or maybe i should title this “lack of movie realness”.

today, i watched these two great videos that describe why movies (and shows) today just seem less real and relatable. these are fantastic watches, and it’s worth going all the way through. (you should watch it using a program that does “sponsor block, though, since there is “ad content” mixed in as part of the video. not sure what i mean? check out smarttube – you won’t regret it!)

i started with this one, which talks about “realism” in movies. it definitely describes an issue i’ve had with most movies i’ve watched lately – i just can’t relate and don’t feel invested. here’s a theory as to why:

then, i followed that up with this one, which describes two disturbing phenomenon – “meta-references to nowhere” and “corporate passion” as opposed to “creative passion”. these are really good descriptions of what is happening in movies today, and i hate that i recognized them instantly when he described them. check it out here:

all of this is to say, i was watching the latest installment of jurassic world the other day, and though i liked it, i felt quite detached from it. it’s NOTHING like the original; in fact none of the sequels hold even a small candle to the original. so i started thinking about why that was – after all, if you can make a movie with dinosaurs in it, shouldn’t that just be cool?

but these videos do a good job showing WHY “just having dinosaurs” isn’t good enough:

the movies feel “optic” and not “haptic”. there’s nothing there to elicit a “touch” response
the movies are suffering from severe story-telling entropy. why do we need bigger and badder dinosaurs, which leads to mutant dinosaurs? that’s stupid – the dinosaurs themselves should be the wonder
hollow franchise. these movies are being made to make money and capitalize on my dumbass desire to watch it because it has “jurassic” in the title
similar to the last point, these are corporate passion projects – ie, the corporations that make them are passionate about their ability to make money. whether the folks making them are passionate about dinosaur movies is irrelevant

so what would be the killer dinosaur movie you could make today? there’s gotta be one. i don’t buy the idea that since jurassic park brought dinosaurs to life there are no more interesting dinosaur movies. we just have to think of one. can you re-tell jurassic park in a more interesting way? is there a story about the FIRST dinosaur they create there that is interesting? maybe the story of what went wrong with the first raptors they cloned? i think that’s the secret to making another really good dinosaur movie - find the good story and get a passionate director.

or, we could do what james cameron did – re-invent the story. maybe this time it’s a horror story? or some weird surreal movie about someone going crazy?