their fix in the evening, with the husband and family, who have less patience for that kind of thing, and the women today are probably less interested in the purely domestic sphere, since more of them work, etc.
So those shows end up evolving towards or being replaced by the modern serials, which have a definite "arc" and being more focused at least in part on the wider social sphere outside the home and also on professional stuff, so more ostensibly detective, hospital shows, etc.
Women at work has something to do with inequality cycle?
Other stuff:
ReplyDeleteThere's a reasonable amount of these modern serial shows that end up being "binge watched", and end up de facto watching them in a few bursts at least rather than actually as a serial.
I don't know if that signals that the people binge watching actually have too connected a social life to get interested in getting strung along, or that they have an empty enough one that they can just drop out of it for 12 hours or whatever and enjoy their "mega movie".
Also re: knowing what movies are about from trailers - I kind of feel like most folk who are getting hyped up for Age of Ultron, or a movie adaptation of a book they've already read about and the like. Symptom of our adaptation heavy and milking heavy age.
So maybe the aversion to spoilers is part of the fact that they *know* it's not going to surprise them, and don't want to be reminded of that. These trailers is trying to make people feel like something they already know and would find predictable isn't stale to them, rather than pitching it to an unfamiliar and by default apathetic audience.
1950s movies trailers, even though they are from a socially reserved era, couldn't really do this because even if they weren't as creative (lots of adaptations), milking franchises and sequels wasn't as big a thing back then. There were a fair few but http://observationdeck.io9.com/the-sequel-is-dead-the-universe-is-where-its-at-1646495648 - "In the '30s and '40s, there were numerous comedy and mystery series based around recurring characters... On the whole, though, they didn't drive the movie industry. That was reserved for the lavish, big-budget, AAA studio films like Gone With The Wind and Casablanca. And, with a handful of exceptions, like the Bond movies (1962-), that would remain the case until the early '70s, when The Godfather Part II (1974) kicked off a wave of high-profile, big-budget sequels that included French Connection II (1975), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Jaws 2 and Rocky II (both 1978), and, of course, the movie that did more to redefine the longform franchise, The Empire Strikes Back (1980)." It would have be incongruous to have some weird series of hype building teaser trailers for the kind of minor deal, light relief franchises that existed back in the Midcentury, like Charlie Chan and so on.
Re: directors and generations, Christopher Nolan's surprisingly young for a director who's ever made anything halfway iconic (fuck the superhero movies, which were lame and derivative of the worst generation of American comics, but Memento was actually a decent film and The Prestige is good!).
There are Xers, but just so few beyond around 1970. It might just take too much time to get a real flavour of what Gen X are actually like as directors. Nothing much like James Cameron making the Terminator at around 30 years old. John McTiernan was around 36 when he did his big iconic movies.
Out of the Gen Xers who are younger the 1970 births or around that line, seems like how many of them may have came through by doing exploitative schlock that would be seen as untouchable by Boomers (the guy who did Guardians of the Galaxy started with Troma, some of the few known mid-late Xer directors do disgusting trash like Saw) or like Gareth Evans, born 1980, who managed to make The Raid, which is reasonably iconic, but he had to "schlep" out to Indonesia to make his mark doing a gig that couldn't be horned in on by an older director.
"I don't know if that signals that the people binge watching actually have too connected a social life to get interested in getting strung along, or that they have an empty enough one that they can just drop out of it for 12 hours or whatever and enjoy their "mega movie".
ReplyDeleteIt signals that there are technology and licensing agreements in place that allow people to do that. If Netflix was around in the 80s, people would have done the same thing then. I know I would have.