Why don't they make meaningful movies anymore?

[Anonymous]

Just watched Rambo First Blood and I was wondering why don't they make movies like these anymore

Can't get over how well they portrayed a veteran suffering from PTSD.. someone who say his best friends get blasted to pieces and was tortured as a prisoner in enemy camps

When cops decide to bully him he gives them a war they won't believe

Same applies for most classics from 80s like Rocky , Terminator , Back to the future and what not...

99% movies nowadays are either woke or just a lot of random CGI and weird characters

[NamerOfStars]

They do- but movies made for (or made primarily for) the sake of art don't make as much money, and aren't as mass-marketable, so you don't hear about them as readily.

Consider Joker. I went to see it- the last movie I saw in theaters, actually- not because of any great interest, but because a coworker told me there had been an advisory for people to not see it for fear of violence. I assumed this was about a fear of a copycat of the Dark Knight shooting (since it was another Batman movie), and in the noble name of fucking terrorism in the ass with a sharpened cactus, I went- and I'm very glad I did, both in defiance of the actual reasons for the warning (which were more horrifying than I'd thought), and because the movie was excellent. It's a chilling depiction of mental illness, social isolation, and a man's fall into madness. It made a billion dollars, and that's WITHOUT being released in China, and WITHOUT being a Batman movie.

The name helped, though, to a far greater extent than Rambo's did; the book was popular, but not THAT big, and Rambo is much more of a bad guy in it- more like Arthur Fleck, really.

All that said, the average intellectual level of movies HAS been going down in recent years, though to be fair, it's not like every movie in the 80's was on Rambo's level, either. Why? Well, a bunch of reasons, but two primary ones: first, art has been increasingly pushed out of the way for money-making, and the best way to do that is to show the movie everyone in the world, which means making movies that are blander, since humor and complex cultural traditions often don't translate well. I mean, how would The Stunt Man (a movie whose creator said "it wasn't released, it escaped") fare in, say, Myanmar? Which would get a higher box office, that or "Michael Bay's Boobsplosions 4: the Tittening"?

The second reason is less obvious, but (I think) even more important: writers are just being trained as writers now. So much of what's produced is, on a technical level, solid enough, but it's what would be written from the viewpoint of a writer, and no one else. It's composed almost scientifically, precisely to provoke a desired reaction. Gene Roddenberry wrote his future utopia based on his social ideals, from the viewpoint of a soldier; Joe Straczynski wrote his take, more grounded and realistic, since he'd been trained in psychology and had a better grasp of human nature, good AND bad. By contrast, JJ Abrams writes like a writer. It's flashy, formulaic, and utterly soulless.

There's another factor at play here. Think of Han Solo. One of the first things we see him do is to blow away a mafia debt collector, then toss a coin to the bartender with a flippant "sorry about the mess", referring to the still-smoking body of the person he just killed. And he's a GOOD (-ish) guy- this is NOT the writing of a happy, well-adjusted person. Now think of the gentler, child-friendly writing of The Phantom Menace.

See, all true art comes from demons. Not literal demons- usually- but they're no less real for that. If the artist is lucky, the demons go away; if the audience is lucky, they don't. George Lucas in the 90's wasn't the angry young man, embittered by his experiences in life, any more- he'd become wildly successful by pretty much any measure; wealth, fame, status, family, etc. Hollywood movie makers are generally established people living safe and comfortable lives, far away from the rugged battle of fate, where strength, and vision, are born.

[MrOracle]

It's because, starting around 2015, when a certain person began to run for president and was actually taken seriously instead of being dismissed as they assumed would happen, Hollywood and the far left took off their masks and just pushed their most extreme agenda in every area they had power - to take as much ground as they could while disrupting that eventual president's term. Stories, characters, and quality were almost completely abandoned in favor of THE MESSAGE - which largely involved actively DESTROYING anything that was positive or was enjoyed that involved straight white men, and replacing them with women and/or POCs (largely black) and/or gay or trans characters, along with other "woke" identity politics.

This also applied to everyone involved in the production of movies and TV shows - the writers, the directors, the animators, etc.

For example, Pixar had a long history of blockbuster successes, which had all been shepherded by John Lassiter. Lassiter was specifically focused on making sure that Pixar movies appealed to the widest possible audience and that they were of the highest quality - which means that ideas that would be broadly offense were rejected, and work that wasn't up to quality standards was also rejected.

When Disney, who had bought Pixar, went all in with wokeness, one of the things they did was declare that all animation jobs had to be 50% female or "marginalized groups." Of course, there weren't anywhere close to the number of these people who would meet Disney or Pixar's high qualifications for these positions (traditionally, they hired only from the top art schools like Cal Arts, and then those people had to apprentice for several years before being allowed to work on their own), so those qualifications were thrown out, the qualified people were let go, and people who were underqualified but fit the desired demographics were hired instead, and directly assigned to lead positions without any experience. And to make this happen at Pixar, Lassiter was fired for "sexual harassment" because he hugged a colleague (i. e., it was an invented excuse to fire him), allowing him to be replaced by a very "woke" female.

The result? Everything Pixar has touched since Lassiter was let go has lost money. Same with Disney's own internal animation. Why? Because the people running the show care only about THE MESSAGE and very little about the quality of the story or characters, and because it turns out that if you hire a bunch of unqualified writers and animators, you get crappy stories, crappy characters, and lousy animation.

It's the same basic story at Marvel and LucasFilm, as well as at Warner Bros. That's why they've all had flop after flop. White people - particularly straight white males - must either be depicted as dumb and pathetic or as evil - or, best of all, just not included in any way - and all white and male characters need to be humiliated and replaced with females and/or minorities - preferably both. The quality of the story and the characters comes in a VERY distant 12th place on the agenda.

[handsomelad70]

Why should they when 90% of moviegoers love dumb ones?

[MrOracle]

@handsomelad70 If that was true, then all of these box office bombs would have been smash successes. They weren't.

Disney in particular just released a report claiming that their movies have been a big success, but that "report" is pure fiction or manipulation. They have all of these footnotes in super tiny text that use corporate-speak to say why they counted incomes but not expenses, and they shuffled money to different divisions so they could create an appearance of a profit, but unfortunately for them, since most of their projects are shot in the UK, and since they are taking UK tax breaks, they have to file taxes in the UK, which are public records. The real numbers can be found (for production costs, anyway), and they are FAR worse than Disney claims publicly.

It's harder to get numbers for Warner Bros., but enough has leaked to know that they've lost serious money as well. The Flash lost Warner at least half a billion by itself when all the numbers were in. Even Sony got into the act, making a couple of woke movies in the Spiderman universe that absolutely tanked.

Shockingly, Universal, despite public statements, have *mostly* been avoiding woke stuff, especially with animation, and they've been making real money. Part of that is that they have solid scripts and plans, which lets them complete projects with much lower budgets, making it much easier to make profits.

[MrOracle]

If I told you how Disney has been making movies and TV shows, you wouldn't believe me, because it's beyond stupid. Many of their projects don't even have a script when they begin shooting, and these are movies in a shared universe that are supposed to connect to other movies, which means a script is even more critical than usual. Instead, they shoot each scene in a dozen or more different ways and HOPE they can find a way to put together a story in the editing room somehow. This is why the routinely need 2 or 3 major rounds of re-shoots, and why the movies are so disjointed, and why plots and story lines rarely line up. It's pure insanity - like lighting piles of cash on fire.

[Akam93]

I've always wondered that myself. Everything is now woke and political. It's horrible. I've haven't a seen a good movie come out for years on end. Cause everyone wants to push their liberal agenda into movies.

[Asker]

Very true!

[MadhuriDixit]

Not only that modern movies suck... they ruin these classic franchises you mentioned too!

Creed was not that bad, but terminator dark fate was horrible

They ruined my favorite Halloween series too :(

[princessaashika]

@MadhuriDixit Please follow and dm me now

[b_lova]

They do they just don't put budget into the marketing so you don't hear about them. They like to call them indie-films.

Also, many of the large production houses don't like to take a chance on films that will not give them the return on investment they can make by rehashing old films that were a success.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I think something like this tends to happen a lot in all industries, films included:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/P4VBqTViEx4

Visionaries for products tend to get weeded out or mitigated in their roles by marketing types whose idea of making a better product comes from marketing surveys and just following sales figures.

[superchan2011]

It's because Hollywood has ran out of new ideas and now will either only remake the hell out of films that have already been made and then remake the remakes, or as you stated focus on woke movies. There's many books out there that they can make into original movies that would be damn good movies too based off the books.

[handsomelad70]

superchan,2011, Hollywood ran out of new ideas about two generations back. That's why there are all these crappy sequels.

[superchan2011]

@handsomelad70 True, definitely can't disagree with that. Crappy sequels and even worse remakes.

[handsomelad70]

Plus, it seems most moviegoers are 14 chronologically or maturity-wise.

[MysticDevice]

Movies today are made by overactive adult-children who were never told no.

And yet somehow those CGI vomit fests they call movies make more than the meaningful ones made by visionaries.

I blame tik tok and the likes. Peoples' attentions spans have been shattered and they get bored too easily now.

[lightbulb27]

Exactly. I think too much computers.

There's some good scripts but often overly CGI. compare "Midway" the original to some of the later Midway. first is way better.

I'd watch Rambo on VHS... those were the days!

[Anonymous]

my honest opinion is because the "veil has been lifted" that hollyweird once hid behind. People now see their true evil, so they don't try to hide anymore. They pump out formulaic trash with blatant agendas because they have no reason to make anything meaningful anymore, but mindless crap will still convince people to give them money.

[Nikki1989]

They do if you go for the independent films. You won't find much of value coming from the mainstream moviemakers.

[AngryCarl]

What's meaningful to AI might not be meaningful to you.

[Asker]

LoL maybe that's why I hate Doctor Brad and Amy so much ~

[Ashley1993]

I cried at the climax of both Rambo first blood and Terminator 2... love it!

[dustybiker2]

Yeah they peaked in the 90's. All my favs are back then.

[NewgodOmega]

They don't have to stupid people are happy with stupid movies

[exitseven]

Nobody wants to take a risk with an original idea.

[gorydetails]

Because it's all about pushing an agenda, not writing good stories and entertainment.

[LiamJHayden]

They do, but they do not generally get wide distribution.

[IconicPenguin]

An anti-war movie? I don't know man, that sounds pretty woke to me.

[Dargil]

I just watched one on Netflix. Nowhere. The beginning sequences are prophetic.

[Paris13]

Hollywood Sucks. lolxxoo

[laly520]

the audience wants sexual superficial shit

[handsomelad70]

Because dumb movies rake in the caish.

[strateguy632]

hallmark does