10 Great Movies That Accidentally Made Cinema Worse
Transcript
00:00 Brilliant movies can genuinely change lives, but sometimes they can also have an unfortunate,
00:06 unintended negative side effect on the whole industry.
00:10 Perhaps a film's success sends the wrong message to Hollywood about what audiences
00:14 actually want, or inspires a whole generation of filmmakers to rip off its stylistic and
00:19 narrative achievements in massively inferior fashion.
00:23 Whatever the reason though, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Great Movies
00:27 That Accidentally Made Cinema Worse.
00:31 10.
00:32 Star Wars The Force Awakens Popularised Cynical Legacy Sequels
00:36 After suffering through the wildly uneven Star Wars prequels, The Force Awakens sure
00:40 was a welcome return to form.
00:42 A safe and familiar yet thoroughly entertaining space opera which affectingly united beloved
00:48 legacy characters with a new cast of appealing heroes.
00:52 But The Force Awakens' mammoth commercial success basically kickstarted the legacy sequel
00:57 as we know it today.
00:58 You know, the nostalgia soaked entries into flagging franchises that basically just replay
01:04 the hits, while shuffling the legacy cast into supporting roles as younger actors try
01:09 to carry the starring load.
01:12 While these types of movies can work, they more often than not feel like crass commercial
01:17 exercises intended to distend dying or creatively bankrupt IP.
01:22 Again, legacy sequels can work when they come from a place of genuine heart and creativity,
01:28 but too often they simply rake over stories and character types that we've already seen
01:33 while showering us in member berries.
01:37 With the pandemic further heightening the risk factor of truly original blockbusters,
01:41 expect to see Hollywood regurgitating the past even more aggressively in the years to
01:46 come.
01:47 9.
01:48 The Avengers Made Cinematic Universes The Next Big Thing
01:50 There's no denying the impressiveness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a blockbuster
01:55 franchise achievement, building a massive world of meaningfully interconnected films.
02:01 It all began, as you probably know, with 2008's Iron Man, but the first MCU film to truly
02:06 prove how satisfying a shared universe can be was 2012's Avengers, which brought the
02:12 prior solo movies together into a fantastically epic superhero team-up.
02:17 Its massive box office success and the MCU's continued dominance has caused every major
02:24 movie studio to chase its coattails ever since, attempting to spin off every property they
02:29 own into its own lucrative cinematic universe.
02:33 8.
02:34 The Bourne Supremacy Taught A Generation Of Action Directors About Shaky Camp
02:38 The Bourne Supremacy is a remarkable sequel to The Bourne Identity, and one elevated significantly
02:44 by Paul Greengrass' intense and kinetic direction.
02:48 Throughout the film, Greengrass extensively utilised intentional shaky cam work during
02:53 action sequences in order to heighten the chaotic realism of what we were seeing, giving
02:58 it a full documentary vibe which, for a time, did feel refreshingly unique.
03:03 But in the years that followed, countless inferior filmmakers also used shaky cam cinematography,
03:08 yet without Greengrass' shrewd understanding of visual language.
03:13 The Bourne Supremacy's precise editing ensured that we always knew the spatial geography
03:18 of any given moment, no matter how much camera shake there was.
03:22 Yet for many action directors, the style just emboldened them to shoot tons of mediocre,
03:26 scarcely comprehensible coverage, and splice it all together with quick cuts in the editing
03:32 room.
03:33 7.
03:34 Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Made Two-Part Blockbusters Acceptable
03:37 Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows wasn't the first ever movie to split itself in two,
03:42 but it was the one to popularise the practice at a blockbuster level.
03:45 In an attempt to squeeze a little extra cash out of customers, the final Harry Potter book
03:50 was divided into two movies.
03:52 And while many fans will defend the decision given the epic scope of that story, it unintentionally
03:57 kickstarted a gross trend in the film industry.
04:01 See, in the wake of The Deathly Hallows' release, many other blockbuster franchises
04:05 pulled similar tactics.
04:07 Start with Twilight, The Hunger Games and Divergent all splitting their finales into
04:12 two-parters.
04:13 Though in Divergent's case, it actually backfired spectacularly as the first part
04:17 bombed, which meant the second never actually got made.
04:20 The most egregious example though must surely be The Hobbit, where Warner Brothers convinced
04:24 Peter Jackson to adapt J.R.R.
04:27 Tolkien's 310-page book into three movies totalling almost eight hours in length.
04:33 The trend has definitely cooled in recent years, though studios have grown wise about
04:38 how much audiences hate the part one, part two gimmick, and so tend to give their two-part
04:43 movies titles that disguise their compartmentalised storytelling.
04:48 The Babadook sparked the infuriating debate about elevated horror.
04:53 2014's The Babadook received rave reviews upon release for its expert collision of conventional
04:59 horror tropes with a more psychological, character-driven component.
05:03 The Babadook's success even sparked a trend of similarly inclined, artsy horror films
05:08 in the years that followed, such as The Witch, Get Out, Hereditary Midsommar, The Lighthouse,
05:13 Us, St. Maud and Relic, and many of them were released by A24, and many of them, especially
05:20 the ones I just said, were really, really good.
05:22 However, this soon led to the term "elevated horror" being coined, a designation signifying
05:28 horror films which supplemented more traditional horror movie elements with themes and ideas
05:33 from dramas or art movies.
05:36 And ever since the phrase first gained traction in the mid-2010s, horror fans have been locked
05:40 in a fierce, exhausting debate about the term's merits or lack thereof.
05:46 To many, it seems understandably condescending to imply that any horror movie with a sliver
05:51 of depth is placed on a pedestal above its genre brethren.
05:55 Beyond tarring the bulk of the genre with the same brush, it also completely ignores
06:00 the fact that elevated horror has existed for as long as horror has.
06:05 There have always been psychological, visceral, experimental horror films.
06:09 It's not just a new thing.
06:11 5.
06:12 Batman Begins Ushered In An Era Of Needlessly Gritty Reboots
06:16 Batman Begins is one of the most influential movies of the 2000s, a gritty reboot of a
06:20 beloved comic book IP, shaking off his goofy prior interpretations and treating him in
06:25 a more or less grounded and realistic fashion.
06:29 The success of Batman Begins, and especially its sequel The Dark Knight, prompted Hollywood
06:33 to use that restrained style as the template for retooling a glut of stagnant franchises,
06:39 whether it suited them or not.
06:41 Perhaps the most immediately divisive example is the DCEU's Man of Steel, which gives
06:46 Superman the dubious, grimdark treatment, no matter the inherent hopefulness and optimism
06:52 of Superman in the comics.
06:54 There are far, far worse examples though, like the Kirsten Stewart-starring Snow White
06:59 in The Huntsman, Josh Trank's Fantastic Four, and 2018's Robin Hood, to name just
07:04 a few.
07:05 4.
07:06 Furious 7 Proved Hollywood Could Believably Resurrect Dead Actors
07:10 Furious 7 is unquestionably one of the strongest films in the Fast and Furious franchise, and
07:15 an all the more impressive achievement considering the tragic death of Paul Walker mid-production.
07:20 In order to complete Walker's role as Brian O'Connor, Peter Jackson's VFX company
07:25 Weta Digital was hired to create a lifelike CGI model of Walker from existing footage,
07:30 which would then be mapped onto body doubles played by Walker's brothers Caleb and Cody.
07:36 The end result is genuinely terrific, with only a few distracting moments where the digital
07:40 seams become visible.
07:42 Given the enormous pressure on the production though, it's tough to argue with how this
07:46 turned out.
07:47 The problem however, is that Furious 7 proved beyond any doubt that Hollywood could believably
07:53 resurrect dead actors, and so in the years that followed we've had numerous films featuring
07:58 long dead performers.
08:00 The most prominent examples of course are Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue
08:04 One, and Harold Ramis as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters Afterlife.
08:08 And while the estates of each actor did sign off on their inclusion, does that really make
08:13 it right?
08:14 3.
08:15 The Matrix Made Bullet Time Hollywood's Favourite New Trick
08:18 The Matrix is unquestionably one of the greatest action movies, if not movies period, of all
08:24 time.
08:25 Yet it's groundbreaking, Oscar winning visual effects were so freaking cool, that Hollywood
08:29 spent the next decade or so shamelessly attempting to one up them.
08:33 The Matrix's big, splashy VFX coup was of course Bullet Time, an advanced version of
08:38 slow motion whereby the camera moves through the space of a scene while time is slowed,
08:44 giving the audience otherwise impossible coverage of an awesome action beat.
08:49 There are certainly movies that have managed to co-opt Bullet Time in interesting ways,
08:53 I mean take the jaw-dropping bomb explosion at the start of Swordfish for one, and I know
08:57 Swordfish, what a weird drop, but yeah it worked at the time.
09:01 2.
09:02 Napoleon Dynamite Forced Netflix to Improve Their Algorithm
09:05 Napoleon Dynamite is one of the most memorable indies of the 2000s, an ultra quirky, hilarious
09:10 coming of age comedy that grossed an incredible $46.1 million on a mere $400,000 budget.
09:19 In 2008, the Napoleon Dynamite problem was first coined, referring to the film's strong
09:25 popularity on Netflix, and how the service's content algorithms struggled to decide whether
09:31 customers would like it or not.
09:33 Because Napoleon Dynamite is such an odd, difficult to categorise piece of work, it
09:37 contributed to Netflix seeking to overhaul their algorithm, even offering a $1 million
09:43 prize to anyone who could improve its effectiveness by 10%.
09:48 In the years that followed, Netflix's algorithm became increasingly efficient, as did those
09:53 of its streaming competition, such that today, you're unlikely to be recommended anything
09:57 even remotely outside of your comfort zone.
10:00 Despite the massive libraries that streaming services offer, the algorithm will aim to
10:04 steer you towards movies most likely to guarantee the attention of your eyeballs, in turn de-incentivising
10:11 the exploration of more adventurous, left-field works of cinema.
10:15 There's actually a really good video on this on the YouTube channel called Now You
10:18 See It by the way, which I would definitely recommend checking out if this has piqued
10:22 your interest.
10:23 1.
10:24 Pulp Fiction Ushered In An Era Of Obnoxiously Cool Crime Films
10:28 Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is a stone-cold masterpiece, and one of the most influential
10:33 films of the entire 1990s, if not of all time.
10:37 As brilliantly conceived as it is though, its distinctive dialogue and inventive narrative
10:42 structure inspired an entire generation of young screenwriters and filmmakers to produce
10:47 their own inferior knockoffs.
10:50 We were inundated with a deluge of hip, darkly comedic crime movies, filled with too-cool-for-school
10:56 characters, pointlessly non-linear storytelling, and a story that wasn't explicitly about
11:02 much in the traditional sense.
11:04 A few of those examples could include things like Things To Do In Denver When You're
11:09 Dead, Reindeer Games, Eight Heads In A Duffel Bag, and The Big Hit, each of which attempted
11:14 to approximate the style and tone of Pulp Fiction without any of the skill it's storytelling
11:19 or character building.
11:20 That's our list, what do you guys think about the influence these movies had on cinema
11:27 as a whole, and are there any other great movies you think kinda made other movies a
11:31 bit worse?
11:32 While you're down there as well, could you please give us a like, share, subscribe, and
11:35 head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.
11:39 Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see