Save the Movie!

Slate ^ | By Peter Suderman|Posted Friday, July 19, 2013, at 5:55 AM

[Perdogg]

If you’ve gone to the movies recently, you may have felt a strangely familiar feeling: You’ve seen this movie before. Not this exact movie, but some of these exact story beats: the hero dressed down by his mentor in the first 15 minutes (Star Trek Into Darkness, Battleship); the villain who gets caught on purpose (The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Skyfall, Star Trek Into Darkness); the moment of hopelessness and disarray a half-hour before the movie ends (Olympus Has Fallen, Oblivion, 21 Jump Street, Fast & Furious 6).

[Perdogg]

ping

[dfwgator]

The only original movie that came out this year is Sharknado.

[ssaftler]

Which is one more original thought than has come from Slate in the last 20 years!

[KarlInOhio]

I think the Iliad is set up with the same basic structure.

[hattend]

The only original movie that came out this year is Sharknado.

I could only last 5 minutes watching it last night then spent the rest of the movie searching for Tara Reid's boob shots on my phone. Then "Wipeout" and "Hell's Kitchen" came on.

[InterceptPoint]

So Hollywood is following a basic 3-Act Structure for their Blockbusters. I’m shocked.

Once-Upon-A-Time the formula was:

BOY GETS GIRL
BOY LOSES GIRL
BOY GETS GIRL

Those were the days. It’s just a coincidence that the old style was also 3 acts. At least I think it’s a coincidence.

Hmmmm.

[dfwgator]

Now it’s

Boy gets Girl
Boy loses Girl
Boy realizes he’s gay
Boy gets Boy

[JoeProBono]

[max americana]

That’s the way David S Goyer writes, but perfected. It’s well-known here in Hollywood the 3 act script is the standard but everyone copied the style of how Goyer wrote the Dark Knight.

[House Atreides]

I could only last 5 minutes watching it last night then spent the rest of the movie searching for Tara Reid’s boob shots on my phone.
*****************************************************************
Tara Reid’s incredible acting was what made Sharknado into the masterpiece it is. The genius of this movie may not be recognized until 20 or 30 years have passed.

[grania]

The local cinema complex shows remastered oldered movies. This week it was a remastered BACK TO THE FUTURE. It's excellent, and has not suffered at all with the passage of time. Besides that, there are good movies. They just aren't the hyped over-budgeted special effect monstrosities.

Sometimes it takes a little looking, and they disappear quickly, but there are good movies. Case in point...Mudd.

[BipolarBob]

I watched the whole thing last night. If I can do it, anybody can.

[hattend]

If it comes back on, I’ll give it another shot. Probably while drinking shots.

Love your tagline...LOL!

[Resolute Conservative]

Now the formula is:
Make evil look cool
Blow up something
Get naked
Curse a lot
Belittle family values

[LS]

Lol. I know-—I like Showtime’s “Ray Donovan” but the constant homosexuality is repulsive.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This was parodied with:

Boy meets girl.
Girl gets boy into pickle.
Boy gets pickle into girl.

[rlmorel]

What makes a Hero (in a movie)...

(This is interesting, even though TED can be liberal at times)

[SC_Pete]

Computer-generated special effects has supplanted story-telling. Given today’s technology conservatives should start making their own movies. They can be written and shot cheaply anywhere now. Why not a movie about the corruption of incumbency; or a movie about the stupidity of urban municipal government; a movie about family values; a movie about the godliness of the love between a man and a woman; a movie about the need for the Second Amendment; a movie about individualism and free enterprise—the list is endless. I cannot watch one more Hollywood movie about gays and global warming and the virtues of recycling. I’ve had it. NO MORE.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Importantly, this is the way things are because the movie studios are owned by non-entertainment corporations. For them, movies are just “product”, and they seek a reliable formula to generate a reliable profit.

However, they do not understand that movie goers want some degree of variation, something different from formula, or going to the movies is like eating nothing but hot dogs, day in and day out.

To make matters worse, movies are now thought of in terms of domestic vs. international sales.

This is why the rancid remake of The Alamo was so repugnant; because it was not made for Americans, but for foreign audiences. So it is demeaning to the heroes involved, insulting to Americans, and anachronistic because they figured that foreign audiences would neither know nor care.