I just don’t get all the hype about Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It’s just like with Black Panther, which was a celebrated installment of a franchise that isn’t great anymore. It’s weird that people are now becoming more fond of the Shrek films nowadays, when they weren’t that great to begin with.
I haven’t seen The Last Wish, but I just feel like it’s just another one of those movies that copies Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s visual style, which is already starting to feel old.
And is not about Puss in Boots, more or less all movies reinvent the wheel now and have 0% of creativity in them. Everything feels like a demo reel of how well contributors can make a movie, rather than actually having the story be unique and have any real impact and significant purpose.
As I now consider that a B-Movie like “Toxic Avenger” feels like it was made from a genius mastermind, is true that things are not going well in that regard, when it comes to the current state of cinematography.
It is practically impossible to have a “unique” story now. There is so much material, hundreds of significant movies and tens of thousands of significant books coming out each year. Our media consumption has anchored copious stories in our brains, and should you happen to have missed one, the communal knowledge of the internet will not fail to remind you of any similarity of new movie X to prior art Y.
Selected stories that appeal to human archetypes have told over and over again. Hundreds of authors strive to write new stories daily with a unique trait. The desire to be original is there, but it gets overridden by the need to still connect with the audience, which means tackling the common experience of human beings.
Storytelling has to work on many levels of abstraction, and the highest levels have been covered a thousand years ago. It is said that there are only seven basic plots in existence (may or may not be true, I’m not going to discuss that here), and naturally all of them have been done in one form or another. So you go down in the abstraction hierarchy and look at figure constellations (family members, lovers, friends, strangers, bosses and servants…) or character traits, and lo! they have been done as well; nobody is surprised by a “I’m your father!” revelation any more. So you go down further and find plot points (the 36 dramatic situations) and character arcs (falling to the evil side, reversal of perspective, redemption, salvation, overcoming the monster, overcoming the self, overcoming the other) and see that they also have been done to death, a hundred times over. So you go down again and find settings, environments, and social backdrops, and now you are on the genre level, each genre coming with its own tropes - a trope essentially being the result of the same stuff being told again and again until it crosses over into cliché territory. And then you sigh and finally admit that creativity on those levels is dead, and you can only be creative in the sense of finding new details and new worlds to tell the same stories in a fresh, contemporary way.
There is the TVtropes website listing thousands of tropes from various genres, including samples of intentionally breaking the tropes and thus creating anti-tropes, and I bet if you let an AI skim over that, it could click together a “new” movie without ever adding anything remotely original.
Everybody “quotes” (steals from?) Homer, Shakespeare, the Bible, Aesop, Ovid, Melville, Wilde, Doyle, Shelley, Dickens, Tolstoy etc etc. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that. Star Wars, almost fifty years ago, quoted Westerns, war movies, and Japanese classics (not to mention the most basic fantasy tropes). Avatar is Dances with Wolves in space. The Sea Beast generously replicates the basic idea of How to Train Your Dragon after briefly suggesting Moby Dick.
And with any newly published work, don’t claim ignorance or dare to disregard those connections to what-came-before, because a hundred nitpicking YouTube critics are just waiting for the opportunity to tell you how unoriginal, derivative, and stale that work is. (Because, you know, negativity harvests clicks.)
So, what’s still creative and original, if everything is a retelling or variation of something else on some level?
We can just wow the audience with the spectacle of elaborate worldbuilding, like Avatar or Lord of the Rings did. This gets more difficult nowadays as viewers are desensitized through a barrage of advanced CGI, and is easily undermined by plot holes or worldbuilding holes that are opened by authors who want to be especially dazzling at the expense of logic (Mortal Engines).
We can invent or refine new visual effects (the bullet time in Matrix became a meme on its own, while the plot idea of unknowingly living in a simulation had been done 30 years ago already).
We can borrow visualizations from other genres refreshing a stale design language (Into the Spiderverse gets its clue from Anime).
We can include motifs and settings from other cultures (Moana, Mulan). This is a great refresh but also a dangerous one: on the one hand, it appeals to diversity, on the other it reeks of cultural appropriation, especially when that other culture is showcased only through its common stereotypes.
We can write our story in the contemporary context, anchoring it firmly in the here and now. This improves the connection to the current audience even for older stories (look at how often Sherlock Holmes has been retold even re-timed to the present). Ironically, this ages a story quickly and lets it appear dated a mere decade from the new setting.
We can intentionally break the tropes of the genre we are writing in, but as mentioned above, the broken trope often becomes a trope in itself.
We can overcome or even deconstruct the genre as such, by avoiding the tropes and inserting a dose of realism and contemporary understanding, or infusing elements of other genres (Unforgiven, The Power of the Dog).
(etc)
However.
Expenses for moviemaking (and series, naturally) have skyrocketed (even if the producers try to quell the cost by underpaying and overworking their CGI teams), and the nature of capitalism demands a maximization of profit, which means getting a maximized audience.
The intended audience doesn’t always appreciate newness for newness’ sake, and reward franchises because they feel comfortable and familiar. Even complete rehashes (many of Disney’s real-remakes of animated movies) still earn a pretty penny (I mean hundreds of millions). Franchises and remakes have a built-in fanbase who eye the “new” product at least with curiosity, and come with trademarked household names that boost marketing. Thus, the average producer looking to spend 200 megabucks will happily invest in that franchise or remake or at least in a movie after a comic series or book that has proven its attractivity for an audience. Originality is very far down the list of desirable traits (and apparently for a reason, or why did The Force Awakens make two billion dollars?).
This inherently leads to problems with storytelling:
And of course: Franchises require their own ruleset, which enforces certain types of stories, which stands in the way of originality.
But there’s more. Those tropes and basic stories and genre clichés do not fall from the sky. They are motivated by the human condition. They have a reason in basic human nature. You may try to be original by avoiding tropes and doing something totally unexpected and weird, but you’d end up with a strange arthouse film that has a very limited audience. (Or by subverting the rules of a franchise, see The Last Jedi…)
People want their heroes. That is the first rule.
In your retelling of the great human story, your task is not to enforce originality at the expense of the attachment of the audience. Your task is to infuse this skeleton of tropes with a seasoning of newness and recombination of ingredients, so the overall mix is perceived as unique enough to be worth telling.
(Note: This is only about originality. There are issues with modern media that are failures of craftsmanship. IMHO those are much worse.)
I’m not sure why this post is attracting such a barrage of personal attacks, insults, and even threats, but here is a firm reminder that such things are not allowed on this forum. If you have an opinion that you can’t figure out how to share without resorting to schoolyard bully tactics, don’t share it. This behavior is not tolerated on this thread or anywhere else.
More like 2500 years ago:
It is always difficult to understand why a new generation likes to listen to their contemporary music, films, art in general.
That said I do agree that nowadays the mainstream of artistic creation is geared commercially, opposed to the joy of artist creation.
However that does not mean that everything is that way, even if what we are guided to consume is.
Time will tell, in 30 years time we will see what is remembered of the art that is made today, there will be a natural selection of what is worth remembering and what will simply be forgotten. I am sure that some of the things that are done today that do not succeed commercially will be hailed masterpieces in the future.
My advice for people who want to create art is that they create what they emotionally feel about.
………………Oh and forget getting rich!
Hey ! Very interesting answer !
It’s worth noting how complex making a movie is. Even if you have great ideas, you are dependent on producers that will fund your project and allow you to get a team to work, unless you are lucky enough to get an army of volunteers…
Also, it’s the same producers that will distribute the movie and make some promotion.
From there they’ll have a lot of ideas on your creation. If it’s not them that hire a director to make their idea.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people in this industry have great and personal ideas, but it’s kind of a giant monster that no-one can control. Too many cook in the kitchen as we say, especially for 100 millions $ budget movies. Just by looking at all the producer’s name in the credit 
All these have a word to say
Best creator manage to work within those constraints and make something interesting, but it’s very difficult.
This probably won’t speak to the OP, but the first 2 spider-mans , made by Sam Rami are not bad at all retrospectively. He managed to add a lot of his own stuff , but it’s quite buried in the end compared to it’s other movies.
But as said, not all movies are blockbusters, there are a lot of great movies made, live or animation, but they get very little exposure.
Well movies are probably a bad example as you do need lots of money to make them.
Even so there are cases of ( relatively ) low budget movies that hit high, Reservoir Dogs springs to mind. I think Quentin spent a big chunk of his money for the rights to “stuck in the middle with you” !
But when it comes to music, plastic art, as long as you are not making golden statues, or writing (which is the case of the OP) you do not need loads of money to make the art.
If you will make loads of money from it is a different matter altogether.
Sure I agree ! Still it’s not that simple to finish your regular dayjob and dedicate a few hours more on your project. But that’s what it takes, and we should start somewhere in order to go somewhere
creation is generally a struggle but it’s worth doing it ! That’s how some cool stuff are done !
No not that simple, the obvious Van Gogh example of an artist driven by artistic obsession, living off handouts from his brother and only sold one painting in his entire life. 
Who would say that 100 years later…
Or Big Bill Broonzy doing a 2 day recording session getting paid basically in beer, they now even sell the chats between the songs!
To be fair Big Bill did live off his music but was far from well off.
Sure, it’s more the artist that is driven by it’s creation rather than the opposite !
It’s cool and a kind of a curse too
Some cool artists are successful too ! every Gilliams movie are amazing and yet I’m pretty sure he find a lot of freedom, musically I really like bobby mc ferrin and he managed to get famous and still it looks like he truthfully enjoy everything that he does. But yeah, they aren’t Britney Spears or Michael bay either…
And maybe with new technology it will be possible to do more indie stuff , which can also help to drive bigger production too… who knows…
I have to confess I like Britney’s “Baby one more time” 
One of the things I was trying to say is that it is not all bad even the commercial stuff.
Sure ! most of the time there are great artists behind a commercial product, but they definitely need to deal with other cooks taking decisions.
At least we have Blender to dabble with 3D art!
OO got a warning too many replies.
Hahaha sure !
That asks a bunch of new questions, like is it worth to do what you want even if you get low exposure… Are you more the “I’ll do my feature film in my garage kind of people” or more like “one image a day”… or something else …
But maybe for the next round of comments It’s time to go for me !
Superb article, it seems that you are very knowledgeable in this topic. I would keep re-reading this post multiple times because there are hundreds of details going on there. 
You are correct in a sense, there are two aspects in this as I think of it.
One case is that an idea is unique, because it appears at the correct era and at the right time. Through a combination of effects, techniques, story writing, dialogues, themes, they manage to give something.
eg:
The other case, is that the idea is unique to the viewer, because it can be seen only for the first time, in this person’s lifespan. Those perhaps could be watched from young people on their generation, just perhaps they are more up-to-date with their current tastes and state of technology etc (but is not the real deal)…
eg:
However for those of us who watched these movies in the 90s it was a double-win, because it was both of these two cases (we were both young and the movie was novel).
Now if we talk about a very experienced person who watched dozens of dozens of movies, realistically the case is that they won’t be surprised and struck with awe at all whatever they see.
But at least the point here is that the movie will have to be legit (serious), and respectful to the artform (standard principles, correct pacing, acceptable criteria), be respectful to the viewer (who actually pays both in money and time to watch it). Not in a sense that the movie will make someone change life goals and become an ideological better person (escape addiction and become a doctor to help poor and sick). Talk about realistically, that at least the movie will have to be solid and have something to say in a correct way.
Again for those of us who watched all the movies in the 80s-90s and a handful of good ones in the 00s-10s the case was that again it was a double win. Because the movies were actually solid and respectful (good principles, good cinematography, correct pacing, interesting themes) and also as well the viewers could appreciate them both in uniqueness and also as well technical execution.
So more or less, there are two double-wins here. 
If you’re looking for true art from Marvel movies, that could be part of the problem, and not all adults enjoy children’s cartoons like Shrek or Puss in Boots (though few people are impressed by a movie they haven’t actually seen). People like to idolize the good old days because they’re long gone, but plenty of mediocre fiction was still produced. Not every old movie was Casablanca or Blade Runner or whatever you liked. Some of it was pretty bad and forgettable.
Admittedly, some movies aren’t intended to be works of art, they’re just supposed to be fun. And some movies that are supposed to be deep totally miss the mark because the people who made it weren’t nearly as clever as they thought they were. Neither of those are new.
Frankly, the only Star Wars movie to have a genuinely well thought out plot and good writing is Rogue One. The original trilogy is a poorly executed heroes journey with creative, groundbreaking visuals and some excellent improvised lines by the actors (or “jokes”), and the newest trilogy isn’t particularly worse than the prequels.
Although, when people complain about something having too much “politics” as some have in this thread - what they mean is they dislike seeing different politics than their own. Stories have always had messages, and often either moral or political. Though today sometimes that “politics” is just people.
If Aliens came out today instead of the 1980s, it would be slammed by people who hate “politics”, “diversity”, and “woke trash”. Vasquez especially would have those people up in arms (not that Ripley would fare much better)
What makes people complain about political messages and agendas, is that there now seems to be a rule in certain studios that certain demographics and views must be represented in 100 percent of movies and TV shows, even if the story has to be butchered to make it happen. As a result, the studios essentially become political action committees whose purpose is spreading official state propaganda instead of providing escapism and entertainment.
Yes, true escapism is no longer something that much of the creative industry believes in, everything you consume must now remind you of the problems and injustices present in the real world. This is one reason why concepts such as civility and professionalism have declined to the point of facing extinction.
Which demographics?
“certain demographics and views” is a conservative dog whistle.
