Mission impenetrable: are Hollywood blockbusters losing the plot?

The Guardian ^ | 30 July 2015 | Phil Hoad

[MinorityRepublican]

Forty-five minutes into the seventh Fast & Furious movie, Vin Diesel drives towards a huge precipice. The audience have only the faintest idea why he’s there. Ditto why they have paraglided their cars into Azerbaijan. Is it Azerbaijan?

It’s probably to rescue someone … who was it again? Something to do with a surveillance gizmo means they need to find their nemesis Jason Statham, except Statham seems to find them whenever he wants, being the one about to push Diesel off the cliff, not the random mercenaries they’re nicking the device from.

Only Kurt Russell – who’s watching everything from his covert-ops unit and chatting about craft ale – seems to understand what the hell is going on.

[MinorityRepublican]

I agree. 007 movies isn't quite the same lately, too much emphasis on special effects rather than the plot. Only good ones recently were GoldenEye and Casino Royale. Daniel Craig is an excellent actor but Hollywood is wasting his talent, IMHO.

[bigbob]

When’s the last time they came up with an original plot idea?

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

This is ‘The Guardian’. They’re more worried about ‘losing the narrative (propaganda).

[hinckley buzzard]

You want plot? Tune in to Turner Classic Movies.

[ckilmer]

I’ve thought plot and story line of the last couple of bond movies have been pretty weak.

[Inyo-Mono]

I can’t even go to see new films anymore. They seem to aimed at teenage male audiences, low on plot and heavy on CGI special effects. Don’t think I can stand one more remake of older movies.

[wally_bert]

I generally let TCM run all weekend most of the time. Besides I like hearing about the backstories.

[wally_bert]

I don’t go for those same reasons.

The last one was AS part III to be supportive.

[catnipman]

“In my experience, very few people walk out of a movie.”

I’ve walked out of the last 30% of the movies I’ve gone to which is why I quite going altogether. Now I just stream British TV series like “Doc Martin”, “Sherlock”, etc.

[Vince Ferrer]

I agree with the article, but would also add that the quest for foreign sales is a big part of this as well. Movies aiming for blockbuster status are enormously expensive now, and to get the money back they must do well overseas. But movies with a lot of dialog and character development ofter don't do well in foreign markets. Nobody, including Americans want to read subtitles for two hours. So they change the formula to minimize dialog, and show visually exiting things like chase scenes, fights, and explosions. The plot becomes incoherent, but it is visually exiting. Foreigners may not understand that we don't understand it either.

[BipolarBob]

I get 200 channels on satellite and 198 are poo. I mostly watch TCM. The old movies are many times better than what we are offered now.

[LadyDoc]

You want plot?

google Tfios...or ask your teenaged daughter about it. One of the rare medical movies that didn’t make me throw popcorn at the screen

[jocon307]

“When’s the last time they came up with an original plot idea?”

The last movie I felt was truly an original idea was “The Sixth Sense”, it’s a really great movie and if you haven’t seen it I recommend it highly.

It has a couple of creepy/scary scenes (I’m a total mush with that stuff, I’m sure many would say it wasn’t scary at all) and it’s a very clean movie - one bad word in the whole movie.

[JPX2011]

Probably not original but I have been pleased with Christopher Nolan's work (Batman trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, etc.) His movies have been the most thought provoking for me in terms of plot.

[Bender2]

Gadzooks-- Back in my day... they made films with great actors that had a beginning, middle and end that made sense!

Just think how they could have made recent films... better:

[fieldmarshaldj]

I can’t imagine John Wayne as Superman, especially given he was carrying around 50 pounds of constipation in his gut !

[atomic_dog]

When’s the last time they came up with an original plot idea?

It was either 1995 (The Usual Suspects) or 1998 (Dark City).

[max americana]

Shyamalan’s staffer on that movie now works with us. If you knew the background on the backstabbing between Weinstein and M night, that could be a movie plot on it;s own.

[tanuki]

Some interesting concepts there, Bend! These would definitely have been better than the real deal!

[Organic Panic]

Guy Ritchie and the Cohen Brothers make some of my favorite modern flicks.