Sequels and re-hashing are bad. Concepts are better.

Posted by shortcircuit on 01-26-2008 in What happened to good movies?

Certainly we're seeing reuse of existing stories and plots, but this is nothing new. Snow White and the Seven Dwards was a fairy tale a hundred years before Disney appropriated it. Disney's Pocahontas is a twisting of history that took place in the 1600s. I'd heard the story of Beauty and the Beast long before Disney touched it. The story of Hercules is over 3000 years old! All of these stories were in the public domain before Disney used them.

So, yeah, nothing new there.

But for television and film, the writing is getting better, because the audience is getting smarter. Film audiences don't want to be treated as children, so plots have to have nuance. You can't sell a movie on the plot "A serial killer terrorizes a town by knocking on doors and killing the person who answers." Even a 12-year-old will say, "Then stop answering the door!"

That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Medical professionals gag over movies that include bio-terror elements. Nuclear professionals (I've got one in my family) smirk when they see discussion of nuclear topics in the screen. Computer programmers (me) roll their eyes whenever computers are used for deus ex machina.

Some day, though, the audience will laugh at today's horror and thriller movies. Just as we look incredulously at horror and thriller movies from the 50s and 60s.

So, yeah, film is getting better.