In an almost pseudo continuation of my last rant, I want to talk about how the current film industry is turning into a giant shitfest. As I've come to notice in recent years, style is being prioritized over substance. What do I mean by this? As long as you can make your piece of crap look shiny, then people will buy it, watch it, and all that jazz. Using the movie Avatar by James Cameron as an example, look at the movie from a subjective point of view. What does it bring to the table that we haven't seen before? As noted by many media outlets, the plot is incredibly similar to famous movies such as the disney version of Atlantis, Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, and many others. This "Plot" has been recycled so many times it's become cliche, and I've hated it after watching it for the third time. It's solid, but overused. So why is it that this movie has such an amazing special affects treatment, yet very little in the way of plot? Time constraints? Lack of creativity? Anyone who's seen the movie and is even remotely familiar with cinema of the past 10 to 15 years will tell you that this movie is a pretty piece of crap. All style, no substance. It befudles me that more care wasn't put in the plot when this movie really could have been amazing.
My second issue is camera techniques. I like to see when film makers and animators get creative with how they present their scenes. A camera pan, quick cut, zoom in/out, and fade away can be used to amazing effect that really gets your blood pumping and dramatically increases your immersion in the movie. Take Star Wars for example. When Luke Skywalker goes to see if his adoptive family is okay in episode IV, the film effects really give you a sense of the weight this scene holds. None of this info is relayed to you through words or actions. You can see clear as day that this will affect his character as he leaves his hold life behinds to become a Jedi. In the scene, he runs up the desert dune, and with sad music playing in the background, you see the wrecked remains of his old home being shown by a slow pan of the camera. It's a simple scene that holds a lot of character motivation without saying barely a word.
Now the major problem is not that any particular style is bad, we just seem to have a lot of the easier styles exploited. The most annoying overused cheat is lack of pans and WAY too many jump cuts. When you look at a scene in most modern action movies, it resembles a puzzle that the film makers put together at whim. Very rarely is there dynamic camera movement. It's just flashes of images. It's absolutely lazy and overdone, and it keeps being used because it's easier to do, and thus cheaper to do. As silly as it may seem to rant about camera technique, it really does matter when making a film. Animated films follow a similar sensibility, just instead of lightning fast cuts, it's a static image with two people flapping their gums. Anime in particular is a big culprit for doing this, as there is a ton of animated material produced in Japan (More than any other country) and sacrifices must be made. Quantity over quality I guess.
And my last point for this rant is acting. A preformers ability to acurattely portray a character either in person or in voice really matters when you're trying to be immersed in a movie. The movies we remember are the ones where you really feel like the characters went through all of the things they experience on screen. Even if the situation is in a fantasy setting, you can still have believable acting that enhances the tone and immersion factor of the film. Take Lord of the Rings. Those movies take place in a time and place that could never exist, and yet it contains accurate emotional responses from the characters that make the world come alive. When Frodo is being tortured by his burden of destroying the ring, you see overtime how his health and personality warps. Even if what happened to him could never happen, you still get caught up in it by how well he's able to act like he's being tortured (Physically and mentally).
Coming to the present day, I notice a lot of acting relies on the main character either being A) An emotionless piece of shit who blows shit up, beats shit up, or just is unemotionally attached, B) Being so obnoxious that all they have to do is act like a jackass, or B) Has the guts of a 9 year old girl who still keeps her light on at night when she sleeps and then suddenly grows up into person A (By this I mean they play the role of scared person who usually evolves into the first main character cliche I brought up). Since a movie is centered around a main character, the supporting actors have to work around this role to give a good preformance. What you usually find is the JarJar binks character (Annoying, stupid, talks too much, stalks the main guy, etc.), the sassy female character, the good natured man who dies because we know he will, and the badass character who says nothing and always shows up at the right time to be... badass. There are more than this, but these kinds of roles are never belivable because they're either flawed to begin with (As in no one would ever act this way) or are just done by bad actors. Very few actors know how to just act well. You either see overacting or underacting, never a good balance. Mind you, I'm aware that a lot of old movies had hokey acting (Some worse than what we have now) but you'll find that the last decade has produced less good films than ever before. All because of laziness and a lust for money where companies can get it, even if it means cutting things out. Like good actors, proper filimg technique, and a goddamn script.
And so ends my rant that is way too long. Congrats if you read it all. Be sure to answer the poll as I'll be making another rant by this Sunday or Saturday (I admit, I do enjoy making these). I also would accept correcting my grammar and spelling as I didn't pay much attention to spelling when reading through this, I mainly just wanted to be sure it made sense).
<hr>Posts merged
Japanese Stuff: I'll rant on certain aspects of Japanese media and how they are perceived by foreign audiences. I have things I don't like about some of the people who like Japanese media, and I also have things I don't like about people who dislike it. I'll also rant on what parts of anime, manga, and music I dislike.
Animation: I'll rant about how animation quality is going down rather than going up. I'll be limiting myself to traditional animation only, so stop motion and CGI will not be included.
Cliches in movies: I'll rant about certain movies cliches kill the experience and show little creative effort from the film makers.
Handheld Gaming Market: I'll rant about how devices like Iphones and Ipads are being embraced as gaming devices and why they shouldn't be unless they improve.
