Is the state of writing that bad?

[@pewthepuny2849]

"Wouldn't it be lame and cliché if we did the thing?" *does the thing*

[@EarlHare]

would be more forgivable if they just did the thing instead of referencing that doing the thing would be lame and cliché right before actually doing it. That's one of the things I admire about 80's and 90's schlock , it's so god damned entertaining despite all the cheesy one liners and tropes because they just didn't take themselves too seriously.

[@Novenae_CCG]

@@EarlHare Even if they did want to reference it, because maybe the self-awareness is part of the charm, it would be better to own it. Don't talk about how cliché it would be if you did that - Say you're gonna do that cliché thing with full confidence.

[@TheFrostedfirefly]

@@Novenae_CCG Yeah, again it's all about how bad "safe writing" is, where they have to ensure the audience, "hey, just in case you DON'T find this thing I'm about to do, cool, I just want you to know I don't think it's cool either" and that's what plagues both modern games and movies, in which the true source of "marvelisation" is the fact that they're movies that originated from something nerdy and niche, and now aiming for a wider audience, they change their writing to go "okay we know comic book stuff like super heroes is for geeks, but don't worry, you can enjoy THIS one..." The sad part is that now more than ever, this generation of mainstream audience is actually perfectly fine with all the "geeky" stuff, but writers and directors STILL don't trust themselves to stand out and be criticised for it.

[@Dominichunter5]

That’s what’s called “lampshading”. It’s rather annoying most of the time!

[@boobah5643]

@@Dominichunter5 The problem isn't lampshading, though, it's _apologetic_ lampshading, where they tell the audience that it's silly and/or stupid, then do it anyway. As opposed to letting the audience know that the creators know it's a _thing,_ and that's part of the fun.

[@Sammo212]

the funniest thing about the Star Wars "they fly now" line is stormtroopers have been flying in the fiction for decades at that point.

[@marcelluslongus1202]

I actually find this scene hilarious now, because Star Wars is basically satirizing itself here. But the fans are now so traumatized about Star Wars that you can't please them anymore.

[@epsilon1372]

lets not forget how they tried to write off cloning as something only the Sith knew. yes Palpatine did commission the clones to be made but he had no part on actually creating them themselves

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

@@marcelluslongus1202 Considering how much Disney burned of the canon, no I think they really really are pretending that's the first time Stormtroopers have ever had jetpacks.

[@Pagan-71]

True, but not everybody who checks out a Star Wars movie plays the games watch the anime's or reads the comics. I'm a huge fan of Star Wars but at the same time i don't watch a Star Wars movie and just assume everybody who does absorbs all kinds of SW universe fiction. Still wasn't going to redeem the sequels but it looked cool on the big screen for the first time.

[@x5132]

@@marcelluslongus1202 I wouldn't say you can't please them. Many fans liked the Andor show, it just takes good writing.

[@spamhonx56]

What really gets my goat is when a show's writers go "well, we have the source material, which everyone loved to the point where it's getting a big adaptation... but what if we just completely did our own thing because we, hired three months ago by disney, are better writers than the tried-and-true authors that built this audience in the first place".

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

In reality bringing the writer to the adaptation process doesn't guarantee its success. Sadly.

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

The issue is the process itself. It's inherently risky like all creative endeavors, but it's also mired in corporate bull of attempting to eliminate all risks, by focusing on and what the studio did before and it brought them money what others do and brings them money, lasting artistic value be damned.

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

Doing the adaptations of the big and popular media is one such step to remove risks. Even if the material might be something inherently tough to adapt and better should be left alone. It's a complex story, but the cause is all the same. Profits first. Growth over everything.

[@RobbiePDX]

It's odd when the argument from the audience sort of devolves into "they should have stuck with the source material", because that's almost never the actual problem. Accurate does not equate to good. Good equates to good. Look at Logan, or the Mandalorian - both took pretty dramatic risks with their original properties, and ended up being incredible works. On the other hand, look at The Golden Compass or The Punisher (2004) - both stayed in line with their source material and were absolutely terrible. Then, of course, you have the prequel trilogy, spearheaded by Lucas himself...and we all saw how that turned out. When it comes to blockbuster-style releases, the problem is so rarely *just* the writers. It's usually the result of having too many hands involved in the project, and far too many of those hands belonging to the studios money people as opposed to the creative people. Modern entertainment is held in the stranglehold of investor share prices.

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

multiple comments because KZbin automod hates me

[@Seriph7]

George Lucas said something like, "Well. We'll have a white background. Vader has a black costume. We'll have low music. They'll get it." In response to Mark Hammil asking him to help the audience understand the bad guy is now on screen. When i watched that interview. I thought that was silly. As an adult, i get it. But the faith someone will get it is not a priority anymore.

[@cmike123]

You are also talking about the guy that gave light sabers different colors just to show who the good guys or bad guys are. Writers have good moments and bad moments, all in the same script.

[@pikadragon2783]

show, not tell. You can see a screenplay author has no confidence in their skills, when they are afraid to implement that.

[@gottesurteil3201]

​@@cmike123I think the lightsaber colors are a non issue.

[@cmike123]

@@gottesurteil3201 You are missing the point. The OP was saying that George Lucas wanted subtle cues as to who is "good" and who is "bad". He is also the person that color-coded the heroes and villains. Which means, he also thought the audience needed to be spoon-fed sometimes.

[@cmike123]

@@pikadragon2783 or, they tried that before and the audience didnt get it. They did a lot of show not tell in Phase 4 Marvel, and the overall audience thinks it is the worst shit ever.

[@Atr-bv1wq]

the writers are detached from the original point that the original writing was trying to convey; instead they try to create a simple mask of the original writing that has no depth, and with every repetition it gets more hollow also a lot of them try to make stuff overly-obvious too (telling/explaining instead of showing), because they think their audience are morons, i suppose.

[@HoneyMuffinLegend]

i believe it's because they are morons themselves and judge the audience respectfully

[@chillinchum]

You'd think it would be a strawman to suggest that there's a need to accommodate people who really don't get it. You might think they don't exist. And then you go out into the world and meet people and find out, they are that "moronic" and would never understand otherwise. I've been debating with myself over my own writing as to how I might clue in people to subtext without going the easy route of just saying it. It greatly bothers me that only a small cohort would even care to try understanding the work in the first place.

[@redmagebr]

@@chillinchum People who really don't get it can read about it online? It's not required for everyone to "get it", specially if that results in a worse reading for whoever does.

[@Dracon7601]

I think it's the problem of focusing a bit too much on the marketability of the story, they have a tendency to try and play it way too safe with a lot of the storylines in an effort to appeal to the widest audience. I don't think the writers are really given freedom to tell a single story in the Star wars universe for the most part. I like the idea of alternative force users and conflict between them and the jedi or sith, reminds me of the clone wars and stuff like the night sisters but there's a lack of a developed overall themes to tie ideas together to make a satisfying story. The acolyte vaguely has anti-government ideas but it's a bit confused in whether they want the jedi to be more villainous in the story or just stupid.

[@thomaslacroix6011]

There's also the problem of wanting to tell a particular message using a narrative, and being afraid the audience wouldn't understand the message if it isn't explained like they're 5 years old.

[@MexiPerplexi]

I've always said that Star Wars isn't actually science fiction. It's a space fantasy series. While they do make use of advanced technologies like space ships and laser weaponry, every aspect of the series is rooted in fantasy world building. Also, I'm half convinced that movies just not allowing viewers to ever figure anything out on their own is part of the reason media literacy is dying.

[@Dragonfury3000]

Yeah it's part of the problem but I also think there's no passion behind the projects most of the time. For example while do think Furiosa was worse than Fury Road i still think it's a passion project and wonderfuly well made.

[@historicflame972]

The cycle Media dumbs it down Audiences get dumber Media is forced to dumb down harder because now the audience is too stupid to understand any nuance they're trying to convey Cycle repeats

[@joshuabryan3692]

I thought it was never considered sci-fi. It's aways been a space opera.

[@buddylord3276]

I have always considered it the same. I also believe that the original Star Wars was a quintessential American fairytale. The subsequent prequels and sequels attempt to explain the fairy tale and thus ruin it

[@patrickfrost9405]

​@@joshuabryan3692Come on guys, you can't just be figuring this stuff out right now.

[@skua675]

Banshees of Inisherin is the one that comes to mind for a recent one with incredible writing. Even the title of the film has extra stuff you can get from it: "Inisherin" means "Island of Ireland", and this is never touched upon in the actual film. On another note, they should have had the hacker guy that betrayed Finn and Rose shut down the dreadnought's shield for a moment to permit the Holdo manoeuvre. Once he has already been paid and already gotten clear himself, he gives them a chance to at least go out fighting. It makes enough sense for his character's motivations, since he can profit so long as the war continues and therefore has an interest in nobody managing to win anything decisively.

[@saidaestrategica]

I think today's media, be it a movie, a TV series or a video game, suffers from "We have to appeal to as many people as possible" syndrome. You cant do something like Josh said, remove the obviously voice over from the scene becauss "we cant risk some people not getting this part of the movie" or Rey, from the new trilogy of Star Wars's movies, over explaining everything that is happening in the screen, or when they just try to include something like a romance between two characters just because, so teenagers "will like the movie". This "generalization" of media is the main problem imo :(

[@FeiFongWang]

The serialization of art, these major franchises aren't trying to be art anymore or say anything, they are serialized like episodic Saturday morning cartoons.

[@MoffMuppet]

I may be entirely wrong on this, but I think part of the problem is the increased cost of producing these games and movies. When you make, say, a movie that costs 100 million dollars to produce, you of course want it to make a lot of money. But because it costs so much money you can't just make a movie for a small niche audience, so instead you have to go for the broadest possible audience, casting the broadest possible net. And of course this just ignores the fact that audiences might not even recognize nor care that you've spent to much money, so long as the film itself is good...

[@chillinchum]

Lowest Common Denominator Or in otherwords, profit only motive. Although budgets have skyrocketed, even if big businesses reduce their costs, it's all just to make the bottom line bigger. Which isn't evil on its own of course, but... it's the excesses, cutting out the art. Good planning and controlled budgets and experience in getting productions done efficiently would open the opportunity for more craftsmanship, however, I have little reason to believe they wouldn't keep aiming for the widest audience for the widest profit pool. Then again, some companies are getting wise to the idea of exploiting niches, so maybe there will be change. Perhaps the movie making business will have to finally adopt this philosophy that other industries figured out decades ago.

[@TheSilverwolf97]

There's no risk is my take. There's no risk to try and build something new, instead we have old franchises, reboots and remakes. There's no risk to offend someone, there's no boldness on the creation, there's no smaller budget movies under big studios, there's no weird ideas thrown around. Everything is a check list to keep investors happy.

[@Dragonfury3000]

The generalization is annoying to see but I think there's somethings still to appreciate and pay attention over the superficial. Visual storytelling in videogames is usually a very common thing where there's alot things you just have to interpret for what's going on around you before the story reveals itself. But as Josh said there's definitly things it should be hidden in plain sight for players to figure out.

[@markl1839]

We're now a couple of generations into writers who all decided at 11 years old they wanted to be writers and have no experience with anything else. Great fiction writing isn't really the product of years of practice writing: it's the product of experience with the broader world and a variety of people. The result of filling writers' rooms with people who have no experience outside of creative writing workshops and MFA seminars is exactly what we're seeing in movies, TV, games--shallow characters, worlds that don't feel lived in, plots that are driven by coincidence and convenience instead of cause and effect. TLDR: studying writing is the worst way to become a great writer.

[@Sorrior]

Funny thing is i was JUST telling my mom how The Acolyte kinda ignores the entire points of mystique mystery and the forve on general by making it so Anakin was 100% manufactured and all that. When imo it would have still worked as a story..To set it AFTER the original movies but BEFORE the new ones and set it up as a test to recreate anakin with Rei being the actual success or somesuch Or done during the empire when Palpatine was in charge using knowledge gleaned from Vaders body parts etc. Pleeenty of places to put it and still let them tell the story they wanted to tell. But nope prequel at the ONE point in time that does the most timeline alterations and messes woth the mystique of parts of the series. No cause and effect just "hey lets plop this here and call it a day while undermining entire core concepts by over explaining

[@TheCraftySam]

Maybe this is just me wanting to defend my degree, but I think you undersell what writing courses and workshops teach you. The thing I learned first and foremost at university writing workshops is to learn and experience new things. Read, read alot. Read things you wouldn't normally read. Analyse them, what makes the writing work? What doesn't? Listen to how other people talk, how they speak the intonation, the words they use - the mistakes and mispronunciations. The courses you're deriding tell you to engage with that broader world and give you the tools needed to understand WHY you need that broader knowledge.

[@NecroAsphyxia]

@@TheCraftySam And yet many of these "writers" are incredibly insular and seriously come off as the biggest circle jerk on earth.... Hell, Leslye Headland literally re-wrote her script because she wanted more Sexy Sith mid way through shooting...

[@TheCraftySam]

@@NecroAsphyxia And Lucas had to have the entire back end of a new hope edited to hell and back to have a satisfying conclusion and tension. A new hope was quite literally saved by last minute changes made by the editing team Sexy sith is also not that bad a character. With Sol dead he's pretty much the last thing that could be really interesting. He's one of the few interesting people left in the show now that Sol is dead and his actor plays him VERY well.

[@dugonman8360]

Writing workshops are supposed to teach you how to write, not what to write. If you simply want to write for the merit or the title and not because of that story burning in the back of your mind or that unanswerable question that keeps you up at night, those characters who won't leave you alone and ask for you to write about them, you aren't a writer.

[@phyroxxxx]

Sadly the writing lost the nuance it once had, triple A games are focusing too much on quick grabs to care for a deep heartwarming story

[@OctopusEmperor]

Except god of war and a couple others but yeah

[@michajurczuk6265]

Triple a games cost way too much to care about anything else than quick grabs. They either hit the main stream or lose monies by the hundreads of millions. Thats not an environment for experimental story writing

[@terminator572]

It's not even "quick grabs", AAA games still take years to come out and cost unimaginable amounts of money. The thing is that that time and money only go to fulfill things in a checklist, what "the market" likes and all that bull. Artistic vision is very much not a factor anymore, if it even ever was for the AAA industry.

[@CasepbX]

@@OctopusEmperor God of War was bad.

[@GrumpyNorthman]

The problem is that the writers have never read anything. Edit: I should say they haven't read anything worth reading. Dialogue in games and tv these days is a lot like listening to my 6 year old nephew.

[@pvshka]

Except gender studies papers

[@Zeverinsen]

​@@pvshka Wow, you're so cool.

[@Zeverinsen]

The big problem is that they hire people who might be good at making one thing, but aren't cut out to complete the project they have laid out, instead of finding the right people for the right IP or vice versa. A good comparison is The Witcher vs. The Last Of Us. The people making The Witcher weren't actual fans of the original story, and felt like they thought they could elevate the original story, like it wasn't already good. Blood Origins proves that they had shit ideas and just wanted to make their own thing, but were given The Witcher and just tried to make it into their own story. In comparison, everyone working on The Last Of Us seemed to like the original story and had great respect for the original writing and its universe. The director was offered to make whatever he wanted after the success of Chernobyl, because he was simply a fantastic director who could captivate any audience. He took his time and personally chose TLOU because he loved and respected the source material, which you can tell when you watch it. This has a lot to do with how corporate production doesn't care about passion and mastery of one's craft, because they think they can sell anything with the right IP, or the right name attached. Sometimes you get a production that doesn't respect the material at all and thus a worse product because you just wanted to sell the IP and didn't care about whether or not the people you hired were the right fit, and sometimes you trust the professional director with a great track record and have them pitch you good stories they know they can make well, and then buy the rights to make it. There has to be some passion and craftsmanship to make quality media that holds up and sells well. HBO and Netflix are definitely VERY different with how they prioritise in this regard. Netflix is a quantity over quality corporation, while HBO prioritises quality over quantity to continously sell you on their entire catalogue, not just a few shows.

[@chillinchum]

​@@Zeverinsen tl;dr: unless recent events become a long term trend, those executives are correct, branding is everything, not craftsmanship, at least if profit is the only motive. See it definitely used to be the case from the 80s to the 00s at least that you literally could slap a popular brand on anything, especially merchandise, and it would sell like hot cakes. The first time anything star wars related didn't fly off the shelves was when (new) Battlefront 2 came out and had controversy over loot boxes, so that on black Friday, there were pictures of leftover copies on otherwise empty shelves after the usual madness. That never happened before, and especially not for star wars. You could literally sell poop with a star wars sticker on it and it would sell, I'm only half- exaggerating. Until that happened, I had no faith in consumers, and particularly gamers for having any spine whatsoever to actually keep their promises of boycotts, etc. Of actually holding the market to account. I didn't believe in the concept of the free market if the consumer side was so irresponsible, making the market have a massive imbalance between parties. As I've once heard it said: gamers have a toxic relationship with publishers like EA games. Since then I've been unsure, worst case scenario, those executives are just a little behind the times, that debacle was only 6 and a half years ago. Even I'm not sure if that was a freak incident or not, rather than a trend, it's simply too soon to judge. Until then, they're right, they have been right, and if they're wrong now, that's a recent change. Unless this becomes a long term trend, there is no need for profit driven companies to give a damn about the art, they will make money regardless.

[@wea69420]

​@@pvshkaunfortunately for you, "woke leftists" made the best written game ever, not even close

[@Enzar17]

The last life changing film I saw was Godzilla Minus One. THAT was a visual storytelling feast. So multi-layered, so captivating, so deeply emotional. When Godzilla uses his breath on Ginza, you understand everything about that scene and the history it is referencing, with zero dialogue. THAT was a film. First time in almost a decade that I've gone to see a film twice in the theater. Holy hell.

[@BaronofBeardUK]

Hard disagree on the "saved in the edit" claim on the original Star Wars. This was a weird theory that went around a few years ago backed up by contradictory sources. Part of the "rough cut" being poor was more because it wasn't finished so a lot of the special effects, which were utterly special for the time, weren't done yet. There were three editors on the original film, Lucas's wife, Richard Chew and Paul Hirsche, all three of which had to get final approval from Lucas himself.

[@PurveyorOfEmetophili]

Glad someone else said this, the whole "saved in the edit" idea is a myth. ALL films are made or broken in editing. "How "How Star Wars was saved in the edit" was saved in the edit (sort of, but not really)" by Nerdonymous is a long watch, but goes into far greater detail.

[@mattprefersprivacy7653]

I remember seeing an interview with Brian De Palma a while ago and he mentions being asked by lucas (they were friends) to have a look at the rough cut, and he says quite casualy that he did a pace note including brutal content cuts. The release is paced like a De Palma movie so I think there is probably something to this.

[@bp6942]

@@PurveyorOfEmetophili This. People should be watching the rebuttal to "saved in the edit", as it is just one giant falsehood

[@bp6942]

@@mattprefersprivacy7653 De Palma was talking about the first extremely rough edit of the film, with half of it being placeholder shots of WW2 videos of fighter planes, and the rest being full of grease pens, unfinished effects and etc. His major complaint was "where is the blood when they got shot" and "what is this force "bs""? De Palma has been taken out of context (by the "saved in the edit" people), and that has been repeated many times over. Watch "How star wars was saved in the edit...was saved in the edit"

[@lynchie360]

Is it weird I preferred the big hairy guy as Jabba?

[@Elrohof]

One thing that baffles me about Star Wars fans is how vitriolic they turn if they try to insert humor in the movies, since it blasphemes against the Original Trilogy or something. The Original Trilogy was jam packed with humor. It was light hearted, it wasn't trying to be serious at all times. But add a Jar Jar Binks, and you must bully the actor so hard that he attempts suicide.

[@Vladislav888]

6:44 About Star Wars being saved in the edit. There is a impeccably researched video by youtuber Nerdonymous titled 'How "How Star Wars was saved in the edit" was saved in the edit (sort of, but not really)' that shows that it's not correct. It's a bit more complicated than that. I highly recommend it.

[@bp6942]

More people need to watch this, but it's much easier for them to watch an 18 minute video that is one big lie and propaganda piece, than it is to watch the 2 hour, researched rebuttal.

[@Bustermachine]

@@bp6942 Yeah, I'll admit that I fell for the more digestible one too. Then again, Brevity is also the essence of good writing. Been watching old Simpson's episodes lately and it's sorta breaking my brain how much they pack into 22 minutes.

[@bp6942]

@@Bustermachine You cant really have brevity when you have to deconstruct lies unfortunatly. Its much easier to lie to a person than convince them they have been lied to, and all that,

[@grennbalze]

Godzilla Minus One had fantastic writing

[@BloodyArchangelus]

Eastern project.

[@sarahwallace1103]

Could've used an editor to trim it down though. You could dice up a 35 minute section and it wouldn't have hurt at all.

[@grennbalze]

@@sarahwallace1103 i thought it was all solid. 35 minutes is quite a lot

[@TheSilverwolf97]

Minus One was a good enjoyable film, I don't think it had fantastic writing tho. It had decent writing yes, but there wasn't a single line that blew me away. Writing is so bad nowadays that the standard for what is great is very low apparently. It may have hurt that the delivery was so overacted maybe, but that's my take.

[@silkdust8069]

Meh. Shin Godzilla was better

[@Dragonlordofthunder]

I definitely agree that writing has gone worse. I think the writing by committee and box ticking is a big element too. Like so many movies and films nowadays have diverse casts but those roles are prevented from acting against a given type or else it could be seen as problematic/controversial. Edit: Definitely agree that too many subversions of pure good characters are there too. When it comes to superman subversions we have injustice superman, homelander and omniman such that the standard superman is now the odd one out. Omniman I find alot more interesting than homelander too because injustice still has charachters wanting to be heroic(including omniman to an extent) while the boys is just pure cynicism and edge.

[@tacticianAlexandra]

Yeah the interesting thing about subversion is, you can only do that so much before the subversive becomes the new normal. With the original thing you were trying to be a subversion of, becomes the way to subversion things. So yeah it can lead to a funny loop. For these days, it seems like writers who want to create a subversion of something. Want to do it with the original ip like say star wars, over creating their own. Then just shoehorn in a story, that might not fit the setting they are using. For alot of writing these days. Does come off more as, they only ask themselves can they do this, never if they should do this.

[@arthurg.calixto3338]

The Boys is supposed to be satire representing real politics. It'd be awkward if they made a guy who represents American warcrimes redeemable.

[@ExeErdna]

@@arthurg.calixto3338 Yet they do it all the time in comics look at "Irredeemable" where Max Damage a villain became a hero because the Hero the Plutonain got tired of how people treated him.

[@Bustermachine]

@@tacticianAlexandra The issue is that, while deconstruction is a valid method of storytelling, it became the 'one weird trick' for an entire generation of writers. Deconstruction, real deconstruction, is also constructive. You take a story apart, you question a basic assumption, and then you put the story back together again based on that logical assumption to make something new. Watchmen was full of the these little detail. People remember 'Super heroes are assholes' or 'Super heroes are hit men for the government'. They don't remember that Doctor Manhattan invented electric cars and commercial super materials in the 70s. Or that Borsch is the popular fast food. They don't remember the Vaught Industry Nostalgia/Futurism ad campaigns or the pirate comics or the small glimpses of humanity we catch with the supporting characters.

[@WhenGoatsWentBaa]

I like Maulers interpretation of the 1 in a million chance thing Holdo was actually just trying to escape and leave everyone else to die but got astronomically unlucky

[@arskakarva7474]

The Superman story you're thinking of is probably the issue of Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman which is about the day Jonathan Kent died of a heart attack. When Clark, who is 18 or so in this story, stops and realizes that he can't hear Pa's heartbeat anymore he goes into a panic and tries to make it back in time to the open field Jonathan's collapsed in the middle of... And it's already too late by the moment he realizes he didn't heart Jonathan's heartbeat. Then we have Clark speaking at Jonathan's funeral about what he learned from Pa, and afterwards him and Ma leaving the farm for good when he breaks down in tears that even with all his powers and all the good he can do to the world he still didn't get to say goodbye to Pa.

[@FableTheWolf]

I would like to be a writer, but I always worry that what I've done isn't good enough to publish. Then at the same time I go out and see things that I can't fathom how they made it to print and think maybe I could do it after all.

[@SeemsLogical]

You probably could do a better job. Maybe not the best, but better than you would think. What's going to hold you back is that writing isn't about quality anymore. So you will get passed over because reasons unrelated to your writing abilities were deemed more important than the quality of the writing. The root of the problem is in the publishing department. The writing and editing departments are a reflection of the publisher's demands.

[@sirdiesalot2975]

I used to think exactly like this. But like you say, any old crap makes it to screen nowadays. So even if you do end up totally sucking (which is actually harder than you'd think) then it probably wouldn't matter. I see it in professional and university life too, really anything where there's a veneer of competence covering a sea of incompetent people who actually have no idea about what they're doing. It's all a facade, they've just learned to put it on. Most people are faking it until they hopefully make it. Write the thing you want to write! Do the thing! You'll be fine.

[@SeemsLogical]

@@sirdiesalot2975 This reminds me of a quote by Charles Bukowski: "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts and the stupid ones are full of confidence." Sums up the world we live in pretty accurately, no? Bukowski was a good example of this himself. He didn't "make it" as an author until he was in his fifties. What held him back the most were publishers who didn't like his work, but when one did publish his work his career took off. That may end up being your trajectory if you pursue this. A slow climb to success caused by the opinion of idiots getting in your way.

[@njux1871]

Phenomenal films of late: Blue Giant (2023) Perfect Days (2023) Decision to Leave (2022) EEAAO (2022) Joyland (2022) The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) Drive My Car (2021) Petite Maman (2021) Wolfwalkers (2020) Minari (2020) The Father (2020) Red Post on Escher Street (2020) Good works are still being made. Hollywood and especially streaming platforms are just counting on quantity over quality and this is arguably why tropes are also more obvious at this point. Has there happened a dumbing down? Idk, Decision to Leave was a masterpiece of subtlety and visual storytelling. Some of the best editing I've ever seen as well. People just focus too much on the mainstream stuff. But that stuff has always been full of mid films. Just think of most Pierce Brosnan Bond films. They aren't gold lol. I'd rather say that Disney definitely plays it safe and it's one of their core sins with Star Wars to just always focus on the obvious, seldom are to tell new stories (with the exceptions of Andor and Acolyte, one a hit and one a miss, but at least not yet another "look at this character whose story is already told but you know him so we milking it"). At the same time, I'd say, the entertainment industry is just designed to addict you. The Acolyte is a mid show that has some great moments but is really suffering from ATROCIOUS cliffhangers. Netflix does the same shitty tactics, I've seen the exact same random episode ends in Alice in Borderlands season 2, they were so blatantly obvious shitty binge-inciting tactics that really harmed the flow of the story. If I know think of what Cary Joji Fukunaga said (who did True Detective) about his Netflix show Maniac: they have the stats. They know what people will binge, what content will probably have this or this reaction. And they absolutely play with it. We're in an utterly consumerist age where people just consume art. I don't agree that playing it safe makes something not art at all, art does not have to be good quality. It depends of the motivation, nothing else. A shit film is also art if the artist had the last say. But if the producer, or simply wanting to appeal to many people and thus adjusting the content has the last word, then it's a product (like Marvel, which Scorsese aptly called movie theme parks rather than art). And entertainment is not a bad thing. But it starts to be shit when they capitalize off of people mindlessly consuming, inciting you to binge (which is almost never a sign of valuing a story and will have you gloss over so many details just by virtue of how brains work), inciting you to always are on that next hype shit. Films are getting longer, films are getting faster, more dialogue, more cuts, more boom. And people are surprised that they can't sit down to actively engage with a film or a novel while willingly engaging with that shit. Or, more fittingly, aren't even able to finish a game without instantly checking out guides, optimizing their strategy, or losing all patience, just watching clips of Elden Ring instead of just actively playing it. Attentive span is so low, the virtue of patience sadly lost by the one thing where it should be obvious: enjoying things. That is why Richard Linklater for example speaks of late stage capitalism if i remember correctly. Films, storytelling in general aren't held in the same esteem anymore. Because people keep on consuming, and they keep on, keep on. Even on letterboxd you see those massive film fans but what do they do? Watch three films a day, hell, watch films in higher speed, or do things alongside, not just sit down and watch. Even here the joke about second-monitor content is a reflection of consumerist society. THis can be a mundane and nice thing, but it also in many cases expresses people who are so starved for information influx that they need a constant flow of SOMETHING in the background. As someone with severe ADHD it's like seeing people consciously wanting to live my life (without the hyperfocus part). It's kinda fuxked up if you think about it.

[@gottesurteil3201]

Martin Scorsese only became correct retroactively. When he first said that marvel movies were still mostly good. The issue is if the movies are mainstream they shouldn't be awful. No one hears about the movies you listed because they don't get attention from the people that supply them.

[@TheMemeRepository]

I ask for one thing, and one thing only: "Internal consistency." You get that right, and whether or not I like what you're doing, at least I know you're doing it well. It seems I ask for too much.

[@mryellow6918]

Star wars has said multiple times that they dislike this because it removes their creative freedom. And I'm like then why the fuck are you not making a new ip

[@SpiderEnjoyer]

​​@@mryellow6918Well obviously, creating a new IP is something that requires creativity, work and - god forbid - *risk* . Why take that terrifying prospect of perhaps not having a return on investment when you could put the well-known brand on the slop, and let the *consuming* begin?

[@tsbulmer]

Oh geez, the Holdo Maneuver... ignoring physics is important for lots of good sci-fi, but once something's used as a tool, we can't go back to ignoring it. Thanks to that moment, now we have the question of why anyone would bother with a Death Star when you can just point an engine at a planet and send it off at relativistic speeds. What even *is* Star Wars without the Death Star? I've never been personally invested in the franchise, but the utter disregard many of the modern movies have for the people who've loved Star Wars is makes me ill.

[@Specter_1125]

With light speed in Star Wars, not only does the ship need to be lined up to enter one of the hyper space lanes, but also large gravity well such as planets rip them out of it, causing them to reenter real space and decelerate.

[@JohnDoe-vm5rb]

Not any more. The holdo maneuver breaks everything. Lights speed skipping in the next film reinforced it.

[@TimJBucci]

LoL: that one video that just shows the ship destr*y itself on the deflect*r shields. Obviously, deflect*r shields would have to be efficient enough to "deflect," at light speed, random matter floating about that ships are hyperdriving through. (3rd edit)

[@tsbulmer]

@@TimJBucci What are those asterisks for?

[@TimJBucci]

@@tsbulmer Sensorshit - Commie Tube AI algorithm dodging. Took 3 edits for the comment to survive.

[@MythrilZenith]

Josh nails it in one. The fear of the lowest common denominator in the audience not understanding what they're seeing is causing a huge chasm in writing quality. Not everything should need to be explained in words, and even if you DO explain it, you should be able to let it happen first. Not the only writing problem, sure, but it's been the one I've noticed in every single adaptation of a prior work that takes me out of the experience entirely.

[@niqhtt]

Why I have always love British comedy. Dry humor that is not shoved in your face and just about always goes deeper than it seems.

[@frostreaper1607]

I have a living example at home, he does not understand movies, books or stories unless its literally going for Dora the explorer style, and even then he might miss something by blinking as it magically plugs up his earholes or something. Its frustrating and I avoid watching anything even near him.

[@Kerm0]

Ironically having some of the audience not understand is a good, thing, because they then go and start conversations with people who did understand, creating the social links and culture that builds a fanbase. It's why movie stories today are so transient, no one talks about or discusses them anymore because there's nothing to figure out.

[@ExeErdna]

Stop thinking the common people are that stupid and if they are that stupid let them learn or stay that stupid.

[@lomie0489]

Everything Everywhere All at Once was the last movie that blew me away

[@terminator572]

Everyone loved it but me it seems, I'm starting to think it's a me problem.

[@silkdust8069]

​@@terminator572def not a you problem. I also think it's overrated

[@Dragonfury3000]

It's an okay movie in my book. It's good entertainment but the overall story is very shallow and lacks depth.

[@peterd9698]

Lots of people liked it.I liked it. But it is just the nature of the internet that you already have three replies pooping on it, to show how special they are.

[@aaronbates4848]

​@@peterd9698 And you're leaving a reply attacking three people who said that a movie you liked didn't land for them to show how special you are. The internet is truly an amazing place.

[@diekrahe.]

2:34 rewatched Silence of the Lambs and forgot how great it was, all these little bits in the background that reveal plot points if you pay attention. The fact you can piece it together yourself at the same time Clarice Starling does, makes it feel real.

[@CardCaptor32584]

I used to think that writers lack subtlety now a days, but, recently, I am starting to feel like it might be partly the audience's fault too. I observed my wife watching a show the other day and she was literally just skipping forward to the conclusion of each scene. She didn't care to watch dialogue or look for details at all. Was just very interesting to see lol.

[@barachiel212]

First, writing these days is dogshit. Its just trope-y mindless nonsense, where characters do whatever the plot tells them to. Motivations are murky at best, and nothing feels ... organic. As for the George Lucas bit, I could totally believe that. His wife cheated on him with a contractor who was building Skywalker Ranch and left him during the making of ROTJ. I can see some bitterness still lingering there, and having zero desire to let her continue to profit from that work.

[@shocker1209081]

The Holdo maneuver and the Star Wars sequels in general are a perfect example of modern contrived writing. The whole scene screams "I wrote the heroes into a corner because I needed tension and underdog vibes but I need them to win, so I'll not spend 2 minutes thinking about how to convincingly dues ex machina them out of this situation and instead create a massive, massive plot hole because I don't care about consistency in a setting." That one woman who's name escapes me already flat out said there WASN'T an expanded universe to draw from, making it clear she either is so dumb she didn't understand that Star Wars was a multi-media giant, or was determined to treat it with as much disrespect possible. It's not a story to them, it's a job they hate working, on a project they either hate because they think it's "lame nerd stuff" or can't be bothered to care about, all in an attempt to sucker fans out of their money.

[@Chozo_hybrid]

Your point about her saying they had nothing to draw from is always taken out of context... She meant as they were making a new canon, there was nothing ahead but what they were going to make. Not that the old expanded universe didn't exist. Not saying what they made after was good, just that people seem to always quote the misquote. I don't think they hate it, they just don't get what people like.

[@BumbleCrumble1072]

That's not entirely accurate. The only good Star Wars show was made by someone who doesn't like Star Wars while all the content filler is made people who are Star Wars fans.

[@shocker1209081]

@@Chozo_hybrid Then that's still incredibly stupid, because then they're ignoring an established canon while trying to cater to fans of that canon. And even if we ignore that, they're still incompetent. That scene with the extra super slow bombers made so little sense a hundred videos deconstructing why the bomber is stupid and the scene is stupid came out. Personally my favorite is from GenerationTech. Then there was that bit where the origin of the the super star destroyers was revealed in a tweet that went "Did you know..." and someone else pointed out there was zero exposition about it in the film, so literally no one who watched the damn movie *could have known.* My big point is that I can see the writer's hands in every single scene. They need a scene with tension, or sacrifice, or comedy and they just jam one in there without thinking about if it makes any sense in the context of the universe it's taking place in. They're allergic to exposition, they made the main character a plank of wood Mary Sue, and they admitted after the fact the films were put together without a plan.

[@StriderZessei]

Right, because before then, Star Wars NEVER contradicted itself, and NEVER had plot holes.

[@shocker1209081]

@@StriderZessei Fair enough, XD it feels like it's worse now though. And not just in Star Wars, but in general.

[@Adamnlaw]

The film "The Gentlemen" (2019) by Guy Ritchie is the most recent film that left me speechless. Amazing writing by Guy Ritchie yet again, go give it a watch! You're welcome. Josh hit the nail on the head with the state of writing these days.

[@semiefficientgamer889]

So one of the big things that is happening is that Writers are being hired and fired before production begins. In the past they were allowed to write and edit throughout production which makes sense because as the various departments perform their duties it makes sense that bits of the writing would need to change based on what other departments are creating. Nowadays they get like 12 writers, tell them to write an entire season in a few weeks throw them a few shekyls then fire them. So the writers wrote then entire story without seeing the actors or the art design, and the art designers made all the sets and CG without seeing the script and the director is expected to just cobble everything together during the shoot and edit. It's a big cause of the lower quality of recent marvel and star wars series.

[@volrag]

In terms of writing that changes you, I saw a scene from an animated batman film "Mask of the phantasm" (not actually seen the whole film now that I think about it). But long story short, Batman has fallen in love with a woman and now he's agonising over the decision of whether he should stop being batman or not. He's too responsible to risk his life every night if he has someone expecting him to come home. So he goes out to his parents grave, and begs for their approval to put down the cowl. It's the middle of the night, raining cats and dogs, and he's trying to argue that he can give more money to the city so they can hire more police, that he can help in other ways, that someone else can take the risk. He breaks down and says "Things are different now. I need things to be different now. I didn't plan on this. I didn't plan on being happy". It's heartbreaking partly because Batmans shtick is his ability to plan, he predicts things no real human ever could, and he couldn't plan on being happy. But I could also imagine if his parents were at the grave with him, they'd be screaming "Yes, hang up the cowl! Embrace your happiness Bruce!" or something to that affect, the only one left demanding Bruce be Batman, is Bruce.

[@bp6942]

Batman the animated series contain so many instances of writing for a children's show that touches deeply on an adult level. It's almost like the writers didnt think that children (and humans in general) were stupid.

[@ExeErdna]

@@bp6942 DC/WB hated the fact they a many others during that time wrote like that.

[@virgilhawkins3390]

Its more like: writers show their uncreative, shareholder-beholden boss their brilliant work of storytelling, their uncreative boss is unable to grasp the implied meanings, then the uncreative, out of touch boss tells them to add things that make it easier for them to grasp because they think everyone must be on the same uncreative, disconnected page as themselves and the shareholders. Changes get forced through, rewrites happen, then we get drivel.

[@Ragna_rage]

You are giving writers entirely too much credit

[@geroni211]

@@Ragna_rage you are giving the bosses too much credit

[@rudeboyjohn3483]

​@@geroni211 preach

[@nobodyspecial1553]

You're all giving everyone too much credit. It's incompetency the whole way down.

[@TheLizardKing752]

The audience isn't far behind either.

[@onlyhuman3]

It has NOTHING to do with the writers. Please stop that. It is the shareholders. The people in charge of the budget putting their opinion on the desk, 'suggesting' directions to generate the biggest profit for them, since they put in the money. Take the witcher, or the rumours around the warhammer show. The reason the writing is so bad is not usually because there's bad writers. It's because they are the habd with the pen, but the creative liberties are given to the shareholders. For the warhammer show, that is amazon.

[@RavenL1337]

you are acting as if only good weiters exist? bro stop cooking shite

[@ShrapnelStars]

It's a fear of sincerity, and a fear that having a genuine emotion, softer character, or having something legitimately comforting happening will make the work "childish" or "for little girls" or something deemed "diminutive". If you've ever watched Red Letter Media, they also cover how movies with that kind of writing are generally going after the lowest common denominator, because they are seeking the widest audience to get the most profit. The "widest audience" somehow always means the movie is targeted at normie American men who hate anything perceived as "girly" and who have low attention spans. There's a hidden industry metric that they revealed and commented on, where if something exciting or a joke isn't happening every...I believe it was 20 seconds? (correct me if I'm wrong) then they are losing audience members, so they have to have a stupid joke or explosion LEGIT every 20 (?) seconds, and they DO time it. When I went to see Scarlet Witch, I tested that theory, and felt doom wash over me when it was spot on. Then Barbenheimer happened, which proved that people are VERY open to more emotion and long periods with no jokes or explosions, but whether or not the industry got the message still remains to be seen. A lot of people think they're going to take away that they just need to release a dark film and a light film at the same time to get the same return. Barbie was very cute and uplifting, but it was a VERY pensive film about human identity and the search for meaning in your life, and how society affects identity and self esteem. It wasn't "lmao boys are yucky amirite!" like a lot of people who didn't see it claimed it was going to be. There is a hunger for real writing in the general audience, but the film industry doesn't want to move it's feet from what it "knows" is the tried and true method for getting maximum money.

[@CryoJnik]

You've got more faith in the industry than I do thinking that they won't just try and copy what happened with BarbenHeimer without the substance that made it work.

[@mattd5240]

They've been losing maximum money lately.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

THIS 10000%. Having earnest characters gets you bullied by people who never grew up. it's time to stop caring about what wimpy people think and write as you say, more genuine and sincere. Put you heart into it.

[@gottesurteil3201]

This happened with Andor, a genuinely good star wars show being written off as "boring" because it didn't have enough space wizards with glowing sticks. We have to be honest that the audience is (almost) just as responsible for the current state of film.

[@unformedeight]

One episode I hold in higher regard than "Measure of a man" is in Deep Space 9 Season 6 "In the pale moonlight" While Babylon 5 doesn't have such stand out episodes it is the best scifi story put to television

[@BloodyArchangelus]

Look how they massacred homeworld 3. One of the greatest ip in sci-fi. The relic first child. All is dead for the sake of chaos.

[@Al-ny8dr]

What helped Star Wars the most, was Darth Vader. Without a doubt, the perfect villain. What Star Wars lacked in writing, it spurred the imagination. It was an adventure film plain and simple. You filled in the blanks yourself when you were a kid. I got to see A New Hope before many other people did. My mother used to date the owner of the theater, so my brother and I got to see an early screening of it. The special effects we unlike anything we ever seen, and we were at the edges of our seats the whole time. You have to remember at the time it was possibly going to be the only Star Wars movie. George Lucas had no idea how big it was going to be. Compare that time to seeing the series now. You pretty much have to watch it out of order, or the big Darth Vader reveal is easily spoiled. I also remember during that era Star Trek was going to have a big reveal on whether Spock was going to stay dead. Back then, secrets could be kept. Sure Star Trek had great writing compared to Star Wars, but when you were a kid, you wanted explosions and cool laser blasts. Evidence of this is easily found on how the toys did. Not many kids wanted Star Trek stuff. The stuff they did have was incredibly lame. Also compare to the last three Star Wars movies. It just wasn't fun for kids, had too much CGI, and pacing was bad. The toys did not sell well at all. I was so disgusted with episode 8 that I never will see episode 9. I prefer to keep my memories as untainted as I can, and do not consider all three of the last episodes cannon at all.

[@VerbalLearning]

"You don't make art when you play it safe" True. But you do (usually) make money. It's obviously more complicated than that but there'll always be a push and pull between making art and making money when it comes to entertainment products that need to be sold, whether it's a movie a painting or a video game. If art becomes too self-indulgent it loses out on marketability, it becomes too niche or self-absorbed (or pretentious) and loses it's ability to touch and appeal to a large audience and as a result usually doesn't sell well or draw much attention. On the other hand, if art becomes too focused on marketing then it loses all soul, creativity, integrity and vision and it becomes boring and generic or straight up bad and is forgotten just as soon the experience is over. You need to strike the right balance, which is not necessarily a 50/50 but whatever split serves the product/art/artist and the audience best. Which varies greatly depending on what you're making and who it's for and also who's paying for the production or creation.

[@cmike123]

They make art for Cannes, they make the other stuff for us knuckle-draggers.

[@Rheinguard]

While I do love The Measure of a Man, I find the brilliance of The Inner Light hard to beat. It saddens me to think that I may not see such engaging writing ever see the light of day again in my lifetime. Star Trek: TNG was certainly something else wasn't it?

[@aimeeinkling]

1. There are plenty of good writers out there, but the studios meddle and demand changes. I guarantee that Captain America scene was changed because some exec said, "What if people don't understand what's going on?" 2. Everything Everywhere All at Once was a masterpiece. If it didn't win the Oscar, I would have burnt all of Hollywood down. 3. George Lucas takes it even further. He actively hunts down and destroys original prints of Star Wars. Film archivists are always trying to grab prints for preservation. People believe the movie is profound because George used to run around telling everyone how he was inspired by Joseph Campbell. Unfortunately, Joseph Campbell was a horrible person.

[@filipmattsson8325]

Yeah, that Captain America scene reminds me of the theatrical cut of Bladerunner. Where the studio forced Harrison Ford to do a voice-over explaining everything to the audience. Baffling choice

[@miguelrubio4166]

What did joseph campbell do? I looked and all i could find are a couple articles, some calling him an anti-semite and some saying he wasn’t. Is that it?

[@dr.kineilwicks7002]

@@miguelrubio4166 I'd have to go hunting myself, but usually if you're accused of antisemitism it means you angered the communists.

[@Octokaizer]

Have never had these moments he's talking about. I don't remember my first time seeing Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or anything. No movie has ever had an impact on my life other than "Oh that was pretty cool I should buy action figures of that."

[@TheFlyingRonin]

It isn't just media like games or movies that are suffering from this. Books and series are seeing similar issues as well and I would say the main reason would be costs. It costs money to hire a writer who'd sit over a script for a year and deliberate how to express things properly. So cost cutting is involved and they are given more pressure to write much more in a narrower timelines and as cheaply as possible. Next comes demands/quotas. Every writer who has worked for a corporation can immediately tell you that there are subjects that are taboo and cannot be written down, despite it potentially enhancing the story. You'll see this most often with journalism, where integrity and accuracy is gutted for clicks or a political world view that benefits the larger players of the political landscape. As an aspiring writer with a book almost finished, I have an intrinsic fear of what will happen considering our media/mediums of entertainment are getting worse and much much more controlling. A book like george orwells would never have been allowed to be published today.

[@rudeboyjohn3483]

Solidarity, friend lol And yea, the industry is so worn thin by the machine. It's brutal

[@cmike123]

There is not much that you are not allowed to write about now. There was just a big hub bub over books being banned from school libraries because of different sexual situations (including grape), incest is popping up all over the place, Michael Bay movies tend to play with Age of Consent issues. Racial violence, genocide, murder. All allowed. Some corporations have limits to what you can write for them (notably Disney), but that is not widespread.

[@TheFlyingRonin]

​@@cmike123 Possible. Though I'll never know till I try to get my book out there, so we'll see how that goes. (Also my book has none of that as it is just a fantasy world with a lot of politics and philosophy involved here and there.) I guess all that remains is just to see what happens and I would be told once I try to get my work out there.

[@TheFlyingRonin]

@@rudeboyjohn3483 Thank you.

[@cmike123]

@@TheFlyingRonin Good luck!

[@hexaquras9374]

it just feels like that meme " Hello there fellow kids" whenever there's those types of cliches on any movie after Avengers

[@Raiaka]

Focus on spectacle is definitely one of the big problems. A lot of visual media these days is structured around big moments with the rest of the work becoming connective tissue that just justifies the spectacle. It's essentially a problem of story now being in service to the spectacle when it should be the other way around.

[@daximil]

It's become "special effects porn."

[@Aerroon]

The Man From Earth, the first one, had some great writing. It's based on a novel though. CLANNAD, the anime, was one of those stories where I can say there was life before and life after. It gave me a "teenage life crisis" essentially.

[@FrenchyMcToast]

Best part about that "one in a million" line* is that it happens _again_ later in that same movie.

[@mryellow6918]

Not the same movie. But like not long after .

[@Marwolaeth01]

See, the thing about a one in a million chance is that they happen to work 9 times out of 10.

[@FrenchyMcToast]

@@mryellow6918 The _line_ was in the same movie.

[@Nomisdoowtsae]

@@Marwolaeth01 RIP Terry Pratchett

[@deadshot5007]

And? It was a random pilot doing it that we don't even know the context of.

[@Gamblore101]

Saying Star Wars was saved in the editing is such a ridiculous statement and tin foil hat theory that I'm actually surprised to hear Josh of all people entertain this lmao. Also very odd to say star wars was sci fi shlock and reduce its good writing to that and then going on to praise star trek like it hasn't had its immense amount of garbage shlock writing lol. I swear star trek vs star wars dumb bs will never die lmao.

[@xiariser-213]

I think good movies don't come put every year because truly good movies are hard to create and manifest. I don't think it's a failure of writing talent, I think it's just because not everything can be LoTR or Pokémon or Harry Potter. If everything was that, then those wouldn't be special. It's not out of the ordinary to have 100 filler movies in between something great. Best movies I've seen recently are probably the side project creations of Christopher Nolan. The Prestige, Interstellar, Inception. We're due for the next truly inspired experience, it's been atleast 10 years since the last definitive time line in my life experience; but to be fair, Arcane is currently occupying that spot for creating a masterpiece

[@pvshka]

Hot take, Harry Potter movies were mid. They were visually appealing, and the casting was super well done, but they cut out so much important stuff from the books while wasting time on filler scenes that I just can't forgive it.

[@xiariser-213]

@pvshka I don't think that's such a hot take; I think Harry Potter is generational and extraordinary because of what it did, not what it is. It's like Star Wars, it doesn't have to be the greatest movie ever produced; it just has to inspire. Harry Potter inspires wonder. Beyond its pages, beyond the scenes in the movies. It inspires thought, theory crafting, it puts magic into the mind. It built a world, gave just enough depth to it, and left enough questions, for imagination to fill the rest. That's the greatness of what Harry Potter did. Star trek is objectively terrible. Arguably, Star Gate is a better show. But Star Trek, is never less than Star Gate; because Star Trek inspires wonder. It tickles scientific potential, and sets a generation of a course of invention in the real world. The experience of watching Star trek as a kid, likely created more scientists and inventors than any other source in history

[@jamesmaybrick2001]

Agreed. I fundamentally disagree with the idea that films "were better back then and shit now". Its exactly the same argument as gets applied to music. Of course most modern music/films is/are shit. They always were. Its just confirmation bias. People have short memories and remember the hits (in both meanings of the word). There is always incredible new music around, and there are good films. You just have to look. The hope with films is that you get a great one, but not so great that you get endless shittier sequels that just tarnish the original (wierdly often starring keanu). John Wick was fantastic, the others? not so much. Nobody and Sisu, every bit as awsome (more so imo) than Wick (and are similar stories really) but i dont think we will get sequels. Which is great. TLDR. people like to whine and watch Sisu. Its fucking incredible.

[@rellek4053]

I vehemently disagree that Star Wars is shlock. It had simple writing, maybe. It told a fantasy epic story as old as time with a sci-fi background, but it did so masterfully. It’s also kind of campy, I guess, but to say it’s shlock I believe is a very surface level misunderstanding of the story.

[@RedRocksies]

Oh my fucking god that FTL impact in episode 8 was final nail in coffin for me for new star wars. Only actually FUCKING BRILLIANT star wars that pissney has ever put out is Andor. Everything else is either complete fucking burning garbage or mediocre at best (first season of mandalorian, rogue one).

[@backonlazer791]

I think a lot of writers hate the audiences they are trying to gather these days. If not that far they at least think the audience is stupid and needs everything to be explained to them, either because the writer can't write well enough to make subtle references or they themselves are stupid. That's the feeling I get anyway.

[@tacticianAlexandra]

Western comic books fans, have been dealing with a industry that seems to hate them for years. Spider-man fans have wanted Mj and Peter back together for years now. Only for marvel to troll the fan base, by pretending they will get back to together, only to go nope at the last moment. For they don't want to undo the questionable one more day. Along with them rising prices and passing the cost of doing business onto the fan. Along with blaming them for every little thing. Yeah there is a reason why manga and other comics from different nations are more popular in the states over locally made comics. For often it better and even if it not or the same level of quality. It often cheaper over american made comics. Along with giving you more bang for your buck, in terms of page count. That and often way easier to find manga, all over the place. With manga creators often doing things like saying how thankful they are to people for supporting their series. Which tends to generate more good will and gets people more eager to buy the next thing or wait to see where a story goes before judging if it good or bad.

[@EPICSAWIKI]

What I find really funny is that movies and shows today need everything explained.. however Lesley Headland still had to come in and fill in the gaps just cause people had zero idea what was going on in Acolyte at certain points due to the characters doing stuff that didn’t even really make sense. It could also have been to backtrack on certain controversial opinions but who knows.

[@AGrumpyPanda]

What really bugs me about Lesley is that every so often she mentions things like deciding not to have the sith wear armour because in a soulslike, you pick the cooperator who isn't wearing anything because he likes his chances, and I just think- "Y'know, if you'd put that level of thought into every choice you made for this show it'd probably be pretty good."

[@Axetwin]

We're experiencing the death of inference. No longer are we being trusted to figure things out for ourselves and a big part of that is because of the people that don't want to pay attention anymore. It's easy to blame bad writers or the so called "PC checklist" or the so called "diversity hires" but at the end of the day the writers are writing for the majority audience and that majority audience are effing morons. I love Star Wars, but you are absolutely correct, the writing as never been that good. I'm of the opinion that bad Star Wars is better than no Star Wars because my entire emotional identity and emotional maturity isn't wrapped up in some fandom. Speaking of George Lucas, yeah I've also heard some of stuff he wanted to do and the frequency in which he got told "no, that's terrible, we're not doing that". The most infamous was the planned "Now I am The Vader" that would have been said by Luke at the end of RotJ. Season 3 Superman and Lois was some of the best stuff the CW did with Superman. Lois gets cancer, it's aggressive and it's terminal. Clark barely hanging on by a thread because he's watching his wife die in real time and there's nothing he can do about it. The show itself was already good, easily the best modern day CW super hero stuff, but this season elevated even more.

[@RobbiePDX]

I think most of what you've said is spot on, but I've gotta disagree with you on the statement that "majority audience are effing morons". Most people are more than smart enough to not shill out cash for a rushed out blockbuster - it's why so many of these studios, producers, and developers are struggling financially (and why so many of them are making desperate cash moves like streaming services, MTX, and layoffs). If you look at Gross Box Office w/ Inflation Adjustment, that much becomes obvious pretty quickly. The only bad movies that make the list are either: -The first film made from a beloved franchise -The first film in a film franchise which has had a long period between major releases The problem really comes down to the money people within these corporations chasing short-term profits over long-term success.

[@cmike123]

I've been fighting people for years over the fact that Star Wars always has trash writing, but amazing visuals / events. It's hard to top Kylo Ren catching a blaster bolt in mid-air. That looked beautiful. Some of the other stuff; not so much.

[@tacticianAlexandra]

Lots of disney movies have flopped. inside out 2, was surprising. Due to it being one of the few recent disney moneys that didn't flop hard at the box office. Which people have been pointing out issues in story telling with modern writing for awhile now. Some people have even grew their sizes, a fair bit base off of that. Which also bad stars wars is better than no stars wars? Like that is questionable. For a number of reasons. Given the more bad stuff you release under a ip name, in this case star wars. The less power the brand name has. For it no longer a symbol of quality. For star wars has been bleeding it fanbase for awhile now. With the latest show, having even worst viewership than tv shows before it. Which also disney keeps pushing out these star wars show in a rather short time frame. Doesn't help. It just adds onto the problem and makes it even more well known, star wars is the place for bad story telling. Which given how easy it is to access media of your choice these days. Why would I go for a brand that is known for putting out low quality trash, over something else? Which also not every story needs to go on forever. Lord of the rings books, it told a story from start to finish. So why is the choice of no star wars bad? Wouldn't it be better to end on a high note, over having something become a former shadow of itself? Would it be better to be known for the legacy of having told a good story, over a legacy of something that was milk to death until it was worth nothing?

[@AverageTrainEnthusiast]

Godzilla Minus One, Tenet, Past Lives, The Green Knight, Spiderverse, Puss and Boots, and Oppenheimer to name a few. Honestly, good writing still exists, just not in the big tentpole franchises outside of Spiderverse and I guess puss in boots in recent memory. Art and capital incentives don’t tend to go hand in hand so… yeah. When it does align, it’s great, but the odds are slim and I’d rather have a system that’s more sustainable than the way film studios are currently operated. Not to mention with the rise of streaming services the need for an endless supply of slop probably gave the writers less time to actually go through a second and third draft.

[@J.Severin]

imagine we are getting the next girl Boss marry sue only to subvert our expaction by actually beeing a really kind, grounded and likeable woman. would be crazy.

[@e.corellius4495]

i think thats why people liked the fallout show.

[@J.Severin]

@@e.corellius4495 Oki Doki!

[@cmike123]

@@e.corellius4495 and Wonder Woman.

[@prettiesttheresa]

The Locked Tomb series does this incredibly well

[@prettiesttheresa]

Also, genuine question: why do men not get mocked for writing self-insert characters when women do?

[@yautl1]

It's funny cause I've been saying that exact thing about Star Wars for years now! The writing was never that great, the movies were always about the _spectacle,_ and Lucas' real achievement was figuring out the golden ratio of story-to-action: just enough story to make the movie cohesive and flow well from one action sequence to another, but not so much it gets in the way of the action. But then he got it into his head that he actually was a great writer (he wasn't) and the prequels happened.

[@drakebolton7131]

I am not a big Star Trek fan, but I will always defend the episode "the measure of a man" until my dying breath. Best episode of any t.v. show ever

[@slammzskislams]

I didn’t like Riker getting shoe-horned into arguing for Maddox, but it still was TNG’s greatest episode.

[@aaronbates4848]

​@@slammzskislamsThat's a good point there. I never understood what incentive Riker had to do anything, considering that his job isn't to be a prosecutor and (to my knowledge) has no legal expertise.

[@iphoneShothand]

Too many critics and not enough writers.

[@Autofobia1]

Recomend to watch the video: How "How Star Wars was saved in the edit" was saved in the edit (sort of, but not really)

[@foster1183]

I am glad to see some comments referring to this Nerdonymous video. This has been debunked for years now but people still believe it.

[@jasperzanovich2504]

For me good movies glue you to the seat. I wasn't even planing to watch Green Mile, I merely walked past when my mother was watching it. I stayed the entire time and cried at the end.

[@drawbyyourselve]

Ah yes, measure of a man. A brilliant episode and they would never ever do the exact opposite of that epsidoe in star trek, especially not in the series named after picard. Could never happen, no. I was genuinely wondering why the writers strike was a bad thing. I know people not gettig paid their due money is bad, but movie dialogue was so terrible for a decade now that I just dont care about these people. And Star Wars had a beautiful example of bad writing in a scene mark hammil begged lucas to exclude. There are interviews about that online. I also dont think lucas edited his "his wife influence out of star wars", because he did the same thing to episode V and VI and during episodes I, II and III's filming. Star wars was always just an average fantasy, but it also used to be coherent, which it isnt anymore.

[@jametsu]

It’s why I love FromSoftware’s writing. They even dare to challenge everyone to try and figure out what’s happening. They do SO much visual story telling it’s incredible and it’s why I love their games so much.

[@sangera]

I think every single time I see the "They fly now!?" joke from The Rise of Skywalker I laugh.

[@marcelluslongus1202]

As a meme, it checks out! 😆

[@CarlWheatley-wi2cl]

To be fair to ME3 they got there first lol

[@Mediados]

The basis of all creative work is taking risks, making a gamble. It can fail, then then you learned something and it's still memorable. If you play it safe because you'll get laid off otherwise, you commit the worst crime you can do: Writing something normal.

[@Pwnopolis]

Its the constant attemp to reach the largest audience. Mass appeal has little to no actual appeal for anyone in particular.

[@moe5020]

idk about that they are making another Rey movie they clearly don't want to give fans what they want they want to give themselves what they want and for everyone esle to be happy with it.

[@ultgamercw6759]

Last story that truly broke me was Angels With Scally Wings. A strange Visual Novel about a human going to a world of anthro dragons and learning about a group of them by replaying the game and changing the outcomes of the characters. It's a strange concept made for a tiny budget in a type of game I normally wouldn't play but this one really spoke to me. Some of these characters are honestly the best I've seen in fiction and I felt such a personal connection to them. Whilst playing I forgot that I was talking to an NPC and just became utterly consumed by the story and characters. Nothing on that level has touched me so much and even after 5 years I don't think I'll ever find a game that can match the emotions that game gave me.

[@Juel92]

Star Wars has had lazy bad writing for a while. People like to gush over the prequels nowadays but they're still pretty bad (ep 3 is decent, the other two def not). There's just something about the Star Wars universe that brings out the worst in some writers. Rian can write great stuff, TLJ was not that though and def had some of the weirdest tonal/thematic clashes.

[@Hudston]

Wait, when did people start -gushing- over the prequels? I remember it being controversial to admit that I didn't completely hate them.

[@gabfontaine639]

Padme, my heart yeaaaarns for you, when were apart, my heart aaachhhes😂😂😂

[@dknotthekong]

@@Hudstonwhen the last Jedi was out, it split the Star Wars fan base in half between hating the film or liking it. The film was so bad that a lot of fans look back at the prequels and say “at least they’re better than the new films”

[@jonathandear4914]

@@dknotthekong mainly because despite the questionable excution of the prequels, its concepts and narrative that it tried to tell were much more appreciated in hindsight, since there was a story to tell in the case of the sequel trilogy, there wasnt any of the cohesion, just a back and fourth with no true communication resulting in the extremeness of TFA-TLJ-RoS

[@dknotthekong]

@@jonathandear4914well the prequels had the anakin plot line that keep them all on track, and link to ep 4. The sequels had a director try to set stuff up, a second director that shot down every single thing the first director set up, they then bring back to first director to try and salvage it when all his set up was destroyed.

[@StoopidSnot]

TIn recent years there was a large number of movies I’ve seen that had good stories but the one that comes to mind that I said out loud “that was great” as soon as the credits rolled was “The sound of Metal. My wife who has a short attention span because of ADHD who sometimes doesn’t even follow full plots because of it… was in tears. Great movie imho

[@arclite2008]

That summarizes my thoughts on the Holdo maneuver when I sat in cinema. I was in awe for both the breathtaking scene as well as the fact it ruined every Star Wars space battle before and after that for me. It makes them almost comical. It's like armies beating each other up with sticks, except in one climactic battle a soldier aims his stick, fires, and obliterates the opposing army before everyone goes back to beating each other up with sticks as if nothing just happened. It's mind-bogglingly silly.

[@ISawABear]

Refuse to say star wars has bad writing when Andor is around.

[@moe5020]

I was gonna say a few good apples don't redemn the bunch but "a few" is plural and andor is like the single good thing disney has done.

[@Juel92]

The state of writing: Poor The state of public online criticism: Catastrophic

[@moe5020]

nah youtube critics are better now tbh. back in the day it was mostly dorks trying to be plinkett and focusing on making dumb jokes and skits while they reviewed a movie and they'd put on a fake persona and deliberately fake anger over shit to make a bit instead of actually having a good take. The best you'd get is like jeremy jahns. nowadays there is a plethera of good channels that will make hours of well written content.

[@nickelakon5369]

Oddly enough, I think the hero that the "we make heroes complex by making them not heroic" -trope in modern writing has effected in the worst ways is batman. Batman may have been dark and broody, it may have had a little edge. But batman was always a thoroughly good person. A lot of writers take that away and just make him the flanderization, the claim that he's just a mentally ill rich man who beats up poor people instead of actually fixing Gotham. In older batman stuff, he used Bruce to perform public outreach. He advocated for rehabilative justice. He tried to oust corrupt city offficials and supported ones that aligned with his ideals. He reached out to the hearts of the gotham people as Bruce and tried to indirectly lead them to bettering Gotham themselves. When he realized a criminal was just a down and out guy who had a bad time of it, Bruce reached out, offered jobs, covered medical expenses if batman had injured them. But thats not interesting to modern writers, or at least, thats not what will sell. What sells is batman prowling the dark streets beating up henchmen and sending joker to arkham asylum to break out again for the 500th time.

[@biosignature1087]

My little pet theory is simply that there's just sooo much creative content being made and there's just not enough competent people working in the industry...

[@fallengarden]

2:31 Movies: - The Man from Earth - Shutter Island - Number 23 - Tenshi no Tamago (Angel's Egg, 1985 anime movie, peak visual story telling) Games: - Dark Souls 1 - Indika (came out this year, a real indie gem, can highly recommend it)

[@Jimizacx]

The most important thing about the main character's victory or defeat is how and why that outcome was achieved. If the answer is 'because they were special or lucky' then it's boring. Characters who win because they were clever or kind or persevered against the odds are much more satisfying.

[@cmike123]

"Persevered against the odds" is just another way to say lucky.

[@prettiesttheresa]

I think it can still be quite interesting when a character loses BECAUSE they are special

[@michaelthomas5433]

Making Darth Vader scream "NOOOooooo!" instead of just relying on the very effective play of the light and shadows on his mask is a great example. And you can't blame new writers for that.

[@TheGaboom]

The thing about the 'saved in the edit' theory is that its pretty much unfalsifiable. More than that; what is the significance of the theory? Even if it is true, it'd be like saying it was saved by the music or any other random component of the filmmaking process Nerdonymous has a fantastic video discussing the matter.

[@GroggyGrognard]

The last movie that had writing that slapped hard? /Everything, Everywhere, All At Once/. Absolutely deep, the acting and the visuals spoke where and when they needed to just as much as the script did, and the story served as a fundamental emotional anchor even as the plot ran off the rails into sheer fantasy.

[@picblick]

Super Heroes struggling with being human... So the Incredibles?

[@MrDay53]

Measure of a Man was brilliant. Also DS9 was also brilliant, Avery Brooks monologues are 🔥

[@TheClintonio]

I remember when saying it was bad writing got you tarred with the "you just hate it because you hate women" brush. Nowadays it's nice to see people being able to criticise these shite films without the backlash.

[@JamesVermont]

2:40 I watched Creed and Shin Godzilla earlier this year, which I know are both few years old at this point, but they definitely made me sit back at the end and just go "Holy shit... what the fuck did I just watch. That was utterly captivating." In terms of recency, I think the most recent film to make me go "That was sheer bloody brilliant writing" was probably Puss in Boots.

[@nightsmusicuk]

we can blame joss whedon for that

[@grennbalze]

Yeah, but he was good at it. Its the people that copied him. Like people trying to copy Tarantino. Feels so forced

[@Roboshi2007]

Joss Whedon, I feel has been unfairly blamed for a lot of the latest MCU when really his style just fell out of fashion as more poor copies flooded the market

[@Dragonlordofthunder]

Buffy/angel has very good writing and character moments. It seems like other writers tried to copy his(and james gunn's) dialogue style without understanding what made it work initially.

[@grennbalze]

@@Dragonlordofthunderfirefly/serentiy is amazing

[@moe5020]

Disagree he may be a POS but If they let Joss cook he would have made the MCU great. Dude knows how to write the russo's did some good shit but never came close to that first avengers movie

[@SomethingScotty]

There's a movie about a woman who, ostracized by her whole town, ends up having to defend herself from a supernatural force, only 2-3 words are ever spoken in the entire movie. You learn everything you need to about the characters, their motives, and what's going on just by watching them. The movie is called "No One Will Save You".

[@LordVVar]

Star War was not "saved in the edit." First off, saying any movie was "saved in the edit," is a ridiculous statement. ALL MOVIES ARE SAVED IN THE EDIT. Every movie goes through an editing process. Literally what are you trying to say? Good movies aren't edited??? Go look up; "How How Star Wars was Saved in the Edit was Saved in the Edit (Sort of but not really)"

[@garykelley9027]

They don't have faith in the audience for the visual storytelling That sounds like the terrible latest Predator movie, where they had to monologue each and every thing they were doing like holding the audience by the hand. Was so contrived, like... We can see what you're doing, you don't have to narrate the steps people. So dire on so many levels.

[@walkerpierce5446]

You know what is EVEN worse about the "They fly now?" line? Clones and Storm Troopers had jetpacks before that point!

[@clairehaldeman9104]

detective novels in the 1930s had this same issue, to the point where there was a list of rules of what not to do in detective novels as dumb tropes were getting done to death.

[@markup6394]

This Superman tale reminded me of what Blizzard did to the Anduin character: an all around good natured boy who struggled to live up to his warrior-fathers expectations, and who despite the odds managed to find his way and defead his foes with cunning and fearlessness. And then they made him broding and depressed and traumatized. Because you cant have good characters without them being emo and edgy...

[@Brian_Gawl]

The ending of "measure of a man" when data comforts Riker... Chefs kiss. Gives me chills every time I see it.

[@dinckelman]

People used to do art out of passion. Now people do art when there’s money, and those who have passion are usually unable to continue

[@perunarieska9182]

"I guess I just want to see superheroes struggle with being human, as opposed to struggle being soup." -Josh Strife Hayes, 2024 Brilliant abrupt cut at the end there.

[@DrunkTalk]

My conspiracy why writing is so bad: companies aren't taking risks on original content anymore. All the writers are working corporate jobs, writing stories for reboots and sequels. Imagine all the stories we don't hear because they just aren't being given the opportunity.

[@Nexus_545]

Star Wars never had high grade writing. But it leaned into it and we loved it. Episode 8 and 9 tried to be serious with it though...

[@debries1553]

I think an aspect of modern writing that people often overlook is the impact of phones: a lot of folks half-watch a movie while on their phone. If you then convey something using only visual storytelling, a large part of the audience loses track and tunes out.

[@aelanarbrightfield6817]

I have never met someone who actually does that, not seen at a movie theater, not watching a movie with buddies, never Are you certain this is actually a thing? It sounds rather a lot like a "Those damn kids" take

[@giant0mantis]

​@@aelanarbrightfield6817This might be hard to understand but your personal experience is not broad enough to generalize to make assumptions about the total population

[@DavidJCobb]

people who are _a priori_ too disinterested in your work to actually watch it are probably not worth catering to

[@aelanarbrightfield6817]

@@giant0mantis That's true, but is OP's any more valid? The burden of proof of a hypothesis or theory is on the person who made it, not the people questioning it.

[@debries1553]

@@DavidJCobb I doubt it's a choice made by creatives, or out of creative desire.

[@BigChillRaver]

I instantly stopped this video and went and watched STNG " The Measure of the Man" episode. ..not a wasted line or shot. pure entertainment in 46 mins . after the gravitas of the whole courtcase , Picard saying " Dinner?" To the Judge.. exquisite..👌 ,loved it thanks for the recommendation. 7:47

[@TheHalogen131]

Star wars writing after TFA wasn't safe. It has been at best hollow, and at worst spiteful. Often times contradictory at the same time.

[@xiiir838]

2:50 for me, that moment was after watching the anime Made in Abyss. Every single minute detail of that show is so high level, so ethereal, whimsical, gorgeous and guy wrenching that it was the first time ever I've be conscious about what I am watching, and think "This thing I'm watching... It's special, isn't it?".

[@doctorgames101b]

The current "audiences" have been dumb down, in perspective to Hollywood. They think we have gotten so stupid, that we cannot keep up with the story, plots, plot twists, etc.