The Current State of the Movie Industry

She Hulk, Madam Web,Eternals, Asoka, Buzz Lightyear, Velma and live action disney movies are films we are all familiar with. They are popular and not for the reasons you might think. All of these movies and more were released in a timeline I like to call modern film making. Sure there are lots of other movies that were released in this era so what’s wrong with these ones? Simple. They have to be one of the worst pieces of media I have seen to date.There are many things that contribute to these movies being notoriously bad. One might say the acting, or the CGI (She Hulk).In truth there are many factors that make these movies and shows bad and these directly reflect on the film industry considering some of them had budgets of up to $100 million.

One of them is the writing.The writing in these shows are subpar and don’t do enough to delve into the characters and instead focus on making the characters as invincible as possible. All plots, actions and dialogue go into trying to justify whatever coincidental scenario takes place. The show Velma does this a lot by, instead of focusing on the whole point of the show, which is detective work on who the murderer is, the show instead takes it upon itself to present a badly written description of who Velma is and completely removing the ability of her to make mistakes, justifying it by saying she lost her mom when she was young. In order to like a good film, you need to have likable characters, of which are written properly and benefit the story. Still using Velma as an example, if her whole character was taken out of the show, there would be no change to the story because her writing made her impartial to the story, which by the way, she is a main character. An unlikable main character makes for an unlikable show, which in turn makes for an unsatisfied audience and numerous criticisms about said show.

Another reason shows today don’t do well in the box office is something I like to call “non worthwhile iterations of an original story”.And by that, I will use the recent star wars Ahsoka as an example. While I am not a star wars fan, I do know enough to realize that Star Wars has made its mark in cinema, exploring new concepts and bringing new ideas to life. The recent Star Wars shows make a mockery of this legacy by putting in things that should not make sense in the original story. Ahsoka is a good example of this because while it tries to be original and create something new, plot holes in the show are filled up with “oh the force can do that” which I’m pretty sure it can’t. The entity of “the force” in the new Star Wars franchise has been reduced to a mere “the force can do that because it’s magic” trope whenever there is a plot hole that cannot be fixed because of bad writing. Certain shows have cemented their place in cinematography, and thus should be left that way. Making endless reboots and live action remakes does nothing to further the legacy of these shows, nor does it increase revenue. It disappoints fans who had high expectations and where willing to pay to see these shows, resulting in a lot of backlash.

And finally, the presence of morally unbendable characters present in today’s media poses a huge problem. SheHulk, Madam Web, Captain Marvel, Snow White reboot, all these shows have something in common and it is the presence of multiple Mary Sues. By definition, a Mary Sue is a female character who has an absence of weakness and flaws, which are necessary to develop a character in the story. When these types of characters are present in a story, it does nothing to push the story forward due to not being able to view the character’s flaws and how they grow from that. Nobody wants to watch a character that is always right and never makes mistakes because it ultimately makes the film boring and predictable.