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Post by Some Guy on Dec 29, 2014 1:52:17 GMT -5
We got the following original films this year (at least ones I have seen so far)... Boyhood Whiplash Birdman Nightcrawler Gone Girl Grand Budapest Hotel Interstellar Snowpiercer Obvious Child Under the Skin Babadook Edge of Tomorrow And a bunch more I'm not even listing. Sure most of these weren't huge hits, but this article is a gross oversimplification of the current happenings in the movie world. With Amazon Prime, Netflix and so many others expanding into either the movie business or getting movies early, I'm really not that worried. This was a really strong year movie wise, so I'll freak out when we have a shitty year ruled entirely by franchises at the top. I would agree with you. There are tons of charecter driven movies that appeal to an adult audience released every year. The main problem is the one's that make their way to multiplexes are all sandwiched in the same 2-3 month window for awards seasons. Unless you live in NY or LA or some other large city the only option most of the year is romcom,kiddie flick,scifi,superhero or horror movie . Most of these were released throughout the year, but I see what you mean mostly. It is hard for most of the lower budget original flicks to make it to 3,500 theater wide releases, so a lot of people will miss them. That's why it's important for places like Amazon or Netflix to grab them early, like they did with Under the Skin, Coherence and Snowpiercer. I'm still a little mystified as to how Under the Skin didn't hit theaters, especially after Lucy went nuts at the box office a few months later, but whatevs. I can see why it wouldn't grab a mainstream audience I suppose. Uhh, Toy Story 3? Universal acclaim, their biggest box office hit ever, Oscar wins, nominations galore...that's not relevance? I got it mixed up. They haven't made a relevant movie since Toy Story 3, four years ago, and haven't made an ambitious or interesting movie since Up, over five years ago. It's still worth pointing out that Pixar's been out of the conversation for a good while. Fair enough, I don't disagree. I just thought it was a slight at Toy Story 3.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2014 1:54:14 GMT -5
We got the following original films this year (at least ones I have seen so far)... Boyhood Whiplash Birdman Nightcrawler Gone Girl Grand Budapest Hotel Interstellar Snowpiercer Obvious Child Under the Skin Babadook Edge of Tomorrow And a bunch more I'm not even listing. Sure most of these weren't huge hits, but this article is a gross oversimplification of the current happenings in the movie world. With Amazon Prime, Netflix and so many others expanding into either the movie business or getting movies early, I'm really not that worried. This was a really strong year movie wise, so I'll freak out when we have a shitty year ruled entirely by franchises at the top. Yeah it'd be easier to entertain a conversation about the entire art form being in trouble if we could have a single year without someone saying exactly that. Music goes through the same thing, it's unfortunate that so much subpar work ends up hogging all the limelight but the quality stuff has always been there so long as you take the time to look for it.
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kidglov3s
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Post by kidglov3s on Dec 29, 2014 1:56:48 GMT -5
Fair enough, I don't disagree. I just thought it was a slight at Toy Story 3. Not at all, though that I would forget it or lump it in with the mediocrities of Cars 2/Brave/Monsters U probably speaks to my lack of enthusiasm for it. At least it's not Sex Tape, something I would never forget to slight.
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Post by Some Guy on Dec 29, 2014 2:00:19 GMT -5
Fair enough, I don't disagree. I just thought it was a slight at Toy Story 3. Not at all, though that I would forget it or lump it in with the mediocrities of Cars 2/Brave/Monsters U probably speaks to my lack of enthusiasm for it. At least it's not Sex Tape, something I would never forget to slight. I adore it, so I can't agree with that part. I think Cars 2 is an absolute piece of shit that was only released solely to make toy profits, though. The other two are decent enough and I can't hate them, but bah. As far as animated movies go, losing Miyazaki as a director this year is far more painful than a few meh Pixar movies. Also, your constant trumps at Sex Tape amuse me, since I have steadfastly ignored it since I first saw the awful trailer.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2014 6:28:14 GMT -5
Haven't read the article yet or Everyones posts. But big blockbuster franchises will always have a place because original films will eventually become big and bloated and one or few bombs really hard they go back to blockbuster making. Plus there is a fan demand for them. Best thing Marvel should do is lay off all their big characters after Avengers 3 after a while and wait a few years before they bring back their A Listers.
I do think 22 Jump Street got it right when they made fun of Hollywoods obsession on spending more money somehow makes them more money especially on a sequel that's commercial and critical success and this new movie was getting tons of critical praise
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Paco
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Post by Paco on Dec 29, 2014 6:35:41 GMT -5
Well, at least we now know Sony is definitely obsessed with their franchises...
Can't wait for that Aunt May film... or Ghostbusters: Bridesmaids... or that Jump Street/Men in Black mashup (so ridiculous it could work actually).
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Reflecto
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Post by Reflecto on Dec 29, 2014 6:54:52 GMT -5
Haven't read the article yet or Everyones posts. But big blockbuster franchises will always have a place because original films will eventually become big and bloated and one or few bombs really hard they go back to blockbuster making. Plus there is a fan demand for them. Best thing Marvel should do is lay off all their big characters after Avengers 3 after a while and wait a few years before they bring back their A Listers. I do think 22 Jump Street got it right when they made fun of Hollywoods obsession on spending more money somehow makes them more money especially on a sequel that's commercial and critical success and this new movie was getting tons of critical praise This- when people say "Hollywood needs to make less franchises and more original films", they neglect to mention the fact that, because Hollywood is a business, franchises are an inevitability. Even if you put a moratorium on any sequel or any movie based on a TV show, comic book, novel, or anything that was not exactly originally created in the screenplay- eventually some of those movies will be hits- and no matter how open and shut that movie was originally, once it becomes a hit, THEY WILL MAKE A SEQUEL OF IT, and thus it will BECOME a big blockbuster franchise. Heck, on this very page while people talk about franchises killing Hollywood, there's another thread about the sequel to "Project X"- a basically original enough movie that we know they said all they really needed to say in the first "Project X"- but it was kind of popular, so they need to crank out more sequels to exploit that.
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kidglov3s
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Post by kidglov3s on Dec 29, 2014 7:23:40 GMT -5
Haven't read the article yet or Everyones posts. But big blockbuster franchises will always have a place because original films will eventually become big and bloated and one or few bombs really hard they go back to blockbuster making. Plus there is a fan demand for them. Best thing Marvel should do is lay off all their big characters after Avengers 3 after a while and wait a few years before they bring back their A Listers. I do think 22 Jump Street got it right when they made fun of Hollywoods obsession on spending more money somehow makes them more money especially on a sequel that's commercial and critical success and this new movie was getting tons of critical praise This- when people say "Hollywood needs to make less franchises and more original films", they neglect to mention the fact that, because Hollywood is a business, franchises are an inevitability. Even if you put a moratorium on any sequel or any movie based on a TV show, comic book, novel, or anything that was not exactly originally created in the screenplay- eventually some of those movies will be hits- and no matter how open and shut that movie was originally, once it becomes a hit, THEY WILL MAKE A SEQUEL OF IT, and thus it will BECOME a big blockbuster franchise. Heck, on this very page while people talk about franchises killing Hollywood, there's another thread about the sequel to "Project X"- a basically original enough movie that we know they said all they really needed to say in the first "Project X"- but it was kind of popular, so they need to crank out more sequels to exploit that. I think what's different now than before is that you have studios fighting out for weekends five years from now, and a shift away from movie people running movie studios. There have always been problems, trends to lament. I'm not to terribly concerned, but I'm also kind of ready for people, at least people who should know better, to say wait a minute these Marvel movies are generic cookie cutter bullshit.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 29, 2014 7:28:57 GMT -5
Studios too often fail to diversify their portfolios, putting too many eggs in blockbuster baskets. If it pays off, great, but sometimes they don't. You need to put out plenty of product to make it work, and lower risk ventures shouldn't be neglected.
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Post by Some Guy on Dec 29, 2014 8:22:09 GMT -5
I also think some franchises are different than others, so treating it like this is a bit broad. For instance, my favorite movie last year (Before Midnight) was basically the third part of a two character based trilogy. But nobody is going to confuse that with a Marvel franchise or anything like that.
There is still an issue with minority or female driven films being way too few and far between, though. Apparently Grantland won't acknowledge this, even though Ridley Scott pretty much helped drive the issue further home with his crap about Exodus.
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Post by Wolfman Rose on Dec 29, 2014 8:27:07 GMT -5
Also, people need to stop acting like all Marvel *Studios* films are one homogenous story type. The last couple of years we had political thriller The Winter Soldier, comedy Guardians of the Galaxy, the more theatrical Thor: The Dark World, and arguably the only outright comic-y Iron Man 3, which still had heavy undertones of the central character dealing with PTSD. Yeah, there's a f***ton of Marvel Studios movies coming, but by and large, they have been good quality movies.
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Post by Red Impact on Dec 29, 2014 9:28:30 GMT -5
Haven't read the article yet or Everyones posts. But big blockbuster franchises will always have a place because original films will eventually become big and bloated and one or few bombs really hard they go back to blockbuster making. Plus there is a fan demand for them. Best thing Marvel should do is lay off all their big characters after Avengers 3 after a while and wait a few years before they bring back their A Listers. I do think 22 Jump Street got it right when they made fun of Hollywoods obsession on spending more money somehow makes them more money especially on a sequel that's commercial and critical success and this new movie was getting tons of critical praise Fan demand is pretty much it in a nutshell. You have to go back to the 60's to see a top 10 grossing movies list that doesn't have at at least half the list consist of movies that were or would have successful theatrical sequels. 1970's - 5/10 (Star Wars, Jaws, Saturday Night Fever, The Godfather, and Superman). It also had Exorcist and Grease, but they didn't have successful sequels 1980's - 9/10 (Star Wars sequels, all 3 Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Batman, Beverly Hills Cop, and Back to the Future) 1990's - 5/10 (Phantom Menace, Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Men in Black, Toy Story 2), omitting The Lion King because they were direct to video and independence day because if a sequel does come out, it clearly was never intended. 2000's - 8/10 (Dark Knight, Shrek 2, Dead Man's Chest, Spider-Man 1-2, Transformers 2, Revenge of the Sith, Return of the King) and as soon as Avatar 2 comes out, I'm sure that will join the list. Even the movies that weren't initially franchises on that list, they had successful sequels. If you're a studio exec and fans really, really want Ghostbusters 2 or Home Alone 2, are you going to shoot down the idea? If people want movies like Robot & Frank or Snow Piercer to have wider releases, then they need to go to the movies to buy tickets to those one-off's instead of the blockbusters. It's not always possible to see a specific movie, but unless you live in a town with a theater of 4 or so screens, there are usually movies that aren't major franchises playing. But as long as people demand franchises, studios will be happy to oblige. Of course, all that ignores the fact that those blockbuster movies are what gives the studios the money to allow subsidiaries like Searchlight to take a risk on indie movies, so what are you going to do?
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Dec 29, 2014 9:37:07 GMT -5
This- when people say "Hollywood needs to make less franchises and more original films", they neglect to mention the fact that, because Hollywood is a business, franchises are an inevitability. Even if you put a moratorium on any sequel or any movie based on a TV show, comic book, novel, or anything that was not exactly originally created in the screenplay- eventually some of those movies will be hits- and no matter how open and shut that movie was originally, once it becomes a hit, THEY WILL MAKE A SEQUEL OF IT, and thus it will BECOME a big blockbuster franchise. Heck, on this very page while people talk about franchises killing Hollywood, there's another thread about the sequel to "Project X"- a basically original enough movie that we know they said all they really needed to say in the first "Project X"- but it was kind of popular, so they need to crank out more sequels to exploit that. I think what's different now than before is that you have studios fighting out for weekends five years from now, and a shift away from movie people running movie studios. There have always been problems, trends to lament. I'm not to terribly concerned, but I'm also kind of ready for people, at least people who should know better, to say wait a minute these Marvel movies are generic cookie cutter bullshit. Forgive me if this is too subjective an assessment, but I think a good reason the Marvel budget hasn't popped is because the movies are hardly cookie cutter at all. They're on a bit of a hot streak. Under different circumstances I figure most moviegoers would definitely be feeling the burnout by now, but IMO quality writing has done a lot to delay that for them.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2014 9:40:39 GMT -5
Again, its not so much about the location, but about the increasingly lazy studio mentality that's grown out of the industry that needless still exists in its current, closed system form. If the "movie business" didn't all exist in basically the same neighborhood with the same people funneling in and out of various positions so afraid to take any real chances (chances that most often come from outside the studio system), we might have more originality and interesting content that would help keep the industry afloat. The problem there is two-fold. First, again, the cost of making a movie is still the biggest limiting factor. The closed-system centralization isn't going to change the base costs of making a movie. This is by far the biggest issue at play from preventing anyone from rising up and making a big change. Even making a bad movie is expensive, makin and distributing something that's halfway decent is well beyond what people trying to break into the industry are able to do. And the second is that studio decisions are being made increasingly from a business-first mindset. This isn't really a studio mentality, it's a side-effect of business, businesses copy what's successful so all you need is one business-minded person to have a successful idea and all those other studios will follow suit. These decisions are made by people who come more from business backgrounds who came from industries where they were the business mind behind those companies. They're not gettig studio jobs because the studios just happen to be down the street, they're getting these jobs because of their backgrounds. You seem to be arguing that the history and proximity of the studios is intrinsically linked to the mindset and if you change the former, the latter wuld change also. But that's not really the case, business created the business mindset, not patents or proximity. De-centralization isn't going to make a studio exec behave differently or care less about trying to maximize profits. As long as money is involved (see point 1) there's going to be the business side of it, no matter where the studio is located. Besides, it's to like people who take these jobs can't move to another city. The closed, centralized studio system really isn't the issue. And like I said before, people just tend to conflate "summer blockbuster" with all of what Hollywood produces, but there's a lot more out there. All of these studios have offshoots that make other movies, riskier, more original movies with smaller budgets. This article was illustrating it's point with Birdman, a Fox movie. The system already exists for more original movies, they just require more effort to hear than the movies people tend to complain about, because part of being a smaller, riskier project is that you don't get as much money for things like marketing. It creates a self-fulfilling prophesy, people think Hollywood only produces franchises and sequels, so they don't go and see any of the new movies that aren't franchises or sequels. Actually Birdman wasn't a fox movie. It was just picked up for distribution by them. Most of time you see a film that's not an obvious studio production released wide, its people like WB, FOX or whomever distributing it, not actually producing it. And a closed, centralized system will always have an affect on the nature of how things are done, be it examples like business (Wall Street) or politics (DC). Anytime you have proximity and familiarity in such a concentrated way in any industry you're bound to end up with tons of organizational and structural problems. The wrestling industry is also an example of this. People only hire people they know or who worked for the competitor because they're stuck in the "hollywood bubble" of what they believe is the only option. Its basically ends up being confirmation bias run amok. But, I understand where you're coming from and do see how business is also a driving factor.
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Reflecto
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Post by Reflecto on Dec 29, 2014 9:45:31 GMT -5
I also think some franchises are different than others, so treating it like this is a bit broad. For instance, my favorite movie last year (Before Midnight) was basically the third part of a two character based trilogy. But nobody is going to confuse that with a Marvel franchise or anything like that. There is still an issue with minority or female driven films being way too few and far between, though. Apparently Grantland won't acknowledge this, even though Ridley Scott pretty much helped drive the issue further home with his crap about Exodus. There is an issue with minority and female-driven films being too few and far between, but there's also an equal problem with the fact that when there are minority and female-driven films, the response is almost worse, since they're also driven to a level where people demand it on "their" terms- and if they are met on their terms, they just move the goalposts in order to make it still a problem. Minority-driven films have a large base already- the Medea films have become a bonafide franchise as one big example, and romantic comedies are an entire genre based on female-driven films...but whenever they go through, it ends up as "No, not those, those are part of the problem too!", to the point the goalpost means "It has to be a minority or female-driven blockbuster movie"...which is also more than reasonable, but now- when the new Marvel timeline just said "Okay. Black Panther and Captain Marvel have movies confirmed for the next wave, adding more women and minorities to the Avengers franchise in the process", then people are still angry about even that. There does seem to be a point where no matter what they do, it'll never be enough, and as long as it's not enough, everything they do is wrong.
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agent817
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Post by agent817 on Dec 29, 2014 9:59:37 GMT -5
We got the following original films this year (at least ones I have seen so far)... Boyhood Whiplash Birdman Nightcrawler Gone Girl Grand Budapest Hotel Interstellar Snowpiercer Obvious Child Under the Skin Babadook Edge of Tomorrow And a bunch more I'm not even listing. Sure most of these weren't huge hits, but this article is a gross oversimplification of the current happenings in the movie world. With Amazon Prime, Netflix and so many others expanding into either the movie business or getting movies early, I'm really not that worried. This was a really strong year movie wise, so I'll freak out when we have a shitty year ruled entirely by franchises at the top. Don't forget about "Locke," which was one of my top favorite movies of this year. It had an original concept.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Dec 29, 2014 10:00:04 GMT -5
I also think some franchises are different than others, so treating it like this is a bit broad. For instance, my favorite movie last year (Before Midnight) was basically the third part of a two character based trilogy. But nobody is going to confuse that with a Marvel franchise or anything like that. There is still an issue with minority or female driven films being way too few and far between, though. Apparently Grantland won't acknowledge this, even though Ridley Scott pretty much helped drive the issue further home with his crap about Exodus. There is an issue with minority and female-driven films being too few and far between, but there's also an equal problem with the fact that when there are minority and female-driven films, the response is almost worse, since they're also driven to a level where people demand it on "their" terms- and if they are met on their terms, they just move the goalposts in order to make it still a problem. Minority-driven films have a large base already- the Medea films have become a bonafide franchise as one big example, and romantic comedies are an entire genre based on female-driven films...but whenever they go through, it ends up as "No, not those, those are part of the problem too!", to the point the goalpost means "It has to be a minority or female-driven blockbuster movie"...which is also more than reasonable, but now- when the new Marvel timeline just said "Okay. Black Panther and Captain Marvel have movies confirmed for the next wave, adding more women and minorities to the Avengers franchise in the process", then people are still angry about even that. There does seem to be a point where no matter what they do, it'll never be enough, and as long as it's not enough, everything they do is wrong. Could you define what these people mean when they say "on our terms"? If you mean those angry fans that want more female and minority representation but tend to get nitpicky about it, that's a hopeless quest on the part of the studios. The best approach for them in that case would be to just bite the bullet and put out the best Black Panther and Captain Marvel movies they can.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2014 10:04:15 GMT -5
We got the following original films this year (at least ones I have seen so far)... Boyhood Whiplash Birdman Nightcrawler Gone Girl Grand Budapest Hotel Interstellar Snowpiercer Obvious Child Under the Skin Babadook Edge of Tomorrow And a bunch more I'm not even listing. Sure most of these weren't huge hits, but this article is a gross oversimplification of the current happenings in the movie world. With Amazon Prime, Netflix and so many others expanding into either the movie business or getting movies early, I'm really not that worried. This was a really strong year movie wise, so I'll freak out when we have a shitty year ruled entirely by franchises at the top. Don't forget about "Locke," which was one of my top favorite movies of this year. It had an original concept. I really really enjoyed Locke, but that wasn't exactly a "hollywood studio film." But Tom Hardy, damn!, that guy acted the hell out of that film. For a movie that took place 97% sitting inside a car I was pretty enthralled the entire time.
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Post by Red Impact on Dec 29, 2014 10:16:05 GMT -5
Actually Birdman wasn't a fox movie. It was just picked up for distribution by them. Most of time you see a film that's not an obvious studio production released wide, its people like WB, FOX or whomever distributing it, not actually producing it. And a closed, centralized system will always have an affect on the nature of how things are done, be it examples like business (Wall Street) or politics (DC). Anytime you have proximity and familiarity in such a concentrated way in any industry you're bound to end up with tons of organizational and structural problems. The wrestling industry is also an example of this. People only hire people they know or who worked for the competitor because they're stuck in the "hollywood bubble" of what they believe is the only option. Its basically ends up being confirmation bias run amok. But, I understand where you're coming from and do see how business is also a driving factor. Birdman's listed as having co-production by Regency and Worldview, and Regency is a Fox subsidiary. So it's more than just a distribution thing with Birdman, Fox did float something at least, I'd guess in the post-production but still. Even then, it's not a bad thing that they act as distribution companies to movies they see at Sundance, distribution is a big cost, it requires a lot of networking and studios have already done that. The centralized system is a huge advantage for that. For the rest of it, centralization has problems, yes, but these problems aren't really the result of it, especially not anything regarding the creative output (writers haven't needed to live in the same location as studios since the invention of the fax machine). "Breaking in" to entertainment will be hard no matter where an industry is located, people just have to face the facts that it's a high-demand job and there will always be thousands of people who want the same spot, and those thousands are all willing to jump through whatever hoop they need to. People will hire those who worked for a competitor because those people have experience that someone just trying to break in won't have. That's definitely not an issue with entertainment, I experienced it when I was a journalist, I couldn't get my resume seen by any decently sized paper unless I'd done an internship for them because they don't hire new grads, you have to work your way up from small-town papers, and they're not a centralized industry at all. Competitiveness + need for experience = hard for someone new to break into. And unless you seperate studios by international borders, people will move for jobs, they do it all the time already.
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kidglov3s
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Post by kidglov3s on Dec 29, 2014 10:16:21 GMT -5
I think what's different now than before is that you have studios fighting out for weekends five years from now, and a shift away from movie people running movie studios. There have always been problems, trends to lament. I'm not to terribly concerned, but I'm also kind of ready for people, at least people who should know better, to say wait a minute these Marvel movies are generic cookie cutter bullshit. Forgive me if this is too subjective an assessment, but I think a good reason the Marvel budget hasn't popped is because the movies are hardly cookie cutter at all. They're on a bit of a hot streak. Under different circumstances I figure most moviegoers would definitely be feeling the burnout by now, but IMO quality writing has done a lot to delay that for them. I suppose it might come down to different sensibilities. To me, ultimately, an endless string of visually indistinguishable works that look like video games and feel like video games don't really amount to anything of all that much value, as much as others might enjoy them, and it's a trend I'd be happy to see collapse.
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