Another aspect of this is staffing. It doesn't immediately seem tech related, but it is.
There's less people in the background as extras, less people making background scenes or setting up. It can mostly filled in by production technology if necessary.
Some movies just seem so empty, and they look "cheap" if you see it in this angle. Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely more than three actors visible in the whole film. I've noticed there's a lot of these hollow/empty productions with very few actual actors visible, and they are rather lifeless.
IMO, that's part of what made Game of Thrones fall off a quality cliff. It wasn't just subpar writing on the main plot lines when the source material ran out. The world itself became hollowed out, and the main characters stopped existing within an organic world. It turned into an avengers movie, where the leads were largely alone on screen only interacting with each other (except for designated Crowd Scenes).
GoT has the same dynamic as Lord of the Rings, where the world itself is arguably the protagonist, and the characters are there to explore it for you.
The GoT show runners appear to have totally misunderstood that, and threw the suspense and world building stuff under the bus for creating moments of interpersonal drama. But the drama and actions increasingly made no sense vs the buildup of the previous seasons.
Who are the white walkers? What is the rest of their history? What are their goals? This was the big driving mystery of the show, and they simply decided to wrap it up in a single big battle with no further revelations.
That totally removed the payoff a lot of people were waiting for. Much like Lost, it became clear there's no actual coherent mystery.
Maybe GRRM deserves some criticism for not having things wrapped up himself. But mostly I think the show runners just totally misunderstood what was driving the earlier seasons.
The Lost finale was definitely disappointing, but at some point it was expected. At some point it became clear that the mystery was just a huge MacGuffin, and the writers had painted themselves into a corner.
I think that taught newer generations of Showrunners to not make the same mistake. Modern shows like Breaking Bad and Dark managed to finish right on time with perfect endings.
> I think that taught newer generations of Showrunners to not make the same mistake
I'm worried the opposite lesson is being learned here. Most shows "build up" then not worry if it's actually going somewhere or even can have a good ending.
Nowadays the exit strategy is first and doremost a cancelation or the next writer's problem.
> where the leads were largely alone on screen only
I feel like that is many movies now. The worlds are small and the consequences / events are just there for the primary actors to respond to and seem entirely disconnected from any kind of universe.
Massive events happen just for the sake of having a hero mug for the camera. But no consideration otherwise.
At this point in the Star Wars universe I expect the regular people of the universe would realize that ALL force sensitive people are more trouble than they are worth… but no the people of the universe show up, say dumb things, die (or don’t show up… literally nobody at times) at the appointed time for really no reason that to give the heroes or villains something to do.
There does seem to be an absence of "angry villagers raid the wizard's tower" stories in the Star Wars universe. Missed opportunity, probably has something to do with Star Wars primarily being escapist fantasy for people who wish to be the wizard.
Maybe the EU novels have such stories, but I haven't read those.
> "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortr-"
From what I remember from wikis the EU novels expanded on this as: Jedi/Sith/force-sensitives are rare enough that even at the height of the Jedi's power, most people believed them to be a myth, that the Jedi Order was more like a powerful religious group of regular people.
This is reinforced in The Mandalorian, where (to memory) the protagonist hadn't even heard of the Force or Jedi. And Mando was much better-traveled than most of the Star Wars universe population.
To be fair, that was also a problem with the books: the scale was completely off in quite noticeable ways – huge armies but no mention of how they’re supplied, cities which are referred to as large but feel small in terms of logistics, etc. We’re repeatedly told winter is coming but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of stockpiling supplies, building greenhouses, etc.?
Stocking supplies is much better conveyed in the books. Also notable that although the main map is shaped somewhat like England+Wales+Scotland, it seems to be continent scale, allowing southern parts to seemingly not even stock winter gear.
Greenhouses…would be a very rare luxury for a rich few, and would offer minimaly supplement for them; also, heating them (IRL, with coal) would be prohibitively expensive in labour, fuel, and fuel storage.
I was referring to the books – my primary memories of ASoIF were that the level of violence should mean more desertion and economic collapse back home and unless they just magicked it away there’d nowhere near enough food to survive the promised winter. It’s not like the books didn’t have good parts but I had to consciously suspend disbelief a lot while reading it.
Greenhouses don’t require heating but it’s also a proxy for the questions about urgency: if you knew this was coming, shouldn’t you have people working on every aspect of storage, stretching growing seasons, migrating south, etc.?
Everyone was too busy suspending disbelief or distracted by their phones/laptops to really notice. I gave the show the benefit of the doubt until the end of Season 4, when Tywin Lannister would have come in and eliminated Joffrey - his family's success relied on installing a competent king to keep the throne, not a useless brat coddled by his incompetent kids.
But then rewatching it for the second time, the lack of causality was apparent in Season 2. There's a reason stories don't generally kill main characters, and that's because viewers invest in them. If they do kill a main character, there has to be strong point that leads to even more character development. But once you see through the charade, the whole series is revealed as a series of vignettes that imply awesome character development, without ever actually doing the work to bring it to fruition. The show was able to coast in pop culture until season 8, when it was no longer possible to ignore that the characters weren't going anywhere.
I thought they would have taken a step back and applied more massaged production to HoD. After all, this franchise had an outsized amount of upmarket interest, only to crater at the end to the point of completely falling out of the zeitgeist. But rather, it seems like they continued the same tack of not really having a good story and filling in gaps of time in place of showing character development - like the episode where all the actors switched out and everyone is just older. Classic GoT!
Yet apparently you still paid (at least your attention) to give house of dragons a try reinforcing this disgusting habit of making only remakes and childish franchise bollocks. We must punish them
This is why I avoid dreck like Velma, even to hatewatch or to see if "it's as bad as everyone says". A view is a view, and unlike terrestrial television (in the absence of a Nielsen People Meter), watching is no longer passive, it's a signal to the network who is watching back.
Remember the lyrics of the musician whose wisdom resonates to this day, "Weird Al" Yankovic: "But I only watched Will & Grace one time, one day... wish I hadn't 'cause TiVo now thinks I'm gay!"
But yes, guilty as charged. The worst part is I'm the type of person that doesn't just give up, but rather insists on finishing a show.
And regardless of formulaic production, I get disappointed by many series that start out great in the first season or two, and then the writing just craters. The best defense I've found is to stop binge watching. Watch one episode to relax after dinner, and then go do something else.
I often think about Die Hard With a Vengeance. The city of New York is a huge part of the movie's texture. The movie actively engages with all of the people on the street and in the cars, and who are watching from their office windows. Characters who could have very easily been left out of the movie, but their inclusion make it so much richer. You see and feel their days get ruined because of the carnage. It actually feels like New York City.
There are so many different side characters who only have two lines, but each of them were cast with care and feel like real people who are living through their day and intersecting with John McLane. I love this movie for it.
On the other hand, I just watched Michael Bay's Ambulance, which is a prolonged police chase through downtown Los Angeles and the only people who seem to be on the street are criminals and dozens of police cars. At no point are we in touch with anyone who isn't directly contributing to the story. The reality is that downtown LA is packed full of traffic and the story would have taken a very different (and interesting) angle if it reckoned with the fact that getting through the traffic is it's own game.
Die Hard With a Vengeance, however, acknowledges this reality and comes up with some very creative scenarios for our protagonists to overcome, and it makes for a far more compelling movie as a result. It feels far more realistic, even in a movie as heightened as this.
This reminded me of the Netflix movie Bright (modern day Lord of the Rings kind of people), and while focusing on the main characters, it still manages to incorporate the realness of NPCs going about their lives.
> LA is packed full of traffic and the story would have taken a very different (and interesting) angle if it reckoned with the fact that getting through the traffic is it's own game.
>Die Hard With a Vengeance, however, acknowledges this reality and comes up with some very creative scenarios for our protagonists to overcome
I hadn't thought about this before but you're correct and it even extends to the antagonist. As they are unravelling his plot, they come up with the question of "how do you drive that much gold through New York without anyone noticing?".
Reading this, and looking at the example photos in the article, it's the Nighthawks aesthetic (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111628/nighthawks ). It has a place in cinema and art, and always has. But when any aesthetic becomes dominant people would notice the lack of the other aesthetics that they are used to experiencing.
This is one of the things that made The Breakfast Club such a great example for low budget filmmakers. Very small number of people on camera, low number of locations, yet it does not feel weird within the context of the script.
There have been others that are great examples of it being odd. The TV show The Good Guys was shot on empty streets in a dead part of town because of low budgets, and it comes across that way. Was the crew so small that they couldn't send a couple of the grips or PAs to walk down the side walk? Another of the low-budget examples I like is in Queen of the South's first season, they used the production's grip truck as the bad guy vehicle in an episode. Maybe it was the pilot? It was just one of those hung head in shame moments for me
This is quite apparent in the most recent Law & Order season.
Compare/contrast an episode from season 22 which aired in 2022 vs season 1 which aired in 1990.
There are scenes in the original that have like a 15-20 people on screen doing a highly complex choreography for a crime scene with different actors playing uniformed cops, detectives, evidence specialists, witnesses, bystanders, just every one that you would expect to be in such a scenario in real life.
And that's just one scene. There are many more with unique locations, with remarkable shots on location outside and inside buildings -- all with many more people on screen.
Now they barely have 20 people in the final court room scene when the original seasons used to have 50+ people just for the background, let alone the 12 jurors, 3 lawyers/judge/defendant.
I it was released in 2022, it was probably filmed at the height of COVID. So that would explain fewer people on screen. Working around restrictions was exceedingly difficult. But if they saved money, and there were no big complaints, you can bet they will stick with it. Just like all the hotels that are now not cleaning your room during your stay unless you request it specifically every day.
Kind of ironic also that law and order was the place to get your start in acting in NY. There are so many famous actors that had an early role in the show.
> Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely more than three actors visible in the whole film.
I agree with your general comment but in Passengers it was really central to the overall plot and premise. It's not a good example of this phenomenon.
I don't think this was drive for budgetary reasons, that film clearly had a huge budget looking at the visuals.
As for money, Hollywood should be much less dependent on 'A-listers' and tap unknown talent. This will also make the 'A-listers' cheaper and stop this annoying thing where you see the same faces in every movie, often cast more for the name than for best fit to the role.
Another movie that does this is Tenet. There is this massive action set piece at the end, people are literally fighting for the fate of the world. Then you have people running around, shooting at nothing.
Are massive set pieces with hundreds of extras just not economically feasible anymore?
> Some movies just seem so empty, and they look "cheap" if you see it in this angle. Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely more than three actors visible in the whole film.
Maybe that's true, but for Passengers, no extras is an integral part of the movie plot. Anything else would make 0 sense.
> There's less people in the background as extras, less people making background scenes or setting up.
This isn’t actually a new problem. I guess the new part is this:
> It can mostly filled in by production technology if necessary.
I saw an interview with the director of the 5th (I think?) of the original Planet Of The Apes movie, Battle for the Planet of the Apes. (It might have been a DVD extra, I don’t recall.) It’s supposed to be a war between the humans and the apes, but they didn’t have the budget to hire enough actors, so they had to rely on using particular angles of the camera and various props to make it less obvious how few people there actually were in the movie.
Later I saw a review of the movie Jumper which is also supposed to have a war between normal humans and humans that can teleport, basically. The review was talking about how there didn’t really seem to be that many people involved in this supposedly worldwide war.
This can be done, and has been done since early cinema, by making the film essentially a stage play. This definitely can make for some excellent films! It focuses the production on the story, and most of the time of evocation of out-of-scene activity.
But your point highlights the opposite: merely having fewer people in the scene to save money without considering what it actually takes to make it work. Even Blum gets this right; these bigger productions have no excuse except laziness.
And in my case it's led to me simply watching less video, because it's boring.
to be completely fair to netflix, Amazon spent like $80-100m releasing season 1 of wheel of time and those 8 episodes also looks like lifeless garbage.
There's less people in the background as extras, less people making background scenes or setting up. It can mostly filled in by production technology if necessary.
Some movies just seem so empty, and they look "cheap" if you see it in this angle. Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely more than three actors visible in the whole film. I've noticed there's a lot of these hollow/empty productions with very few actual actors visible, and they are rather lifeless.