> <http://gawker.com/5406414/ever-wonder-why-most-movies-suck>
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> Ever Wonder Why Most Movies Suck?
Two qualifications here: (1) Bollywood sells more tickets than Hollywood, but ticket prices are much higher in the US. Adjust by numbers of tickets, and the picture looks a bit less sucky. (2) The Lord of the Rings trilogy is an aesthetic masterpiece. "Finding Nemo" is above-average, the first "Spiderman" wasn't at all bad, etc. Many of the others aren't terribly good or bad, just mainstream entertainment at its blandest.
That said, the reasons that most commercially-produced media suck are precisely the reasons videogames are blowing the roof off the 21st century. (1) Final sales to fans determine the success of game franchises, not ad campaigns or the vast pools of capital which finance blockbuster films. (2) Fans demand continuity of the game-world, giving more power to creators and artists to refine and expand their creations, e.g. game sequels are often better whereas film sequels are almost always worse. (3) Numerous links to open source revolution gives studios and artists far more leverage over their work than the average action film director. (4) The digital commons has prevented media oligopolies from trashing gaming the way they have trashed American TV.
Note that the two film franchises which have been better than average both had elements of (1) and (2): the Lord of the Rings fan community played a key role in the production of the trilogy, and something similar is true for the Star Trek series and films (they're an extremely mixed bag, but still manage to be head-and-shoulders above standard sci-fi fare).
-- DRR