this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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[โ€“] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 99 points 7 months ago (18 children)

One thing I've noticed with newer movies is they do a lot more "tell, don't show" than old movies.

For example, compare the live action Disney Cinderella to the original animated version. The live action version is mostly a voiceover telling the story of Cinderella. They literally say "Her stepsisters weren't very good at art or music" and then have a scene showing them being bad at art and music. The animated version spent the first 20 minutes or so like a Tom & Jerry cartoon.

And this is across movies. I watched Predator recently and there wasn't a lot of exposition about how they're there to fight communists or whatever. You pick that up in snippets of dialog in between the action.

It really does feel like movies are dumbing down.

[โ€“] GTG3000@programming.dev 10 points 7 months ago

Not to lump everything into one pile, but there's definitely some problems with movie planning nowadays.

That's what is pointed out in all those "this movie production literally sacrificed ten VFX studios on a mayan altar" documentaries - some of new directors don't plan shots ahead, require seeing the result and then re-doing it ad nauseam, and as a result waste WAY more vfx team effort and don't get good scenes.

Setting up visual storytelling and using good cinematography is hard - which is why to a lot of people the 3D movies like Spiderverse/Last Wish/Nimona stand out so much, you kinda have to plan ahead for a 3D movie, and even if you don't modifying a scene is easier (if you do it early enough in production).

I'd imagine that it's similar for writing - large monologues like that are probably the outcome of the writing team needing to put all they mean to onto the paper. Maybe also result of focus-testing being passed down directly to writing staff?

I don't know, I'm just a random guy on the internet but those are my two cents.

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