# I have to vent: this has been the worst decade for movies . . . EVER!!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2019, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544 "2019-06-15T05:48:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/61 "2019-06-17T00:58:12Z")
Oh. Well, none of the Marvel movies have used that structure. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/62 "2019-06-17T01:37:28Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Thanos doesn’t have to be right or even sympathetic for this to work. Yes, but he does have to be highly animated to work. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/63 "2019-06-17T01:51:17Z")
At least part of the explanation has to be the insatiable demand of television, which is now more properly characterized as “home theater” with an incredible variety of options beyond traditional broadcast and cable. HBO has been leading the pack in this regard, with Netflix perhaps starting to catch up, but there are many others. And this has to be diverting talent that would otherwise be available for moviemaking. The miniseries format is also a new option available to these new media, which offers a richer platform than a theatrical film, one where the full scope of a story can be explored. Traditional broadcast networks have used it before, but there’s a huge difference between a miniseries viewed on a small tube interspersed with incessant commercials and one viewed commercial-free on a modern large (or at least large-ish) screen. But besides that, networks like HBO have been making great films in their own right in the conventional runtime formats. I recently finished watching the HBO miniseries _Chernobyl_ and thought it was more impressive than most of the theatrical films that have been listed here. Last night we decided to binge-watch _11.22.63_, and while I don’t think it rose to the caliber of _Chernobyl_, it was an experience unlike anything you’d get in a theater because it had the time to fully explore Stephen King’s lengthy novel without any sense of being rushed or abridged – the sense that you always get that a movie adaptation is a sort of quick Reader’s Digest highly condensed version of the novel that it’s based on. And it was no small potatoes – J.J. Abrams was one of a handful of major executive producers for it, while James Franco produced and starred along with Josh Duhamel and others. These sorts of things serve both to pull talent away from theatrical productions and make audiences less interested in leaving home to see them. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/64 "2019-06-17T03:28:17Z")
Or to put it another way: Maybe we shouldn’t despair that movies nowadays are so bad. Maybe we should rejoice that movies nowadays are freed of their old constraints, and that they can now be as long as they need to be and we can watch them in our favorite comfy chair and pause them whenever we need to go pee. And they’re cheaper, to boot. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/65 "2019-06-17T06:21:38Z")
you know I remember complaints like this in the 80s except it was “teenage sex and party comedies especially with that red-haired girl (Molly Ringwald) and that blond haired guy (Anthony Michael Hall”) ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/66 "2019-06-17T07:50:47Z")
TV is much better than it has ever been before, and there’s a lot more options to choose from. Blockbusters have always had a tendency to chase current popular trends, and that happens to be super hero movies right now. Great movies are still coming out every year, and some of them even happen to be super hero movies. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/67 "2019-06-17T09:15:46Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Okay I snipped the quote short: > > “Is it serious, adult entertainment? **Not really** […]” > > That’s what I disagree with. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to see Thor: Ragnarok as serious, adult entertainment. Much like most of the Marvel movies, it’s a character-driven action movie with some pretty deep themes and excellent writing. > > I guess where I get confused is, what makes entertainment “adult”? I think it’s about taking themes which matter to adulthood and displaying it with a level of emotional maturity in storytelling that does the theme justice. Like, to reach for my favorite example… Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is a phenomenally silly movie with a fairly consistent lightness of tone that most kids will fucking love, make no mistake… But there’s enough there for one of the best movie analysts on youtube to make a [40-minute video analyzing its themes of egotism, depression, mental illness, surrogate family, et cetera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VulkN5OLEM). Sorry. I thought the parentheses around “serious, adult” were implied. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/68 "2019-06-17T09:35:14Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > Part of the problem may be the number of screens available to a movie-goer and the length of time a film stays in an accessible theatre. It may be that a great movie made it the local theatre but was pushed out in a week by a blockbuster that stayed out for weeks. If you snooze, you lose, and are left with whatever the kids are thrilled by this month, and so the overall sense is “the movies I can reasonably expect to get to are crap” That’s always been the case for those of us who lived in small towns. Mine was large enough to get the new movies at the same time as the big cities (sometimes earlier, as sneak market research), small enough that they only lasted one weekend. Sometimes people would end up going to a smaller town to watch a movie they’d missed when it was new. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/69 "2019-06-17T10:17:44Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > Old people are confused and angry about modern media. #shocking This old person isn’t. Oh, sure, there is a lot that doesn’t appeal to me, but one the whole I am thrilled with both the quantity and quality of choices available, and the many ways in which to enjoy it we just didn’t have 40 years ago. Anything can be taken to extremes or done poorly, but things like today’s computer generated effects can put images on the screen that were either difficult or impossible in the past, and often in ways much safer for the participants creating the work. I’m sorry if someone prefers genres that are not currently the most popular these days, but even if they’re not in the big theaters you can probably find them in other venues like the streaming services, or on DVD, whether old classics or new offerings. On a certain level, what makes money is easiest to find funding to make more. Superhero movies, particularly the Marvel offerings, get funding of hundreds of millions of dollars because they make _billions_, and do it world-wide, and they continue to be made because they provide the audience with what it wants. It’s not just Marvel and superheros, of course - there’s the _Mission: Impossible_ franchise, the _Matrix_, _Lord of the Rings/Hobbit_, _Indiana Jones_, the Jack Ryan franchise, the James Bond franchise… the action/drama (which a lot of emphasis on action) has been around since the beginning of motion pictures, as has horror, comedy, mystery, etc. The industry goes through phases where one or another is ascendant, but none of the broad categories are new. In contrast, small intimate dramas without the superpowers, anchored more firmly in the real world, aren’t blockbusters and don’t make as much money. On the other hand, they don’t cost as much to make, either. They are still out there, but you have to look for them. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/70 "2019-06-17T10:22:13Z")
Plus, a lot of stuff that in the past would have been made into movies, is now made into “premium” TV series - often starring bona fide movie stars. I consider this a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/71 "2019-06-17T11:32:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Budget Player Cadet** , it may be that Infinity War doesn’t raise any eyebrows for making the villain the protagonist or executing a twist ending because it didn’t do either of those things. **Like, not even close, nor was it even trying.** [[Endgame screenwriter Stephen] McFeely says, “[Thanos] is the protagonist. He overcomes odds. He sacrifices a lot and gets what he wants in the end.”](https://screencraft.org/2018/05/17/how-avengers-infinity-war-created-a-complex-protagonist-in-thanos/) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/72 "2019-06-17T13:49:09Z")
OK, I take it back, then, it was trying. It was just failing spectacularly. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/73 "2019-06-17T13:54:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, I take it back, then, it was trying. It was just failing spectacularly. In your opinion, maybe. Many of us have established why, exactly, it didn’t for most viewers. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/74 "2019-06-17T14:30:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, I take it back, then, it was trying. It was just failing spectacularly. How do you figure? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/75 "2019-06-17T14:45:53Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > How do you figure? I didn’t get a sense of Thanos as protagonist at all. I also didn’t get a sense of him “overcoming odds” since he basically just punches his way past any problem in the film, getting increasingly powerful and never having a serious setback. Maybe that quote was the intent but I didn’t get that from the film. ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/76 "2019-06-17T22:54:37Z")
I’m so sick of… Okay, so it’s not your cup o’ tea. For a while, there were\*… [ul] [li]Classic Horror Movies (Frankenstein’s Monster, The WolfMan, Dracula)[/li][li]3D Action Movies [/li][li]Cowboy/Western Movies (Shane, The Shootist, Hang 'em High) [/li][li]War Movies (Guns of Navarrone, Bridge over the River Kwai)[/li][li]Exotic Location Dramas (The Last Emperor, Passage Through India)[/li][li]Sports/Competition Dramas (The Longest Yard, Breaking Away)[/li][li]Romantic Comedies (The Apartment, )[/li][li]Musicals (My Fair Lady, Music Man)[/li][li]Police Action Movies (Dirty Harry, etc.)[/li][li]Car Racing/Chasing movies (Eat My Dust, Gumball Rally)[/li][li]Espionage Drama, Action, and Thrillers (Bond, Osterman Weekend)[/li][li]Space battle movies (Star Wars, Battle Beyond the Stars)[/li][li]Sword & Sorcery Movies (Excalibur, Hawk the Slayer, Krull)[/li][li]Superhero Movies (Superman, The Shadow, Howard the Duck)[/li][li]Buddy Cop movies (City Slickers, Lethal Weapon, The Rookie)[/li][li]Historical Dramas (Gandhi, Chariots of Fire)[/li][li]Musicals (Streets of Fire, Footloose, Crossroads)[/li][li]Sports/Competition Dramas (Bull Durham, Remember The Titans, Tin Cup)[/li][li]War Movies (Schindler’s List, Pearl Harbor)[/li][li]Horror Comedy Movies (Teen Wolf, Frankenstein 2000)[/li][li]Cowboy Westerns (Young Guns, Pale Rider, Unforgiven)[/li][li]SciFi/Space Movies (Contact, Mars Attacks)[/li][li]3D Action Movies (I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka!)[/li][li]Romantic Comedies (When Harry Met Sally, Working Girl)[/li][li]Exotic location movies (Crouching Tiger, Memoirs of a Geisha, Marigold Hotel)[/li][li]Sword & Sorcery Movies (Harry Potter, LoTR)[/li][li]Superhero Movies (Blade, MiB, Xmen, Dark Knight)[/li][li]Car Racing/Chasing movies (Fast & Furious 1 through 9999)[/li][li]Horror Movies (Witch, Hereditary, etc.)[/li][/ul] Have you noticed a repetition? It’s not exactly cyclical, but there are definitely clusters. Something makes a big splash and a bunch of other studios try to cash in on the popularity. Then something else makes a big splash – plus a trendy genre (or mix) gets over saturated. And people move on. Also, TV will try to jump on the trend and offer even more to fans. [The oddity was the spate of movies made from TV shows – Charlie’s Angels, Dukes of Hazard, Starsky & Hutch, even Scooby Doo. Those seemed to be that lack-of-good-writers problem just trying to squeeze extra bucks out of previously-popular programming.] You don’t like the current offerings# (and there are always multiple genre/themes being offered at any given time)? Sit back and re-enjoy your favorites from days of yore, and soon enough you’ll find that a genre or theme has become passe and something else has become trendy. That’s just the nature of fads and fashion. –G! - I suspect my examples may be somewhat out-of-order from their relative historical release dates, but you’ll get the gist. # I, personally, would gladly skip the Rom/Com, Military, Car, Sports, Horror, and most of the Historical stuff. Others would prefer to skip the musicals and Cop shows. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/77 "2019-06-18T20:52:00Z")
I don’t know if this is the “worst” decade. But I think the combination of CGI, uninspired writing and the economics of big-budget blockbusters tends to create an environment where a lot of good films get overshadowed by big, loud, dull CGI fests. > [@Alessan](#): > > I never did either., and yet I love comic book movies. A film like _Thor Ragnarok_ pushes all my Star Wars-loving, Pratchett-reading, D&D-playing geek buttons. Is it serious, adult entertainment? Not really, but I’ve tried being a serious adult and standing here, just a month away from my 45th birthday, I can tell you that it’s just not worth the effort. Being an adult is overrated. One problem IMHO is a lot of films fail to innovate in any meaningful way. Like how many Batmans (Batmen?) do I need to see fight how many Jokers or B-tier villains? Or they innovate in stupid ways. Switching to an all-female cast (and giving them 30% fewer “Oceans”) does not meaningfully make Oceans 8 and different from Oceans 11-13. I have to say, after two largely uninspired and dull Thor movies, it was a stroke of brilliance to make Thor 3 a sort of throw-back to something you would see painted on the side of some metal-head’s van in the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/78 "2019-06-18T23:05:16Z")
[I don’t like watching new movies](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=829509). ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544/79 "2019-06-19T00:25:40Z")
I didn’t think Captain Marvel was that great either, but I certainly wouldn’t try to make this one movie an indictment of even the MCU movies much less all superhero movies MUCH much less all the fucking movies of the decade. That’s a bit hyperbolic. It’s been a great decade for movies and a great decade for superhero movies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-to-vent-this-has-been-the-worst-decade-for-movies-ever/835544.md?page=3)