Some More Thoughts on Hollywood Trends

I'm not going to start this with a flowery introduction - read Kiznox's Voltron post for an introduction.

It's a pretty scary time to be alive right now. I know that sounds cliche, and maybe it is an unoriginal thought, but considering people are finally acknowledging global warming is a real issue (16 straight days over 90 degrees in Michigan, arctic animals' depleting habitats, tornadoes in NYC, etc.) and seeing as how most of the world is either impoverished, at war with each other, or both, life as we know it has certainly taken a turn for the worse. Actually let me rephrase that - our perception of the world has taken a turn for the worse now that we're finally realizing what's happening to our planet. The following franchises/novels/comics/whatever else have recently been or soon will be turned into technologically advanced films:
Transformers
Voltron
Spiderman
Superman
Fantastic Four
Bridge to Terabithia
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Lord of the Rings
The Golden Compass
The Dark is Rising
X-Men
There are many others, but are you noticing a pattern? Hollywood is demonstrating its technical prowess not through new stories, but through characters and stories that are from a simpler time in our lives. Few people want media that's new and challenging - we want media that will satisfy us and make us smile without having to question anything

At this point things will start getting a lot darker here... be forewarned, but I have been thinking about this a lot recently

Maybe this is all part of a self-inflicted catharsis in response to the world around us. We are a society that does not want to have to think about problems until they're catastrophes. Does anyone really believe that 9/11 came out of nowhere? Or that just this year the world's weather patterns have gone nuts? Or that Minnesota is the only state that has a bridge in a state of disrepair? Those are just a few very obvious examples, but we certainly did a great job of leaving those issues to someone else until they became a big problem.

I have often bemoaned the potential death of the album (still alive and kicking in my book, by the by). But this is more than just a selfish annoyance at the cookie cutter nature of some popular music, although that's part of it. Music, as well as film, is an art form, and I consider a well-crafted album to be along the same lines as a great symphony. Now I'm by no means comparing Thom Yorke and Trent Reznor to Mozart or Mahler, but it is the same idea - creating a work of art. The same is true in any other medium - painting, sculpture, poetry, photography, computer art, anything; I do not believe, though, that the dwindling number of great works in any of these categories is due to a lack of talent in the field - but simply it is not what we want anymore. Instead, we want something that is big and flashy and exciting that costs a lot and gives us instant gratification. We are being stared in the face by the possible demise of our entire world. I am not such a pessimist that I believe the world is going to nuke itself into oblivion in the next week, but I think this is the first time in the history of man that we are actually realizing that it is possible for us to become extinct. It may take a long time, but as a lot of research is finding that the growing birth rates which we were so concerned about because of overpopulation are now slowing down to the point that LESS children are being born per year in many places. I don't know if anyone saw "Children of Men" (a fantastic apocalyptic film about the state of the world if a pandemic of infertility were to occur) but if you have, it certainly makes you think about the implications of these statistics. To get back on topic (sorry, took a little quick detour there), the human race is more concerned with the functional than the inspired today. It has been a very long time since there has been an artist who has gone from being wholly unpopular in their lifetime to being considered a genius posthumously. We base success and talent on financial gain, and then flog ourselves for not giving away our money to people who could probably use it more than us.

Maybe it's because we're afraid it's not gonna make a difference where it goes in the long run.

Hollywood knows that ignorance is bliss, and so it's marketing towards that end - make the people happy, show them a world where someone can swing out of the sky and save us, or come from the far reaches of space to do the same. And now that we can, why not make it look amazing at the same time? It's like a new twisted form of religion - not one that people actually believe in, but that we all keep hoping we can.

OK I dove way too deep on this one and may have ended at a different place than I began, but this wasn't supposed to be a five paragraph essay. G'night all

"...to sleep perchance to dream, to dream perchance to wake no more..."