Our Culture is Eating Itself

My hate letter to modern cinema.

Sources:

Music in Order of Appearance:

Godmode – Traversing
AFX – 5 Scorrier
Moire Lights – Constants – 01 Abrasion
haircuts for men – nothing special, nothing wonderful
Godmode – Something is Going On
Accelio – Cyber City – 03 Uplink
Golden City – 1080 Snowboarding
Rollin Through Osaka – MK2
Kevin MacLeod – Official Chillin Hard
Rachet and Clank – Novalis – Tobruk Crater
Accelio – Cyber City – 06 Moonlight
CIALYN – Sunbelievers Hideaway – 02 Cypresses Procession
Haircuts for Men – Vaporwave Collection Vol. II
CIALYN – Sunbelievers Hideaway – 04 Valid Beacon
Chris Zabriskie – Vendaface – 04 The Life and Death of a Certain K. Zabriskie, Patriarch
OSCOB – praise the sun god – 01 sol invictus

00:00-2:27 Intro
2:27-4:00 My Heritage
4:01-16:24 Sequels
16:25-22:37 Adaptations
22:38-31:13 Remakes
31:14 Cultural Cannibalism

[verygoodfreelancer]

animator in the industry for 15 years! the reason everything is bad now is everything is run according to data and metrics. things can only be remakes because investors need recognizable IP. has nothing to do with creatives, creatives make 0 decisions. spreadsheets and accountants do, so why spend a million dollars to make a movie that isn’t the new moana?

[BrandonPilcher]

I don't think it is coincidental that this cinematic trend is happening at a time when the big media companies are merging into one another to form bigger and bigger corporate leviathans. There's a reason we consider monopolies undesirable for producing quality products.

[TheCrewExpendable]

e.g. Hasbro announced this week that, going forward, half or more of all Magic the Gathering sets are going to be collabs. There is going to be a Final Fantasy set, a Marvel set, a Spiderman set (yeah, separate from the general Marvel set), etc.

I am really starting to despise the Fortnite-ification, FunkPop-ification, slop-ification of all culture.

[aguynamedwyatt]

I wish that the Minecraft movie had been inspired by the end poem of the game, where it pretty much states that this is just a dream that you can escape into, but you eventually have to wake up from this dream and go to the real world. I wish it was like Steve was running from something bad that happened to him, and he found his way to the Minecraft world, where he’s able to have complete creative freedom and make up stories of grandeur and heroism. But then, when the people fall into that world, it’s a reminder of what he was hiding from, and even though he’ll miss the Minecraft world, he has to go back to the real world, except now he’s stronger because of everything he has done in the Minecraft world. I feel like that would be such a great testament to what Minecraft is at its core: a video game where you can accomplish and do anything you want.

[partyharry]

When you mentioned "death" I thought you were going to talk about characters continuing past their happy endings. Like resurrecting Luke Skywalker or Han Solo just to kill them off. Or Woody and Buzz still having adventures even though Andy's already grown up. Its that impact that saddens me most. The characters never get to keep their happy ending. There must always be a sequel. Their story's finished, they've overcome the peril, they get to live the rest of their life offscreen, leaving with a smile. But, there must always be a sequel. Continuing something they never were designed for.

[The_Dinosaur_Heretic]

‘Incest of ideation’ is such a great way to explain the current artistic landscape

[Design.Theory]

As long as these franchises keep making money, movie studios will keep producing them. Staying power, artistic vision, and cultural relevance are not the metrics for success. Profitability is. You basically nailed the psychology of these production studios at 21:08 (paraphrasing): "Who cares if it's garbage, it'll probably make a billion dollars anyway".

[danarespress]

Man 90s 00s felt like I was in era of enlightenment and prosperity. Now I feel like movies/music/games/ are now just a plastic empty cup.

[UnwantedGhost-anz]

"Yes, I want these films to fail. I want them to fail, because they have given me no reason to wish for their success."
*- Solar Sands*

[John_Weiss]

Reading the comments, I'm seeing an important point being missed here: the Remakes, Prequels, Sequels, Live-Action versions, etc. aren't bad because of any of the reasons that SolarSands has _directly_ stated, but something new only implied: They Aren't Telling Stories, there just repeating the same damned anecdote for the 57th time … and it wasn't all that good after the 7th.

The Entertainment Industry is no longer producing _entertainment, _ it's churning out _distractions_ that aren't all that entertaining. And the problem can be summed up by one sentence: "If you think your primary role is, 'to make money, ' Go run a bank."

I saw that sentence in an article about the software industry from 20 years ago. The author was recounting this time when he was taking to a room full of heads of software companies, and he asked them all, "What is your primary role, your main job?" To a man, they all said, "To make money."
*_"WRONG!"_* he boomed, "You are SOFTWARE companies, your primary job is _to make software that people want, at the best possible quality, so people will want to buy it from _*_you._* If you think your primary role is, 'to make money, ' Go run a bank."
And that sentence is true for any industry: you're in that industry to produce the things that industry creates. Making money is a _consequence_ of making that product, in a form and at a quality that people want to buy.

Because, if all you're doing is trying to make money, then you've become a con-artist looking for the next sucker you can find to go sell that bottle of pee mixed with ink as a cure for baldness.

[Spaniard]

A connected issue worth mentioning is the "for kids" label, and our culture's widespread acceptance of it. Of all the movies that had an influence on me as a child, every last one of them would be just as enjoyable to watch as an adult. We must stop accepting the premise that "kids' movies" are a separate entity from "good movies". The "for kids" label in general is nothing but a mask for media that optimizes solely on attention-harvesting.

[moniregar]

Incestuous ideation is such a way to name the soulless "art" made by corporations that are only thinking about money.

[ludoviajante]

I think the saddest part is that a lot of these bad movies break record profits. And when one fails, online discourse rushes to associate it with culture war bullshit (jeez, one of Disney's directors even blamed a gay kiss scene as the reason Buzz Lightyear failed), while the real reason remains obscured: lack of originality and terrible scripts.
Anyway, great video as always! Cheers from Brazil 🌎

[martinalejandro]

my favorite movie this year was The Wild Robot, a movie that, although based on a book so therefore not completely original, made me feel like I was watching something not made by a corporation but made by a group of artists that felt this story needed to be told; it was a sincere movie about motherhood that, althouth it featured celebrities voicing the character, It felt like they were playing characters and not themselves

this video made me appreciate that movie more

[bakuya]

Minecraft movie is just a reskin of another movie called Jumanji which is also a retelling of the same Jumaji film from the 90s.

[alexandertetyukhin]

Bro tricked me into watching YET ANOTHER star wars rant

[qin]

What pisses me off about the Minecraft movie, is that, it has already been proven you can tell compelling stories in the world of Minecraft. Remember the Fallen Kingdom music videos? Yet, Hollywood decideds to do the most generic thing I've ever witnessed

[SloMoMonday]

Just hosted a family Halloween event and was curious about what movies to set up for the older kids that evening. Some background noise while they all scroll tik-tok (god, I've gotten old). And they unironically wanted to watch Kane Pixles Backrooms and Oldest View. It was such a hit even some adults were getting into the story and for the first time in years, we had the family around the TV, sharing the same experience.
Its not perfect, auteur grade Cinema; but I think everyone could recognize that it was a project earnestly made by people that love the story and their chosen medium. We were discussing how we would survive in that world. What real companies like amazon or walmart would do with such a technology. We were curious about Kane as a creator and were invested in where the story could go. And I know CG gets a bad rep, but there was genuine awe when some older people learned that none of it was real. It also inspired conversation on other independent creators and we dipped into Vita Carnis, Ted the Caver and Mandela Catalogue (which my dad compared to watching the Exorcist for the first time which was wild).
There is definitely an appetite for good new art, especially with the public offerings being so hollow.

[grace-ypsv]

what sucks about the minecraft movie is that the sincerity is literally right there in the game - there's a whole original poem that plays when you beat the dragon. it's all just a symptom of no one being able to be sincere anymore - we like enjoy everything ironically. cringe culture is unfortunately not dead

[neelharrison]

I remember discussing with someone about how much I was dreading the release of Rings of Power season 2 and how disappointed I am with how Tolkien's property is being treated. The unironic response was "well at least we're getting more middle earth right?"
Like, no, not right. I'd literally rather have nothing.