Has Hollywood lost its creativity?

[filmnoirphotos]

This topic begs the question:

Is a remake good, bad or indifferent for an original film?

I can understand a director wanting a shot at a classic film when he/she truly believes he/she can bring something significant to the table - read: better scripting, casting, cinematography, etc. But.....come on, give me a break. Remake after remake, or making a telesvision show into a motion picture. It has nothing to do with creating a better vision or telling a more defining story, only capitalizing on a proven product Cassablanca; read sales at the box office, and more importantly, those Bewitched lunch boxes, and Batman action figures and jockey shorts.

In my opinion, the 'mainstream' motion picture industry of today has little resemblence to the 'golden age of film' studios we so admire, and CANNOT be used interchangably in any intellegent conversation. Today, to create is secondary, to sell opening weekend is the all important.

Also, in my humble opinion, Hollywood is now running scared and scrambling to stay on top of the world motion picture industry, which, obviously, it is not. With European, Middle Eastern and particularly Eastern Pacific films / animated features overwhelming the US video/DVD market, Hollywood is finding it pretty difficult, if not impossible to compete. Sadly, rather than going for quality productions, they are panicing and going with major splash empty headed pictures, relying upon flashy marketing to stir interest and get those dollars into the box office opening weekend. After which, the films peter out in the video/DVD sales.

Truly depressing.....

 

[jamespowers]

I thought I was the only person complaining about this. I just had a conversation about this not long a go with a friend of mine. He sees every new movie there is. :kick:
Where is the new Indy coming from, the new Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, CasaBlanca, Its a Wonderful Life and movies such as this? I get tired of all this stuff. I don't even remember the last movie I went to the theatre and watched.
The actors are ridiculous, the scenes are made "interesting" with computers rather than the characters and the stories they are based on become butchered in the interest of time and continuity. I suppose the Tower of HollyBabel had to fall some time.

Regards to all,

J

 

[filmnoirphotos]

Thank goodness, once in awhile a film come out of LA that strikes a different cord. I felt the Lord of the Rings trillogy came about as close to a true epic film as we have seen in a long time. Admittedly, lots of glitz, but I felt they made it work; not overwhelm the story. But please do not try to make side by side comparisons to the books. I felt that the SF films DARK CITY and UNBREAKABLE were exceedingly well done, story driven films. Fresh in that they were not entirely predictable.

 

[jake_fink]

filmnoirphotos said:
Thank goodness, once in awhile a film come out of LA that strikes a different cord. I felt the Lord of the Rings trillogy came about as close to a true epic film as we have seen in a long time.

Lord of the Rings was made in New Zealand by a New Zealand director.

 

[filmnoirphotos]

Lord of the Rings was made in New Zealand by a New Zealand director.

Too true, too true. It was indeed shot in New Zealand and Austrailia, directed by a New Zealander and photographed by an Aussie, however the production company was based in Hollywood. The casting, music and editing were all done in Hollywood.

 

[Deleted member 259]

At the same Time - Hollywood is really depending on pre-published books to keep going.

LOTR
Harry Potter
Fight Club
The Lion, the Witch & The Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia)
(this list can go on and on...)

So perhaps all the creativity has left the screen writers and gone to the library?
It used to be that there was only one or two movies out at a time, there wasn't this luxury of a multi-screen theatre. So the switch from quality to quantity is, in my opinion, what did it.

There are still a few movies i'm excited to see - I don't mean to bash hollywood entirely.
The Corpse Bride looks really good if you're a fan of Burton, the new Harry Potter has me awaiting anxiously, And every bit of my childhood is hoping that they don't bucher The Chronicles of Narnia.

 

[Brad Bowers]

So the switch from quality to quantity is, in my opinion, what did it.

Maybe that's part of it, but don't forget that hundreds of movies were released each year in the '20s through the '40s, though most were low budget "B" movies or less, such as serials. Most films only played a week or so, and then new ones replaced them in the theaters. "A" movies might stick around longer, but they were fewer and farther between.

Perhaps the problem today is that Hollywood is looking for most of their releases to be "A" pictures.

Brad

 

[jamespowers]

Perhaps the problem today is that Hollywood is looking for most of their releases to be "A" pictures.

And they end up being B movies because they do not know how to handle content. They can turn a classic story into a movie to sleep by like The Abyss. I just put that one in and it is better than sleeping pills.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Some interesting comments at the bottom of this article.

http://www.usaweekend.com/05_issues/050717/050717scarlett_johansson.html

Quote from the interview:

"One thing that bothers Johansson is how men, regardless of age, dress. She thinks they're too casual and that "men should start wearing three-piece suits, fedoras, pocket watches, the whole nine." Johansson went on, "What happened to glamour? I just did a film, "The Black Dahlia," that takes place in 1947, and the costumes were so beautiful. Every little piece" -- she runs her hands over her body -- "like the full undergarment women used to wear with the garter and the bra and satin panties. Then the stockings and, of course, over that is a beautiful skirt. Always a hat and gloves when you go out. Pearls." She sighs. "People just aren't like that anymore."

 

[HaraldTheSwede]

The recent The Island is clearly a remake (a vastly inferior one, surprise) of the sci-fi classic Logan's Run.

 

[Hondo]

Has Hollywood lost its creativity? In a word: yes. There are still creative people in Hollywood, but they aren't in charge -- in fact, they often aren't allowed to work at all. They tend to threaten the people who are in charge, who are all corporate bean-counting idiots who are only interested in opening weekends. Screenwriting has become a lost art. The other lost art is EDITING! I've not seen a film in the last five years that couldn't have been cut by 20 or more minutes without losing a single important point. All those agonizingly long beauty shots of digitally-created scenery, endless close-ups of stars in which the camera refuses to leave them until they finally figure out how to act, absurdly long fight scenes, glacial lap-dissolves, and the employment of 17 camera set-ups to cover two lines of dialogue have just reached the madness level. "Ray" is the only recent film I can think of that did not seem terminally padded.

__________________________________________________

Lets see something new and FRESH!
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100 % agree, this is and will be Hollywood’s down fall, there are hundreds of little independent film companies running around with smaller digital cameras, creating new and cheaper films, I don’t know if this is good or bad, but I do know that the big Hollywood studios production companies days are numbered, if you look at DVD sales and theater receipts, its starting to go down, and very true this could also be because of cable services, like HBO, and Showtime who sometimes produce there own shows, movies. But at last count there was no major block buster film this summer, receipts are down, production costs are high. Again the creative minds have gone soft, some re-makes were nice, but it’s a lost art. Like the drive-in theaters, Hollywood’s days are soon past. People will spend more time at home theaters (rentals and DVD sales will sore) not to mention the cable networks. The costs of going to the movies are insane, ticket prices, popcorn, soda’s, major cities already charge for parking unless you went the a theater in a major shopping center. Its sad, how technology advancement has lost its art form, connection with the past, it will all be over one day soon.
Can some body stop the cycle before its all gone, over? I hark back to the Golden Era when things seemed so much simpler. :cry:

 

[filmnoirphotos]

__________________________________________________

Lets see something new and FRESH!
__________________________________________________

100 % agree, this is and will be Hollywood’s down fall, there are hundreds of little independent film companies running around with smaller digital cameras, creating new and cheaper films, I don’t know if this is good or bad, but I do know that the big Hollywood studios production companies days are numbered, if you look at DVD sales and theater receipts, its starting to go down, and very true this could also be because of cable services, like HBO, and Showtime who sometimes produce there own shows, movies. But at last count there was no major block buster film this summer, receipts are down, production costs are high. Again the creative minds have gone soft, some re-makes were nice, but it’s a lost art. Like the drive-in theaters, Hollywood’s days are soon past. People will spend more time at home theaters (rentals and DVD sales will sore) not to mention the cable networks. The costs of going to the movies are insane, ticket prices, popcorn, soda’s, major cities already charge for parking unless you went the a theater in a major shopping center. Its sad, how technology advancement has lost its art form, connection with the past, it will all be over one day soon.
Can some body stop the cycle before its all gone, over? I hark back to the Golden Era when things seemed so much simpler. :cry:

Sadly, the changing tide goes far beyound this, Hondo. Animation, computer assisted animation and heavily computer assisted film (well, digital, actually) motion pictures are changing the way Hollywood, or what's left of it, shoot and produce pictures. The film "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" was shot entirely blue/green screen, essentially in a large box with all of the backgrounds and props added in post production digitally. Though not a great film, it does point to where major motion picture making is going. Sin City is another example of much the same.

Also, a number of very big recent films were either computer assisted animation or totally computer generated. "Monster, Inc.," "The Incredibles," and a recent entirely Japanese production, "Steam Boy", to name just a few. The animated short has finally reached full length proportions and considering the hundreds of animated films being produced in western Pacific studios, particularly Japan, they will eventually represent a major portion of the world fim industry.

As for Hollywood.....the Oscars are already becoming an international affair and the foreign film category is likely to soon disappear.

Don't even get me started on today's theaters..... I grew up with the double feature matinee with serials, cartoons, newsreels.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I think there are allot of good things being done in movies it just seems to be happening in independent and foriegn films. Memento, 21 Grams, anything that the Coen Bros have done like Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn't There to name a couple, a small but good film from a couple years ago The Station Agent I could go on all day. I do think that the major studios have really lost the touch. To many left brainers controlling a right brain process. Writing in movies like The Philadelphia Story and Casablanca was so good and I think thats just one element thats missing in todays Hollywood.
AAHHH and the 1980s classic Chinatown. A color film thats about as noir as you can get.

 

[Feraud]

AAHHH and the 1980s classic Chinatown. A color film thats about as noir as you can get.

Did you mean 70's?..An excellent movie!
Great points made by all.
There are good movies that get made and will continue to. The fact that most films are garbage(imho) is probably not very different from times past. Old does not mean good.

Maybe 'Hollywood' has not lost its creativity because it never had it? The intentionally great films of yesterday were made notwithstanding the mindset of the studios. It was the creativity of the writers, directors, etc. that got movies made. Other films have been deemed "Classic" by the audience and Time. I hear Casablanca was just another production at the time...
This is not due to a creative spark from Hollywood.

 

[airfrogusmc]

OOOPPPS 70s I shouldn't try and type and think at the same time. I think that Hollywood back in the day was cranking out so many films that things like Casablanca and Its a Wonderful Life were just bound to happen just by the sheer numbers. I've read that neither film had great hopes from the suits and It a Wonderful Life did awfull at the box office.

 

[Feraud]

I agree on the 'numbers' idea. If you aim high and strive for quality you will get it more often than not.

However, if you seek to produce remakes based on television shows then you will probably make your money based on the nostalgia factor or younger viewers. No one will be commenting in thirty or so years on that Dukes of Hazzard or Charlie's Angels movie!

 

[Hondo]

Sadly, the changing tide goes far beyound this, Hondo. Animation, computer assisted animation and heavily computer assisted film (well, digital, actually) motion pictures are changing the way Hollywood, or what's left of it, shoot and produce pictures. The film "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" was shot entirely blue/green screen, essentially in a large box with all of the backgrounds and props added in post production digitally. Though not a great film, it does point to where major motion picture making is going. Sin City is another example of much the same.

Also, a number of very big recent films were either computer assisted animation or totally computer generated. "Monster, Inc.," "The Incredibles," and a recent entirely Japanese production, "Steam Boy", to name just a few. The animated short has finally reached full length proportions and considering the hundreds of animated films being produced in western Pacific studios, particularly Japan, they will eventually represent a major portion of the world fim industry.

As for Hollywood.....the Oscars are already becoming an international affair and the foreign film category is likely to soon disappear.

Don't even get me started on today's theaters..... I grew up with the double feature matinee with serials, cartoons, newsreels.

Oh I won't touch "today's theaters" as topic, I think we all know. The so called box office draws like Tom Cruise, or Julia Roberts just to name a few, command mega-millions or percentage of gross and their days are numbered, it’s another reason for the high production costs. Its like the price of gas and oil, keep paying until its gone.
I do enjoy animation shorts, artists to have to make a living, and again this cost is sky high nothing like “Steam boat Willie� those old Disney shorts. I like simple animi's.
“Foreign film category is likely to soon disappear…� oh I don’t think so there will always be the Oscars, but also Sundance film Fest, and some others who give, showcase Independent Films when Hollywood turns them away.
We’ll just hope for the better, I enjoy my Home Theater, but miss the glamour of the silverscreen era, remember premieres? Boy those were the days.

 

[airfrogusmc]

If its crappy TV to begin with how is throwing allot of money at it and putting some big names on the marque gonna fix it? Crap is still crap. The problem is that the unthinking masses will just eat it up.
The great thing about some of the films from the era we so foundly remember is the writing on the really good ones had to be great because you had to be very creative to get certain ideas across. I find the beauty or terror is sometimes what we don't see. (shower scene Psycho, and the scene in Rear Window where Jimmy Stuart was stuck in the wheel chair)

 

[Feraud]

If its crappy TV to begin with how is throwing allot of money at it and putting some big names on the marque gonna fix it? Crap is still crap. The problem is that the unthinking masses will just eat it up.

I agree totally! I would be embarrassed to tell my boss that I want to spend x million dollars on a remake of something like The Dukes of Hazzard, Shaft, The Ring, Dark Water, etc...
I believe movies are made by formula. Cost per words/page and all that. Somehow it shows that there is money to be made in doing it like this.
It is truly the unthinking masses who pay $10.00 to see Adam Sandler play a con in The Longest Yard!

Btw, I watched Rear Window on TCM. A great movie!

 

[filmnoirphotos]

Oh I won't touch "today's theaters" as topic, I think we all know. The so called box office draws like Tom Cruise, or Julia Roberts just to name a few, command mega-millions or percentage of gross and their days are numbered, it’s another reason for the high production costs.

Funny you should mention Tom Cruise. Saw "War of the Worlds" last week and very much enjoyed it, but felt that anybody could have played Cruise's character. The story definitely overshadowed his uninspiring character. The little gal that plays his daughter, in my opinion, stole every scene. So much for mega-stars.