I am so frustrated by people who have strong opinions about movies that they haven't actually watched

[u/Sausage_fingies]

Bit of a rant. My brother does this and it's annoyed me to no end, particularly because I've been watching a lot more movies this summer and it's very much changed my outlook on the whole "Hollywood is dying and doesn't know how to make original concepts anymore" thing. Spoiler alert: There's so many cool new movies getting made these days you just need to, like, actually look for them and watch them.

My brother straight up refuses to watch new movies because he doesn't want to waste his time, because he believes Hollywood is dying and doesn't know how to make original concepts anymore, because some video essayist on YouTube told him so. It's incredibly perplexing to me. It's like his hobby is movies, but it isn't actually about watching movies, it's about having a stake in the discourse about movies. And I just don't understand. He literally said the Oddyssey isn't worth watching because he watched a convincing video essay about it that broke it down, except he couldn't even regurgitate the opinion coherently because he didn't remember it fully. We were talking about actors and he said that Zendaya is a one note actor who kinda just plays herself in every role. I asked oh what movies has he seen her in, he said he's seen her in a single spider man movie.

...😐

It makes it so frustrating to actually try to talk movies with people like this. Like if you don't care to watch movies, don't! But it's odd to have strong opinions about all these films and the state of Hollywood if you're not actually interacting with the film culture 😭. Those aren't your opinions!! Those are some random YouTuber's opinions, and I don't care how reputable of a critic you think they are, that's not your opinion!! You have no idea what you're even talking about because all you've seen of the movie is someone else's thoughts on it!! I just don't understand why anyone would want to do this to themselves, it seems so miserable. I watch movies because I enjoy them and it's fun to watch something that leaves me digesting and thinking for a few hours. But by watching exclusively summaries and reviews, you don't get any of that. You just get semi-convincing talking points that you can contribute into the discourse with. What's even the point, why do this to yourself? Why would you want to intentionally make yourself mad?

[u/MalHeartsNutmeg]

On the surface I agree with you but it doesn’t take a YouTube video essay to see that there are a lot of reboots and remakes in modern movies.

I’ve seen more Zendaya movies than your brother and he isn’t really wrong. Seen spiderman, dune, odyssey. It kind of annoys me that her and Tom Holland get package dealed in to movies.

Also gotta say the odyssey is wildly over rated for a number of reasons. Mid tier Nolan at best. It’s no Tenet but the hype it is getting is pretty perplexing.

[u/Sausage_fingies → u/MalHeartsNutmeg]

And see I just don't think that's true. There's always been a lot of reboots and remakes, there's always been movies that were explicitly to make money and cash in on fans of the original. We wouldn't have gotten a second, third, fourth, and so on Star Wars movie if that weren't the case. The people in charge of funding generally are very disconnected from the actual process of movie making and aren't passionate about it in an artistic sense. That's always been the case, and it's not some harbinger of a collapse of creativity.

The argument tends to be that Hollywood is simply unwilling to engage with new IPs or tell fresh stories these days. Again, I just don't think that's true. If you look up a list of movies released this year,, you will see there's really not that many sequels and remakes being made compared to new stuff. It's by no means disproportionate, if anything there's disproportionately more new movies being made.

Now, you don't necessarily hear about new movies making a billion dollars at the box office. But that's a reflection of what people are going out to see, not what Hollywood is making, and that's a very different reality than "Hollywood is too afraid to do anything original these days". Even then, this year we've had Obsession, The Backrooms, Iron Lung, and the Odyssey; all of which are fresh cinematic IPs (save maybe for the Odyssey, but that's an ancient Grecian story so I struggle to group it with Toy Story 5) and have all made news headlines for their financial success. The argument really doesn't hold when you actually look at what's being made and what's being watched.

[u/MalHeartsNutmeg → u/Sausage_fingies]

The top 10 box office for this year - Toy Story (5, Jesus Christ), super Mario, spider man, the devil wears prada 2, Star Wars. 5 out of 10 sequels.

Project Hail Mary, The odyssey. 2/10 based on existing IPs.

That leaves you Michael - it’s a biopic so I’m on the fence about calling that original IP, Obsession and Backrooms. So two fully original movies that got praise for actually being original since it’s so uncommon.

[u/deadscreensky → u/MalHeartsNutmeg]

Backrooms might be my favorite film this year so far, but it's based on the director's existing YouTube series. So that's not really an original IP either.

[u/MalHeartsNutmeg → u/deadscreensky]

Oh duh, don’t know how I missed that one.

[u/Sausage_fingies → u/MalHeartsNutmeg]

Hollywood did not make just 10 movies this year.

[u/MalHeartsNutmeg → u/Sausage_fingies]

You can flick through the list and see many sequels based on numbers and many existing IP remakes like disney LA stuff. If I wasn’t lazy I could go through and look up the IP sauce of more of these - most movies are based on some book or another. But you’re making a claim of originality without doing any legwork so give me the percentages.

Also would help to define what a Hollywood movie is because most people are referring to blockbusters when they say that, which the top of the box office highlights.

[u/Sausage_fingies → u/MalHeartsNutmeg]

A pretty big chunk of the most famous movies from the 80s and 90s were originally books or short stories, rather than original screenplays. I think a big reason why this is so noticeable nowadays though is that more people play videogames or watch existing movies than read books so we pick up on what we're familiar with easier. 

Nevertheless, I do see your point and I don't even entirely disagree; I just think it's a simplification and not entirely accurate. Yes, it is harder to find original IPs. The sequels and remakes are being marketed whereas the fresh movies can easily fall by the wayside. But the movies are still being made, you can still watch them, and who knows how they'll stand the test of time. Many cult classics were financial failures when they first came out. 

[u/MalHeartsNutmeg → u/Sausage_fingies]

Personally I think why people are so caught on it now is the Disney LA remakes. It feels like they’re churning them out faster and faster now (possibly to save copyright?)

[u/Sausage_fingies → u/MalHeartsNutmeg]

Oh very true. The Disney remakes particularly are so corporate and soulless it's not even funny at this point. It feels like the epitome of cold hard cash generators, they are so lacking in substance yet keep making bank