What do you feel is the biggest problem with modern entertainment

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Thinking about which movies have worked and which movies haven't worked, I'd have to say, there just isn't enough horse dong or satanic goats.


I blame this on the politically incorrect.



The failure to recognise when to stop a franchise.

TV series, movie franchises - anything that makes money, just wants to do it again. To make more money. That is just capitalism I guess. But the crossover has resulted in some of the most stale, boring output. Even one the greatest TV series of all time went on a season too long (The Sopranos). Sometimes it works - Better Call Saul wasn't really needed but it has turned out great.

I don't watch the Fast and the Furious films, but other than giving people jobs, what good are they doing? Are they really giving people an emotional connection to cinema? Or are they just loud car chases over and over again?

How many seasons of The Walking Dead are there? Are they still killing zombies?

Stranger Things - binned it after season 2, it was so bad. It's as if artistic integrity goes out the window as long as the execs make their millions. Superhero movies. Dire. Just the same thing over and over again. I get that if people pay for something and the demand is there, it will be provided. And I get that money made trickles down to support creativity at all levels. Still boring though.

And why is this bad? Because people aren't broadening their horizons. They watch whatever the multiplexes or Netflix will show them. They only watch something different if somebody they like tells them to. They never find out for themselves.



Writing. "Bad writer" means bad characters, bad plot, bad dialogue. Everything depends on the writer. You have to have the idea first. Writers are undervalued and exploited and so writing is just viewed as a sort of "mill" or "mine." As a writer, you know that the director and lead actors will get the credit. You know that your script will be circulated, plagiarized, and mangled before it hits the screen -- and that's if you're lucky enough to have people reading your work.

There is still good writing out there that is appearing on screen. What gets me is the amazing difference in the quality of writing and that so much of it is just bad. We're in an algorithmic phase where statistical data is being used cobble together elements and it shows. Also, there are a lot of hack writers out there relying on beat sheets as their guide. Then, there is a moralizing in the younger voices who make so many stories into little "Passion Plays" - flat perfected melodramas with uncomplicated heroes who have nothing the learn (except maybe to be reminded how wonderful they are) and uncomplicated villains. In each case, the writing is secondary. In the case the algorithmic overlord, what matters is cobbling together the required features, even if they don't really fit. In the case of the hack writer, the creative process is a formula--the hack is also a strip-miner as much as the producer. They're just throwing stuff at the wall. The sermonizing writer is more concerned with orthodoxy than quality. The moral truth comes first, if that makes the product a little bland, who cares? We're changing the world!



And why is this bad? Because people aren't broadening their horizons. They watch whatever the multiplexes or Netflix will show them. They only watch something different if somebody they like tells them to. They never find out for themselves.
Though I'm not sure how much people would broaden their horizons anyway.

I actually think that streaming services give people an easy and "safe" way to broaden their horizons. I can guarantee you that there are people watching Fire Island (the gay Pride and Prejudice romantic comedy) who would never in a million years have gone to see it in the theater or rented it from the local video store.

I guess a good question would be what people wish the entertainment system would look like, keeping in mind that at the end of the day there will always be a compromise between art and money.



And why is this bad? Because people aren't broadening their horizons. They watch whatever the multiplexes or Netflix will show them. They only watch something different if somebody they like tells them to. They never find out for themselves.
I'm going to half-disagree.

I agree that it's good to broaden our horizons...but it's not possible to do this with all things. I like to broaden my horizons by watching weird films that challenge me sometimes, but by doing that there's any number of art forms I'm not paying attention to as a result. We all love film here, and most of us appreciate it as a serious art form and engage with it on that level. And we see, essentially, cinematic tourists who approach it as disposable (watching "whatever the multiplexes or Netflix will show them"). But we're the tourists in many other art forms that we don't make time for. We would inevitably engage very superficially with sculpture or painting or whatever.

I don't want to be too relativistic about this, because I still think it's possible to be a novice towards a lot of mediums but still approach them with a discerning eye and an appreciation for what they're capable of. But I don't know if I'd call using movies as mindless entertainment an inherently inferior choice when taken against all the choices we have to make as people. We all choose to basically skip over beauty and depth in huge parts of the world, because time is finite and we have jobs and responsibilities and so on, so sometimes what we see as shallowness towards film is a perfectly meta-rational choice to just prioritize something else in their life over the focus and effort required to appreciate better things in this one artistic medium.



Writing. "Bad writer" means bad characters, bad plot, bad dialogue. Everything depends on the writer. You have to have the idea first...
Yup, I've said this same thing before. People tend to worship the director and treat writers as if they were about as important as the caterer or grips. 'If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the screen.'

I'm currently watching 22 hours of the North and South mini series (the one with Patrick Swayze) and OMG the writing is on-par with daytime soap operas, talk about sucky writing.



I'm pretty sure most people watch a mix, but that most is disposable because most people are watching things to kill time.
Not disagreeing with you since I don’t know, but do people really do this? Do they have so much time they want to kill it?

Honestly, for me the only problem is how much there is and the energy needed to sort through and organize it all.

It's a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it's never been easier for people to make movies/shows or to write/perform and get those things in front of viewers.

On the other hand, there is just so much to wade through. At this point I have friends saying "Hey, you must be watching this show, right? It seems right up your alley!" and I've never even heard of the thing. There are so many services/platforms, it can get a bit overwhelming.
I’ve posted before that I have the exact same problem & you’re the first to recognize the same problem. Can’t remember what I was binge-watching, but I kept a running list of stuff I wanted to watch on Netflix, hbo, Hulu, whatever after my binge was concluded. The list was huge & very over-whelming. Once I got into the list, some of it got chucked out, but at least I sampled it.

TV series, movie franchises - anything that makes money, just wants to do it again. To make more money. That is just capitalism I guess. But the crossover has resulted in some of the most stale, boring output. Even one the greatest TV series of all time went on a season too long (The Sopranos).
Gonna disagree with you there, but that’s ok.
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I'm going to half-disagree.

I agree that it's good to broaden our horizons...but it's not possible to do this with all things. I like to broaden my horizons by watching weird films that challenge me sometimes, but by doing that there's any number of art forms I'm not paying attention to as a result. We all love film here, and most of us appreciate it as a serious art form and engage with it on that level. And we see, essentially, cinematic tourists who approach it as disposable (watching "whatever the multiplexes or Netflix will show them"). But we're the tourists in many other art forms that we don't make time for. We would inevitably engage very superficially with sculpture or painting or whatever.

I don't want to be too relativistic about this, because I still think it's possible to be a novice towards a lot of mediums but still approach them with a discerning eye and an appreciation for what they're capable of. But I don't know if I'd call using movies as mindless entertainment an inherently inferior choice when taken against all the choices we have to make as people. We all choose to basically skip over beauty and depth in huge parts of the world, because time is finite and we have jobs and responsibilities and so on, so sometimes what we see as shallowness towards film is a perfectly meta-rational choice to just prioritize something else in their life over the focus and effort required to appreciate better things in this one artistic medium.
Yes I agree to be honest. I don't expect people to seek out something they don't know exists! But it's frustrating seeing the same old things having millions spent on them when I feel there are other ideas that would make the entertainment industry grow.



Not disagreeing with you since I don’t know, but do people really do this? Do they have so much time they want to kill it?
Just speaking for myself, I never watch TV for the sake of killing time, though I know people do that.

I have only a few hours at the end of the work day to relax and watch something, so I carefully plan out what I'm going to watch. I don't have streaming or TV service so I don't channel surf or aimlessly watch whatever. I do watch a movie I've preselected and if it's not to my liking I shut it off and watch something else.



Not disagreeing with you since I don’t know, but do people really do this? Do they have so much time they want to kill it?
Sometimes at the end of a long workday, I actually want something that is kind of "disposable". Something where I can walk away after 20 minutes and not care that I didn't see the whole episode, or something that can play in the background while I grade papers. Or sometimes I'm in the grips of insomnia, watching the minutes tick away, and I want something bland that I can half-listen to with my eyes closed.

This kind of entertainment is usually something that I put on when I'm multitasking and want something to half-amuse me while I do so.

Obviously this isn't what I want most entertainment to be, but I'm glad that things like The Good Witch or Breakout Kings exist.

The same is true for books. Sometimes a predictable, decent (but light) mystery is more what I need than a soul-searching, challenging novel.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
But even communist countries for example still put out communist propaganda entertainment, so I don't think that capitalism is the issue, if other non-capitalist cultures are doing it as well with their entertainment?



But even communist countries for example still put out communist propaganda entertainment, so I don't think that capitalism is the issue, if other non-capitalist cultures are doing it as well with their entertainment?
The link between virtually every comment in here is capitalism.



Capitalist countries are the places where leisure is abundant enough that we can have granular debates like this, that have to thin-slice various types of entertainment because there's so many available.

That--the ridiculous surfeit of entertainment options--is the real link between virtually all the comments in here.



Capitalist countries are the places where leisure is abundant enough that we can have granular debates like this, that have to thin-slice various types of entertainment because there's so many available.

That--the ridiculous surfeit of entertainment options--is the real link between virtually all the comments in here.
So you're saying the only reason we are having this problem of a "ridiculous surfeit of entertainment options" is due to...

Capitalism.



Even in trying to discredit my claim, you're saying the only reason we are having this problem of a "ridiculous surfeit of entertainment options" is due to...

Capitalism.
I said capitalism is the reason we have the options. I didn't say it was a problem.



I said capitalism is the reason we have the options. I didn't say it was a problem.
Calling it ridiculous and linking it to all the problems in this thread carries an implication you may not have intended.



Calling it ridiculous and linking it to all the problems in this thread carries an implication you may not have intended.
No more than calling it a "problem" when an economic system produces so many choices that we have to have arcane arguments on magic boxes about why so many people like different ones than we do.