Recently in AS, we have been talking about movies and the way we watch them. I started thinking about movies today and realized that although we consistently have movies coming out, few of them are very good or original. So many movies have 2, 3, or 4 sequels out because our consumerist tendencies have movie making companies milking one good movie for all it's worth.
This also must mean that original scripts are becoming less and less common, as our theaters are filled with movies like Shrek 4 and Spiderman 3. I looked at the movie listings on Fandango and found that the movies coming out consist of a lot of sequels. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Hangover Part II, Kung Fu Panda 2, Cars 2, X-Men: First Class, Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family, and Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil all were listed, just to name a few. Another large portion of the list was repetitive movies, but in 3-D, or "IMAX Experience," or even the IMAX 3-D Experience. I then proceeded to look at the Top Box Office sellers, and found that the number of weeks a film was released averaged from about 1 to 2 weeks. To me, this seemed very different from when I was younger, when films seemed to be out for a month, or a month and a half. These observations seem to indicated that the quality of movies and the movie industry has gone way down. What will movies be like in 20 years? or 50 years? Will they exist at all?
I agree, the are many more sequels to movies than before. Its weird but it works. If the first movie was a hit, people are going to watch the second no matter how bad it is. It's also easier on the film makers. They don't have to think of all new characters, how to develop them and what they look like. All they have to do is think of a new plot, usually a knock-off of the first movie, and throw some funny jokes in between it. We have to keep in mind that the movie industry is a business. If people will pay to see ten sequels to a movie then why not make ten sequels to a movie?
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