Listen folks, We've reviewed a few movies and TV shows here at Jimbo's, and something we've seen a lot of lately is movies that don't live up to what came before them in their franchises or sometimes even in print, and I'm not just talking about the whole "The Book is Always Better" thing. The fact of the matter is that, in far too many cases, movie studios have made movies where they've placed the emphasis on effects and not story.
Don't get it twisted. I love a beautiful movie. I've had many conversations with all kinds of people regarding older stuff that I love that just doesn't look right anymore because the effects are so dated. I grew up on Star Trek: The Original Series, but if I watch it now, the only part that still looks futuristic is when the crew uses the transporter. I love watching Babylon 5, but it's gotten to point where I almost have to watch the space battles with my eyes closed. Watch Robocop at some point and tell me the Point of View shots don't look stupid and old. I get the importance of special effects, especially in the Science Fiction and Fantasy that I love so much, but that's not all there is to a flick or series.
Seriously, I watched Game of Thrones later than everyone else (life sucks when you don't have HBO) but I get why everyone was upset about the last episode. There was no reason to have Cersei burn all of King's Landing down. The latest iteration of The Flash had amazing effects but the script was amateurish. Don't get me started on the Star Wars prequels that were entertaining individually, but went together like oil and water. Seriously, I could have conceived a better story arc than they did. As a matter of fact, I did "write" my own outline of how the next two would go in my head. It was better than what they came out with, and it didn't even include Emperor Palpatine.
Seriously Hollywood, explosions, camera flare and ripping off The Matrix Reloaded aren't the keys to making lots of money.
And, before you criticize me for thinking I know more about how to make money with a movie than a Hollywood executive, you may want to realize that movies like Matrix Resurrections, Green Lantern, The Flash, Fantastic Beasts The Crimes of Grindlewald and Star Trek: Nemesis all lost money. The reason wasn't bad special effects. My reviews of The Crimes of Grindlewald and The Flash both indicate how impressed I was with the way the looked. The reason all of those movies failed is simple: They were poorly written.
Yes, movies and TV are visual mediums, but at the end of the day, they're stories. Story telling is something humans have been doing literally (and I mean literally literally, not literally figuratively) since time immemorial. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest known written story in history. It was written almost four thousand years ago. I can guarantee you that it wasn't presented with visual effects by Industrial Light and Magic and didn't come in THX sound. It still exists because it was a good story.
Think about it: Other than simply being authors, what do the writers of Gilgamesh, Homer of Illiad and Oddysey fame, William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Mary Shelley and Charles Dickens have in common? They all lived, worked and wrote in an era with no special effects and their stories will all be remembered by generations who won't even know that Wonder Woman 1984 ever existed.
Frankenstein has been put on film a bunch of times, but when it was written, there was no such thing as a video recording device. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was eventually adapted into a movie version, but not until decades after it was written. Romeo and Juliet was written before the founding of the United States. So was Don Quixote. The reason that you can still buy a copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court a hundred and thirty-four years after it was written and couldn't get a ticket to The Flash a month after it was released in the theater is because ACYIKAC is a good story and The Flash reads like it was written by an amateur. A good story lasts. A pretty movie with no story behind it doesn't.
If these movie and television studios want people to spend money on their product, they're going to need to come up with some better stories. That's the key here, folks. It's not making your movie look fancy. It's not substituting demographics for story. Marketing helps, but it's not the end all be all either.
Unless you're James Cameron. I don't get the success of the Avatar movies. They're not good and they succeeded. I'm wondering if perhaps Mr. Cameron hasn't sold his soul to Satan or something, because those movies are drek and they sold massive quantities of tickets. I freely admit that that guy is the exception to the rule.
That's not to say that there are no good new stories. Ghostbusters: Afterlife was amazing. Black Panther was even better. I loved all of the Harry Potter movies even if they weren't as good as the books. Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, and even The Big Bang Theory (admittedly more SF/F related than true SF/F) were all well written and entertaining.
And there are more ideas out there. There have been plenty of works reviewed by yours truly right here at Jimbo's that would make excellent movies.
Why yes, I am trying to get some truly talented authors paid exorbitant amounts of money. That's so they'll keep writing. I mean, honestly, the best way to encourage your favorite author to keep writing is flat out bribery. Give them money to write and they'll keep freaking writing. And, let's face it, Hollywood's ability to pay my favorite authors is far greater than mine.
Seriously Hollywood, do the right thing. Get some writers that are good at their craft. At the end of the day, they're every bit as important as your on screen talent. Your livelihood and my entertainment depend on it.
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