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Lack of Originality in Action/Adventure Movies

 
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Starslasher

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:01 am    Post subject: Lack of Originality in Action/Adventure Movies Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I just wanted to talk about this subject that i was talking about with a friend of mine.

For a while, I have been feeling that more and more movies are losing their originality. Everything is being based on books, comics, video games, toys and what not. But that is not all: We have sequels for movie series that should have been dead. These seem to be, to me, just an attempt to squeeze out more money.

I know that making live adaptations of video games/comics has been going on for a while e.g. The City Hunter movie with Jackie Chan or Street Fighter starring Van Damme. But they have to recycle other live-action movies, like Superman Returns or Batman Begins/The Dark Knight. While there was a Dragon Ball movie made waaay back in the 80's or 90's or whenever, some genius deemed it a worthy venture to make a live action movie of Dragon Ball, except with Americans.


But this thread, which you can obviously tell is pretty much me griping, isn't only about live action movies, but also reviving series that didn't really need to be revived. I'm talking about the Rocky movie, Rambo, Die Hard 4.0, as well as that new Indiana Jones movie. I wonder if "zombie sequels" will pick up as a term for this growing genre. Admittedly, i only saw Die Hard 4 (being a moderate Die Hard fan), and i liked it. But was there any good reason to renew these classics?

I say that we need more "Matrix"'s, something pretty original to come on the big screen. But we are hardly seen anything like that. All we get instead are live action Transformers movies as well as an upcoming GI Joe movie (oh the nostalgia!), and more screenwriters rummaging through their attics, pulling out a comic book, usually Marvel, and running to Avi Arad to direct it.

Where's the originality?
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Amyral

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Rocky Balboa kicked all ass, regardless of what you say.

For the rest, they make those movies because they make more money than the random "deep" arthouse flick, which probably has a laundry list of influences as well. Real originality went the way of the dinosaurs a long time ago. Odds are, if you think it's new, it's been done somewhere before, this is just a new twist or presentation or something. Matrix is no different, it has a bunch of influences as well, it just presents them in a way the mainstream audience may not be that familiar with.
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Milan Fiori

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 4:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I'm sure you've read this some place before, but it's very hard to make something original. Most movies, stories, games or whatever all have the same basic elements but are presented in different ways. Even the Matrix wasn't that original. It just did a good job at present it's story that made it feel that way. (though personally I hated the movies.)

I actually found Batman Begins to be one of the better batman movies, cause it took Batman back to it's roots, and not only updated his image to this generate but gave him a reason for being able too.. do the things he does.

A billionaire does not a super hero make. A billionaire with extreme martial arts training and advanced technology (which not even the old batman had) make it at least more realistic if you get what I'm saying?
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Starslasher

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Be as it may about the Matrix not being that original, i understand that point. Even Star Wars has taken influences from other movies such as Dune and the Seven Samurais and such.

Amyral wrote:
Matrix is no different, it has a bunch of influences as well, it just presents them in a way the mainstream audience may not be that familiar with.


Of course it had a bunch of influences, there's hardly any piece of work in literature or cinema that hasn't had some influences from something or someone else. Like the Akira Kurosawa movie Ran, that is pretty much based off King Lear, but i would consider that to be an original work.

But i would still consdier it as well as the Matrix original, in the sense that it wasn't primarily based off some comic book or video game. There were actual writers to took time to create new characters and its story, instead of recycling it from the back of a Mattell action figure display box. And for that, i would commend them.
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Tullaryx

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I will agree with Amyral that using the term originality with the state of modern filmmaking is really misleading. I think what Starslasher sees as the dearth of original material in Hollywood is really more about the absence of quality filmmaking. I think sequels that never seem to die is nothing new to the industry. Hollywood lived on it during the 40's and 50's when the studios really kept a stranglehold on what could and couldn't be made. I mean if one was to look over some of the most popular films of those era the name Abbott and Costello in addition to Hope and Crosby pop-up quite often.

For every Saw and Scary Movie that comes out we get quality studio big-budget films like The Dark Knight and The Bourne Ultimatum. Even arthouse films that many thinks as the last refuge for films with originality are really rehashing past ideas and storylines but done using different techniques and slightly oft-kiltered storytelling point of views. Even the great Akira Kurosawa rarely made films that he hadn't first seen done by someone else. Whether it was a John Ford Western or one of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti shoot-em-ups.

Really, there's only so many ideas one can try to come up with for an action/adventure film without treading on past ideas. The trick to making it look original is how to add something new to something old and already done. To use an example of a past idea re-done to look original by the inclusion of a new film-style I present Melville's Le Samourai which was later used as the basis for John Woo's classic, The Killer. The two films are quite identical in their basic plot but what made Woo's version seem original (minus the fact that it's in Chinese) was his use of his often-imitated ballet-style action-scene choreography.
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Parallax

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

You see a lack of originality in film-making largely because modern film-makers use a dollar-generating formula for their movies, rather than risking going in a new direction. After all, if you go someplace new and people don't see the film, then you've lost out in all your moneys.

As Tull said, all action films are drawing on older material - there's only so many different [i]completely[/i] original ideas out there for 90 minutes of action. But there are still plenty of ways to mold and shape that material so that it feels like a fresh experience when we sit down to watch it.
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