All right, I know I’m not the first to say this, and I’m definitely not going to be the last –
Hollywood has really gone to the creative pits.
It’s like the entire industry has gone the way of the Star Wars prequels: the movies have stunning special effects, but they come with such an overall bitterness about them that it’s hard to not feel somewhat gipped when they stink up an entire franchise. Yes, we get the imaginative blips here and there – and by that I mean Inception – but it’s like getting with a supermodel that has herpes: for every good thing, there are about 1,000 bad things and still more to come.
The real killer is the lack of originality; the two most original films of recent months were Inception and The Expendables (which seemed more like a montage of the bloated cast’s previous movies so it kind of counts). I realize that I sound bitter, but really, look at the movies that came out this year.
So few weren’t based off of TV shows, comic books, previous movies or obvious rip-offs (cough cough Avatar) that it almost seemed like the majority of writers these days get their “inspiration” from IMDb and Wikipedia. To prove this point, I’ve included a list of all the movies that came out recently or will be released in the near future that are based on a previously established canon or are a “tribute” to something in a not-so-subtle way. Here are just a few I was able to find:
Toy Story 3, Predators, TRON: Legacy, Yogi Bear, Gulliver’s Travels, Little Fockers, True Grit, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, The Lovely Bones, Universal Soldier: Regeneration, Dear John, The Wolfman, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Shutter Island, Alice in Wonderland, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Clash of the Titans, Kick-Ass, The Losers, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Shrek Forever After, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Sex and the City 2, Marmaduke, The Karate Kid, The A-Team, Jonah Hex, Eclipse, The Last Airbender, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Ramona and Beezus, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Step Up 3D, Eat Pray Love, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, It’s Kind of A Funny Story, Jackass 3D, Paranormal Activity 2, Red, Saw 3D, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Red Dawn, Tangled, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
It seems like a rather long list, doesn’t it? So why is this occurring? Is Hollywood a lumbering behemoth of formulaic, designed-by-committee secondhand plots marketed to the largest audience possible, strangling all creativity with its greedy sausage-like fingers? Are aliens seeking out all of Earth’s most original writers, abducting them and then leaving behind the poor, soon-to-be-probed writer’s magnum opus in crop circle format?
One advantage we have over previous generations of filmgoers is the fabulous Internet. With sites encouraging people to make their own movies, there has been a creative influx of fresh ideas, independent artists and baby panda sneezes. The future of independent media certainly looks a lot brighter than this year’s movies – once you get past the loading screen, that is.