Movies becoming like TV; TV becoming like movies

It used to be that TV was mindless fare. Sitcoms. Cop shows. Mysteries. Courtroom dramas. Poorly acted daytime dramas. Well, we still have sitcoms, cop shows, court dramas and soaps but nowadays the police and the attornies don't always get a conviction and, if they do, it's because they were able to identify the perpetatrator by putting together all the evidence including the blood spatter pattern on the wall of the room. Television is more cerebral now. Thirty years ago, Star Trek couldn't find an audience for more than three seasons while Lost in Space gradually became a comedy. These days, with five major networks, programs like X-Files and Babylon 5 are allowed to grow more and more cerebral as the series progress. (Yes, I realise these series are over now.) It really seems as though TV is gradually becoming more intelligent.

Movies, meanwhile, can't help but cater to the lowest common denominator. With budgets rising, the studios can't afford to cater to everybody and instead lately seem to be catering to those who go see movies because reading is too difficult. (Not that anyone would want to read the novelisation of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle anyway. I mean, what would be the point?)

I'm not making a blanket statement against action movies. I've rather enjoyed Daredevil (on video), X-Men 2, Matrix: Reloaded and the Hulk so far this summer. Thing is, I've noticed that there seems to be one complaint everybody has against Matrix: Reloaded and the Hulk is that there is too much talking. It seems that people don't want dialogue in their movies anymore: apparently the audience members who don't like to read don't like to have to listen either. Apparently both activities require too much thought. Better to go see Terminator 3 or LXG instead it seems. What better way to shut down the higher brain functions short of using medication?

It's scary in a way. Six years ago, the movie Batman and Robin was panned for being too campy. Now people are asking why the Hulk movie didn't have supervillains wearing spandex like in the comics series. I seriously wonder if the average IQ of movie goers has gone down in recent years.

An interesting approach. You might be right about high-quality TV becoming more sophisticated. But there is still a lot of low-brain-power stuff out there. Your argument would be better if you nominated the sort of dialogue-based movies which used to rate in the past. Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark all had decent dialogue, but low dialogue shoot-em-ups have been around for a long time (Die Hard 1 to 15, the last 10 James Bond Movies etc etc). Perhaps rather than a lowest common denominator dumbing down effect, you are seeing the dominance of the digital special effects, but this might pass.

BUIT BANCG SHOOTEM FIGHT BLOWEMUP IS FUN! WHAT WHO WANT TO SPEND TIME AT MOVE THETER HEERING DUM GUYS TALK ABOUT STUPD STUFF WHEN I CAN SEE ARNOLD BLWO UP ROBOTS AND STUFF?

U THINK U R SO SMARTY YOU AR NO BETTER THEN ANYONE U JUST LIKE BOORING MOVIES.

TV is simply offering more choices. There is just as much dumb stuff on the air, but like comics, you also have many more choices than you use to have which helps you ignore those shows that are uninteresting.

Surprisingly, that may be what people were saying, but I don't think it was the problem people had with either of these movies.

For both the Matrix: Reloaded and The Hulk, the problem was neither movie evoked emotions from the audience. You never fear for Neo, Trinity, or Morpheus, making the Matrix: Reloaded nice to watch for the special effects, but bland and emotionless. The Hulk suffers from the same problem. The comic book transition scenes, while interesting, actually get in the way of building suspense and there is little fear for any of the characters. When Talbot dies, the audience should have felt something: fear for him or glee that he was done in, but they did not feel anything. Only once in the movie (during the dog scene) did we fear for Betty's safety. The Hulk evoked neither pity or fear. He was bland and left the audience nothing to cheer for. Nick Nolte's character was the same way. This movie, like the Matrix: Reloaded, could have benefited from a better edit, most likely ejecting large pieces of what was shown. To make matters worse, both movies were confusing during the climatic scene and left the audiences scratching their heads instead of providing a satisfying conclusion.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is my counter example to both these movies. Both Lords of the Rings movies have lots of talking, but the audience cares for the characters so they are interested or at least tolerant of the slow scenes. The fight scenes build suspense for the audience and cause us to care for the characters even more. You feel for the characters: pity and loathing for Gollum, fear for Frodo, and hatred for Sauron. The fight scenes help increase the audiences interest in the plight of the characters and create suspense.

This is so untrue as to not be funny. Spider-Man hardly had action scene after action scene, yet audiences loved it because the audience cared for the characters. Who didn't feel suspense when Green Goblin dropped Mary Jane off the bridge? Who didn't get a lump in their throat when the New Yorkers on the bridge started throwing objects at the Green Goblin? Who didn't cheer when Green Goblin died? Ditto for both X-Men movies, which are even more of a character study than The Hulk was. It is because these movies gave the audience something to cheer about or something to cheer against. They both created emotions.

Yet LXG is not doing so well at the box office, is it? I'll bet it is just as bland as Matrix: Reloaded and The Hulk.

Because people wanted to have something to cheer for, something to hate, something to pity, or something to cry about. No emotion, except boredom, was evoked by the Hulk movie. It may have been well done, but it was bland and emotionless in tone. A supervillain might have given the audience something to cheer for or against.

Or the average IQ of online movie critics. 8^)

Watch how well Sea Biscuit does when it comes out. It is going to be a big movie full of talking and little action. But it is going to evoke emotions in the audience, which is what people are looking for when they pay to see a movie at the movie theater. That is why movies like Titanic, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Basic Instinct, Jurassic Park, Little Nemo, The Lion King, Independence Day, Forest Gump, etc. are well thought of by audiences, and why movies like The Hulk, Matrix: Reloaded, and Charlies Angels: Full Throttle are not.

Give the audience a reason to feel for the characters and they will, and they'll love the movie for it.

A movie can have the best script in the world, be the most technically sound, have great dialogue, be full of spectacular special effects, and be brilliantly directed and acted, but if the audience does not feel anything for the characters when they watch it, it will not be well thought of. Audiences can forgive shortcomings in all these areas, as long as the movie creates emotions for the characters.

I believe this is true of any story, including comic stories. We have brilliant and technically competent stories coming out these days. But brilliance and technical competence does not give the reader anything to emotionally attach themselves to. Those books that create that emotional attachment are the ones that do well.

Thanks,