It turns out, some people like that. A lot of people like it, presumably because it's fast and stimulating, and everyone's a sucker for wowing FX even as movie FX have gotten worse and more or less converged with video games.
What's lacking in these movies isn't so much plot, it's character and thoughtfulness. They tell us nothing about ourselves.
From an art history class, long ago, I remember the explanation of how classical Greek culture degraded into depictions if "pathos", visible in changes in the sculpture, and how that heralded more or less the decline of the civilization. It seems obvious to me that we've undergone a similar transition. And the thing is, it's not the technology itself, which could be used to produce meaningful art. It's the lack of thought on the part of the creators and the audience.
[–] adriand 2 days ago
[–] api 2 days ago
You occasionally see thoughtful movies. Many of them are unsurprisingly based on books. The horror genre has become this weird eddy of creativity too with interesting characters and plots and some surprisingly good acting. Of course you’ve historically had innovation in that genre, often ignored because it’s horror and thus low brow by definition.
My take on horror being creative is that it’s like old school punk, pulp novels, zines, underground music. The key there is that these are genres and styles that give you permission to suck, and therefore permission to try stuff.
If it must be high art or it must gross nine figures, you can’t suck. So you can’t innovate.
[–] noduerme 1 day ago
"Permission to suck" made me think of something even more fundamental that's relevant to the AI art conversation, and often forgotten; that the best art, the most creative work, comes when you're working around constraints. Those could be the constraints of a medium, if you're chiseling in stone and need to make certain trade-offs; or they could be monetary constraints (you can't afford a cast of 40,000 extras for a war movie, so you turn your focus on the intense local experience of a few characters). In a "necessity is the mother of invention" kind of way, having limitations forces you to think more carefully about every move, and that kind of thought is what can make something a small masterpiece instead of a large sloppy shitshow.
Given an unlimited budget, most directors will lose their heads and do terrible things, even with a good script. Having no limits brings out the worst impulses in any creative endeavor. If "AI filmmaking" comes to stand in for "unlimited budget", then I think the trend in the future will be toward smaller, more human-scale art, because artists will find constraints to work within as a means to focus.
Maybe I'm not saying this as well as I could.
[–] any_throw777 1 day ago
It's the universal themes of love, longing, caring. That's what's missing in today's slopfest sequelities of modern movie making.
I hope new tech lowers the cost of production so much it allows those with taste, vision and care to topple the mess of modern 'storytelling'. We are getting the technology, let's hope we can have the imagination.
[–] captainclam 2 days ago
Exactly. I am not de-facto against the use of AI in art. But artful use of the medium is sparse at the moment.
[–] ghurtado 2 days ago
Why would you look for that in any standard action movie?
Not every movie needs to awaken your soul to some big revelation about the universe.
The industry is called "the entertainment industry" for a reason. People are able to be entertained without deep philosophical introspection.
[–] noduerme 1 day ago
Marvel and DC are the modern versions of ancient Greek mythology, with a huge cast of mortals and demigods. The origin stories of the characters are all morality tales. In the comics, flying around, using superpowers and blowing stuff up was sugarcoating for the real stories, which revolved around the internal conflicts of the characters.
You wouldn't necessarily look for deep meaning or personal growth in a standard action movie, obviously, but somehow I feel like even "Die Hard" delivered more humanity per beat than anything Marvel has made in ages. I don't know why we need to set the bar so low.
[–] tclancy 2 days ago
[–] pimeys 2 days ago
[–] jasondigitized 2 days ago
[–] underlipton 2 days ago
I can name several, as well as something profound to be discovered in the execution of the MCU as a whole, but perhaps more salient is why so many people feel the need to tear down the straw man version of Marvel that they have in their minds.
...Oh, fine, I'll give you one:
"What is grief, if not love persevering?"
It’s so true. The only time I watch one of these movies is when I’m stressed and exhausted and want something so dumb I’ll fall asleep in 20 minutes.
When it comes to these “worlds” that are generated, there’s no there there. I’ve tried various of these and after three minutes I close the browser. Walking around my neighborhood is a million times more interesting. Whereas the creator-constrained and -designed experiences (GTA comes to mind) actually deliver something engaging.