“It’s Left No Room For Risk-Taking And Innovation” – People Are Talking About The Ways That Modern Movies Are Being Ruined

Recently, u/shinfolxshin asked r/AskReddit, “What is gradually ruining all movies?” We thought we’d share some of the most popular responses:

1. “The relentless pursuit of franchise building over standalone storytelling. It seems like every new film has to be the launching pad for a sequel, a spin off, or a multi movie arc, which chips away at the integrity of the story.”

“There’s a constant push to set up the next thing, and it’s at the expense of the current narrative. Studios are so fixated on establishing universes that they forget to ensure that the individual film is satisfying on its own. This forward looking approach often leaves the audience with more teasers for future content than a well crafted, self-contained story that resonates on its own merit.”

–GraceThomass

2. “I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but lately, I have been seeing a lot more movies where the only way to really describe the structure is ‘stuff happens’. Like, I don’t feel like I’m experiencing a story, more a train of thought.”

–Odd-Forever-6445

3. “The annoying advertisements and trailers that reveal too much.”

–Javy_V88

4. “Oh, I could write a novel on this… The short answer is: loss of maturity in the storytelling, loss of (real or perceived) audience attention spans, frenetic/jumpy cinematography and editing, a move away from character development, a decline in ‘ambitious’ cinematography and scene blocking, lack of clear thematic focal points, the absence of good lighting, and the overloading of soundscapes.”

–Emu_on_the_Loose

5. “Poor sound design with overly loud action and muddled dialogue.”

–shinfolxshin

“Whisper, whisper, whisper, ORCHESTRA EXPLODES!”

–HawaiianShirtsOR

6. “Using all those grey/brown filters to add ‘mood’ or at night that it’s so dark you can hardly see anything on the screen.”

–oddthomas40

7. “Lack of risk. Most films nowadays are too perfectly seated in what the public finds comfortable — but we need something, consistently, to shake that up. Not only is there a lack of risk in terms of plot/theme, but films visually have looked almost the same for the last two decades now.”

–takingitallin365

8. “The idea that movies need to be funny. I’ll blame Marvel for this. I don’t need a joke every five minutes. I like an intense, focused, serious narrative”

–Status_Peach6969

9. “Creating movies to be profitable first and good second, which counterproductively, results in horrible movies that make less money.”

–BenduUlo

10. “Marvel-style quips and not trusting the audience to understand something past a third grade reading level.”

–Make_It_Sing

11. “Shooting a film without a finalised script. The final product has a muddled story and then because the story keeps getting rewritten and scenes get reshot, the VFX looks horrible because entire segments have to be redone.”

–Savitar2606

12. “Passion. Lots of movies nowadays are cheap cash grabs instead of having lots of thought and care behind them.”

–Exotic_Wrangler6950

13. “Length. What happened to 90 minute movies?! Seems like all moves are well over two hours now, and just kind of drag on.”

–chindef

14. “Greed. Lack of risk-taking among the studio heads. They don’t invest in projects with budgets under $20million. It’s either $20M or $300M, with no in-between. It’s left no room for risk-taking and innovation. With the exception of A24, every studio is putting out projects which haven’t changed their formula since the ’90s. It’s embarrassing.”

–Improvement_Opposite

15. “Every movie or at least every action movie is basically people falling for 25 minutes and I’m so over it. My example is Jupiter Ascending and The Hobbit the desolation of Smaug.”

–SacOLantern

16. “Computer game syndrome. The hero does something and there are zero consequences once they’ve left that location. E.g. they have a massive gun fight, complete with explosions and destroyed buildings, in a major town. Then they drive off and it’s never referred to again. In reality the police, FBI, counter terrorism units etc would be pursuing them forever. Sometimes it’s even sillier, they leave a room after killing a couple of ‘baddies’ and the remaining people don’t follow them.”

–Careful-Swimmer-2658

17. “The lack of imagination. They keep making a second film that no one asked for and it only runs off the success of the first. Or they remake a classic and absolutely ruin it.”

–snarkyshooter09

What do you think is ruining movies these days? Let us know in the comments below!