I've been noticing a trend in popular culture recently. A trend of "safe bets". To back up my impression I did some cursory research about films being released next year.(https://www.movieinsider.com/movies/-/2018)
Of the dozen highly anticipated films being released in 2018 that I looked at, seven were immediately recognisable to me as sequels, prequels or otherwise being related to previously successful media. This is without taking 2017 into account, the year of Star Wars 8, Blade Runner 2 and the Emoji Movie amongst other things. This trend of safe, marketable names is often derided and commented upon, but I hope here to cast a fresh perspective on this.
What gave me the idea for this post was the recently released trailer for Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom (which I thought looked good by the way), and it made me consider the message of the original Jurassic Park film. The moral of Jurassic Park was that complex things are fundamentally unpredictable. If you reach a point where you believe you have meaningful, complete control over a complex system, it is going to end about as well as taking to Twitter to come out as a Tory. This is touched on in Jurassic World with the idea of a "relationship" with the raptors. Full control is an illusion, a delicate balance that requires effort and discipline to maintain, as well as respect for, and understanding of, the system (or in this case animal). I saw an irony in this with the attitude of Hollywood towards film making. Those who make films, or at least many who market and produce them, believe they can successfully predict what films people enjoy and therefore what will be successful and make obscene amounts of money doing it. The trick is safety. Take an existing, popular work of art and stretch it for everything it's worth. To an extent, this is working for them. Many mediocre, or poor films in the last two decades have made levels of money that would embarrass a banker who'd invested all his bonuses in bitcoin, purely by association with other much better films/books/games/key-rings, etc. Key examples of this would be the sequels and prequels to Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and the Avengers.
There is little inherently wrong with making a film, or even sequels, purely for profit. If someone enjoys your product and there is nothing fundamentally harmful about said product, then by all means, make it, and make money doing it. What I would caution against is when this production reaches a point of sequels being planned every year in perpetuity as Disney is doing with both Marvel and Star Wars, and as Sony has repeatedly tried with it's super hero IP, and as many other Studios are considering going forward. This model of film-making is Jurassic Park. It is throwing money at creating a closed, controlled, perfect money making system. (Make brand, publish brand forever, make money forever) What this fails to realise is that people are a necessary part of that system and people cannot be reliably controlled or predicted forever. Their tastes change. They make mistakes. They spend half their lives wishing they were a skilled limbo dancer and never actually pursue it. As a result, somewhere along the line, Star Wars films will stop making money. People will lose interest. The people making them will eventually mess it up to the point where people don't trust the brand anymore. It will happen eventually. And when it does, we may say that's no big deal. They'll just stop making them at that point and move on to something else. But the problem with that is that by that point, the dross will outnumber the good stuff. At that point, the original works of art that inspired these films will be tainted forever. The two good Star Wars films have already been poisoned for me by the three mediocre ones and three outright bad ones (I'll let those of you who miss the point guess which are which). As such this becomes a kind of plague, finding good art and running it through the ringer. Sparing no expense of course.
What this shows me, besides the fact that Stephen Spielberg has no self-awareness whatsoever, is that capitalism is a bad custodian of the arts. The best, most original films, with the most room for a lasting legacy are usually produced independently, or on a tight budget, or by an insane, unreliable director, or as a tricky, risky collaboration. The best films are usually not produced as blockbusters, and blockbusters rarely have artistic merit as a whole product. This shows me that good art is usually produced in spite of capitalism, and not as a result of it. I'm not sure I know what the answer to this problem is. But I do know that I'm all ready watching fewer films in the cinema as a result of this trend. I would be saddened to reach a point where I watch none.
Of the dozen highly anticipated films being released in 2018 that I looked at, seven were immediately recognisable to me as sequels, prequels or otherwise being related to previously successful media. This is without taking 2017 into account, the year of Star Wars 8, Blade Runner 2 and the Emoji Movie amongst other things. This trend of safe, marketable names is often derided and commented upon, but I hope here to cast a fresh perspective on this.
What gave me the idea for this post was the recently released trailer for Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom (which I thought looked good by the way), and it made me consider the message of the original Jurassic Park film. The moral of Jurassic Park was that complex things are fundamentally unpredictable. If you reach a point where you believe you have meaningful, complete control over a complex system, it is going to end about as well as taking to Twitter to come out as a Tory. This is touched on in Jurassic World with the idea of a "relationship" with the raptors. Full control is an illusion, a delicate balance that requires effort and discipline to maintain, as well as respect for, and understanding of, the system (or in this case animal). I saw an irony in this with the attitude of Hollywood towards film making. Those who make films, or at least many who market and produce them, believe they can successfully predict what films people enjoy and therefore what will be successful and make obscene amounts of money doing it. The trick is safety. Take an existing, popular work of art and stretch it for everything it's worth. To an extent, this is working for them. Many mediocre, or poor films in the last two decades have made levels of money that would embarrass a banker who'd invested all his bonuses in bitcoin, purely by association with other much better films/books/games/key-rings, etc. Key examples of this would be the sequels and prequels to Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and the Avengers.
There is little inherently wrong with making a film, or even sequels, purely for profit. If someone enjoys your product and there is nothing fundamentally harmful about said product, then by all means, make it, and make money doing it. What I would caution against is when this production reaches a point of sequels being planned every year in perpetuity as Disney is doing with both Marvel and Star Wars, and as Sony has repeatedly tried with it's super hero IP, and as many other Studios are considering going forward. This model of film-making is Jurassic Park. It is throwing money at creating a closed, controlled, perfect money making system. (Make brand, publish brand forever, make money forever) What this fails to realise is that people are a necessary part of that system and people cannot be reliably controlled or predicted forever. Their tastes change. They make mistakes. They spend half their lives wishing they were a skilled limbo dancer and never actually pursue it. As a result, somewhere along the line, Star Wars films will stop making money. People will lose interest. The people making them will eventually mess it up to the point where people don't trust the brand anymore. It will happen eventually. And when it does, we may say that's no big deal. They'll just stop making them at that point and move on to something else. But the problem with that is that by that point, the dross will outnumber the good stuff. At that point, the original works of art that inspired these films will be tainted forever. The two good Star Wars films have already been poisoned for me by the three mediocre ones and three outright bad ones (I'll let those of you who miss the point guess which are which). As such this becomes a kind of plague, finding good art and running it through the ringer. Sparing no expense of course.
What this shows me, besides the fact that Stephen Spielberg has no self-awareness whatsoever, is that capitalism is a bad custodian of the arts. The best, most original films, with the most room for a lasting legacy are usually produced independently, or on a tight budget, or by an insane, unreliable director, or as a tricky, risky collaboration. The best films are usually not produced as blockbusters, and blockbusters rarely have artistic merit as a whole product. This shows me that good art is usually produced in spite of capitalism, and not as a result of it. I'm not sure I know what the answer to this problem is. But I do know that I'm all ready watching fewer films in the cinema as a result of this trend. I would be saddened to reach a point where I watch none.
Hey Rob I really enjoyed this piece! Although there is one argument that I would debate:'capitalism is a bad custodian of the arts' seems to assume that 'the arts' would be more fruitful or high quality in any other economic system, or that consumers having free choice to pursue 'safe' movies inhibits other great art being made, which I don't think is true.
ReplyDeleteGood art isn't produced in spite or because of capitalism in my opinion, it's produced because the artists and everyone involved wanted to make it happen and has the means to. The means to is probably the deciding factor that you're getting at here but there's no more guarantee that communism or socialism would give the creators the means to (except in theory) than capitalism does.