Anon watches LOTR

One thing LotR does very well: lets men show emotions that aren't anger. Frodo smiles, shouts Gandalf's name excitedly, cracks a joke with him, and gives him a hug. That's how you know they're old friends.
- I can only tell if men are friends if they share a bicep-flexed hand clasp.
  
  You son of a bitch! 🤝💪
  
  They need to shoulder bump too, otherwise they could just be former colleagues or perhaps two men who met for the first time yesterday.
  
  And a solemn nod that sums up everything they both experienced in the 10 years since they last saw each other.
  
  "My man." "My man." (In unison) "Hurrah"
  "What are we doing today?"
  "We're going hunting. Because we're men. Because we like to do it. Stop being a bitch"
- Go back, Sam! I'm going to Mordor alone.
  Of course you are. And I'm coming with you!
  It always makes me tear up. Fantastic films.
  Conversely, the worst film I've seen in recent years must be the third(?) fantastic beasts film. I still have no clue what actually happened or what it was trying to tell. It was such a jumbled mess, and them changing out the actor of the main villain for the third time didn't help much.
- Yeah, if made in last 10 years, they might have turned Aragorn into some kind of Conan the Barbarian ripoff. Not necessarily, for example, RDJ’s Iron Man has a lot of complex emotions and nice arc. But, they could. I mean, look at Galadriel in Rings of Power.
  
  Iron man came out it 2008!
  
  look at Galadriel in Rings of Power
  I'd rather not.
  
  By "Rings of Power" you mean the tumblr fanfic that Amazon decided to adapt? I'd rather not.

One thing I've noticed with newer movies is they do a lot more "tell, don't show" than old movies.
For example, compare the live action Disney Cinderella to the original animated version. The live action version is mostly a voiceover telling the story of Cinderella. They literally say "Her stepsisters weren't very good at art or music" and then have a scene showing them being bad at art and music. The animated version spent the first 20 minutes or so like a Tom & Jerry cartoon.
And this is across movies. I watched Predator recently and there wasn't a lot of exposition about how they're there to fight communists or whatever. You pick that up in snippets of dialog in between the action.
It really does feel like movies are dumbing down.
- One thing I've noticed with newer movies is they do a lot more "tell, don't show" than old movies.
  Main character seeing old friend: Well if it isn't my old friend Daniel, we used to roam these streets as kids, I used to have dinner at your house every day, you were like my brother, I would have done anything for you, I haven't seen you since our other old friend Jake died mysteriously, remember when we used to play videogames all night and made that life long pact that if "HE" returns we will do what it takes to send him back to the world where he emerged from when we were kids and lived right next door to each other, our mothers were best friends until the incident but they never stopped us from being life long best friends forever, we used to play in the streets all night, me you Daniel and Chris, the rat Pac they called us, best friends for life.
  
  Man there's so many loose ends.
  What was the incident?
  What did the rat pac play in the street? Music? Baseball?
  What video games were you guys playing? Nintendo, Sega, Atari, Sony, SNK, NEC, 3DO?? Whose house?
  Were there any leads in Jakes death?
  How long has it been since you last saw Daniel?
- I feel like Dune was a good outlier to this. It's the only movie I've seen in theater in the last few years and I really enjoyed not having everything explained to me
  
  That's such a good point. I really appreciated how it wasn't scared to let viewers figure things out.
  
  In comparison, the old Dune film used a lot of voice over
- they do a lot more “tell, don’t show” than old movies
  Geez the Netflix Avatar adaptation (a show, not movie, but still) was so bad for this. Despite actually having more runtime and fewer distinct plot points (due to the removal of and consolidation of different side-plots) than the cartoon it was based on, it spent less time showing us why characters think and feel how they do, and straight-up told us every single thing.
  
  I love listening to the original intro 3 times in the first episode.
  I would have never known that the 4 nations lived in harmony until the fire nation attacked, or that the Avatar, master of all 4 elements was the only one who could stop them.
  I also love learning that Aang wants to eat banana cakes and goof off with his friends instead of being the Avatar by him outright saying it instead of us meeting ANY of these friends in the first place.
- Not to lump everything into one pile, but there's definitely some problems with movie planning nowadays.
  That's what is pointed out in all those "this movie production literally sacrificed ten VFX studios on a mayan altar" documentaries - some of new directors don't plan shots ahead, require seeing the result and then re-doing it ad nauseam, and as a result waste WAY more vfx team effort and don't get good scenes.
  Setting up visual storytelling and using good cinematography is hard - which is why to a lot of people the 3D movies like Spiderverse/Last Wish/Nimona stand out so much, you kinda have to plan ahead for a 3D movie, and even if you don't modifying a scene is easier (if you do it early enough in production).
  I'd imagine that it's similar for writing - large monologues like that are probably the outcome of the writing team needing to put all they mean to onto the paper. Maybe also result of focus-testing being passed down directly to writing staff?
  I don't know, I'm just a random guy on the internet but those are my two cents.
- Part of this is the phone addicted culture. A lot of people listen at best to movies and TV, so they make everything accessible to that audience.
  Another related problem is the over reliance on focus groups. The thoughts and opinions of people in LA/NYC/Chicago that are free at 10am on a random Tuesday aren't representative samples of the current American. It's even worse as movies move to target the global audience.
- This is my issue with a lot of indie horror games and visual novels. (Whatever manlybadasshero plays). There's just unnecessary details (you open the door). That makes me go this is just shit.
- The expressions between the 2 actors in this scene are so great and genuine too...that helps a lot.
- I feel like they make movies to appease the hot take internet culture. If a few people don't understand how a guy with magic powers in a room full of cloning tanks could be brought back from the dead, you end up with endless "Somehow Palpatine returned" memes and it becomes a whole thing. So they've compensated (maybe over-compensated) and make sure every detail is explained fully to avoid that kind of reaction. They also have to make sure they make jokes about something being corny before people on the internet make the lame jokes.
  Rise of Skywalker was probably the last popcorn movie where there was a lot of "show don't tell" going on and pretty much all of the commentary about it on the internet indicates people think it's wrong to do that. To be sure there were other problems with that movie, but people got very fixated on criticizing the decision made to not over-explain.
  Somehow... movies have to explain every little detail now.
  
  Rise of Skywalker neither showed nor telled (told). Supposedly the story behind Palpatine coming back was told in a temporary series of missions in the Star Wars Battlefront video game (and Squadrons had some hints in their too if I recall). Of course that was a big failure so now the TV show writers are filling in the blanks because at least they are fans first and money-makers second.
  And of course RoS was a giant overreaction to Disney panicking over a vocal minority of perpetually displeased fans didn't like Star Wars being taken in a new direction in TLJ, so they asked JJ Abrams to take a wet sack of memberberries and turn it into a movie (again).
  
  I think it's because the people put in charge of the films are incompetent
- One thing I've noticed with newer movies is they do a lot more "tell, don't show" than old movies.
  The writing sucks which is why movies seem like stream of consciousness time wasters with no stakes, fake emotions and CGI explosions. When the writers went on a strike in Hollywood I actually laughed. ChatGPT can write better scripts than what Hollywood has been churning out lately.
  It really does feel like movies are dumbing down.
  I think this is a combination of armchair directors in the boardroom trying to actualize their market research and writers actually being less smart and creative. It would explain why everything is a prequel, sequel, soft reboot, universe expansion or some other vehicle for recycled IP.
  
  I think the big reason everything is a reboot these days is that it makes marketing it a lot easier. If you told me there's a new sci fi show coming out I might watch it. But if you told me they rebooted SG1 I'd definitely watch it.

But Lord of the rings is a modern movie?
- Is a movie that came out 23 years ago still modern?
  
  Hey, fuck you
  
  Yes, the word we are searching for is contemporary. Technically all films are modern, but not contemporary. Though modern has expanded definition to include it generally as well but I like to explore language :)
  
  I guess it's time for me to find a nice, cool porch to die under.
  
  I saw it on the classic movie channel yesterday.
  
  We’ve got a turd in the punch bowl
  
  It came out after ~1800, so yes.
- I mean it was filmed 25 years ago, I guess it depends on your definition of 'modern'
  
  Made in the current millennium.
  Oh fuck.
  
  Quarter of a century ago
  
  Can confirm. I was an extra in these movies and now I'm on first name terms with all the local osteopaths.
  
  Filmed 25 years ago
  I don't want to believe this...
- What do you mean? Of course it isn't a modern movie, it was filmed during the Third Age.
- To me, modern says more about the techniques and methods used. In that respect, not much has changed even though 25 years has passed. Even stylistically it is more similar to a current film than one filmed 25 years before its release, i.e. mid 1970s. As someone else said, contemporary is a better word for describing its age than modern.
  
  Tbh you could argue the techniques created for the lotr films set the standard for the current era of filmmaking
- I think by modern, they mean post-2010

good writing. :|
- And good acting.
  
  And good direction.

Howard Shore is the answer
- This is an answer I'm not seeing here enough. The score for LotR just FORCES you to feel the feelings. Don't wanna be happy? Too bad, we're in the Shire bitch.
  
  Don't want to experience evil metalworking industry? Welcome to Orthanc, maggot, we makin' swords today.

Gandalf's actor really helps.
- Sir Ian Mckellen is great, I love that him and Patrick Stewart and good friends as well.
  
  But they're the same guy
- I really liked the part where he went
  Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ia.... YOU SHALL NOT PASS! Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian
  Really spoke to me on an emotional level, you know?

I think the biggest reason is that the actors were allowed to act together. Modern movies use so many digital effects that actors aren't even on set together sometimes. It's hard to have the same emotions looking at a green screen and a guy in a morph suit.
- Just for the first one, right? I remember Ian Mckellen had a breakdown on set because he was sitting in front of the table at Bag End with nothing around him but green screen and was struggling without any other actors.
  
  IIRC that was on the set of one of the Hobbit movies.
  The Lord of the Rings was shot mostly using practical effects.
  
  The first three movies were mostly all filmed at the same time.
  
  That's true, but it was a single scene, not the majority of the movie. Almost every scene with hobbits involved forced perspective.

the problem is that a lot of modern shows/movies spend 2 hours explaining a characters backstory before you give a shit. there’s also a lot of “tell, don’t show” going on
- Execs thinking everyone's as vacant as they are.

Show, don't tell
It works wonders

- Idk about "ample budget". I was watching the director's commentary on the Two Towers and he mentions one week where the studio was trying to decide whether to green light money for the film and Peter Jackson knew that he had nothing to say that would convince them, in fact he thought it would dissuade them because they wouldn't see the benefit on the way he was spending the money. So he went out to a remote location to do the filming for several days intentionally to avoid their phone calls lol. I think that was when they were filming the battle for Helm's Deep. Apparently it worked because after he had the footage from that week to show them, they decided it was good enough to justify the price.

This is how I felt when I tried to watch Rogue One. It's part of one of my favorite franchises yet it is also an entire feature length film without one single character in it who I give a shit about.
It's maddening.
- Rogue One was better than most of the drivel Disney has put out. Thank god there were finally some new characters. anitnal revolves around the same 3 fucking families.
  
  I actually did enjoy Andor a lot. That was why I tried watching Rogue One again, since I thought I might like it better with the added context, but I still just got bored
  
  anitnal
  What was this supposed to say? I can't figure it out.
  
  Moana is also really good
- That's why it was so great. It wasn't about the hero punching people in the face whilst an army of troopers consistently fail to shoot them, or destiny babies failing upwards towards success.
  This was a movie about normal people. Nameless people who were all parts of a whole, an orchestra of concerted effort to overcome the insurmountable. Some of them were in it for the ideal, but most of them were just in it to keep the person next to them alive. No one will sing their praises, and they don't expect anyone to, as none of them expected to see the light of day.
  It was one of the most humanist movies I've seen in a long time, universe be damned.
- Oddly? I gave more of a shit about most of the characters in rogue one than all the characters in the sequels combined.
  
  I wasn't a huge fan of the sequels either lol the first one was ok but after that they were pretty awful. I at least felt like I kind of knew the characters by the end though
- Doesn't help that you know all the characters die in the end

They'd rather have the protagonist run around screaming like a moron for 20 minutes for comedic effect instead instead of putting any effort into developing characters

a lot more care was taken with movie production in general in prior years than now and it shows
- Eh, I think it's more related to survivorship bias of the movies we remember. Most movies from decades ago were utter trash then too, we mostly remember the good ones while most of the rubbish fades away and is forgotten.
  
  While it's definitely a partial survivors bias, I can't really name any recent movies that stand out as timeless classics. Avengers Onfinity War/Endgame was a massive point in time, but hardly something to watch endlessly even now. Star Wars is still clinging to movies made nearly 50 years ago. Spider man had a moment being the first post covid movie, but the film isn't memorable. Kingsman has been a great revival of the spy movie genre, but it's not masterpiece level. You could make a case for The Dark Knight, but it's easily just as memorable due to Ledger's death than the film's quality.

“Modern movies”
- Ancient Roman movies were better. Western society has collapsed.
  
  I prefer clay etchings
  
  They did a damn good job with Spartacus
- They’re all basically just talkies
- "Contemporary" would have been better.

It helps that Sir Ian McKellen is a huge teddy bear with a heart of gold and he would hug anyone that sincerely, whether he knew them or not.

They are the archetypes all other fantasy archetypes are based on. Of course you know them.
- Koala means ‘no drink.

Good acting.

I'd say most of the time it's an age thing the younger we are the easier impressed/amazed we are. growing older makes us sometimes cynical sometimes overloaded with imagery. The more you've seen the harder it gets to be impressed by stuff, cause you have seen so much. And we keep fond memories of the things we liked as kids and teenagers.
- That's also why it feels like the older you are the faster time passes. Life gets monotonous for you so all the days just blend in together and time feels like it's flying. You've seen a lot you've done a lot and stuff just sorta stops being as impressive as it was when you were a child.
  
  Oh yeah, when you're younger there's so many firsts: first day of school, first crush, first kiss, first bf/gf, first dance, etc etc etc... the older you get, the fewer and further these benchmarks get. Still stuff like marriage, kids, career moves, house (lol maybe), but most of the time you grind work and fall deep into a routine.
  Gotta keep shaking it up with travel and trying new things so it's not a hot boring blur. I'm hitting mid 30's but I swear I was mid 20's like a minute ago.

Yeah, we all miss that kind of film-making. LotR trilogy is one of a kind.
- Why don't they make more masterpieces for which so stars happened to align by skill, chance and good fortune?

Well, it's Magic ✨

Watching it with wife and son. Haven’t seen it in 20 years. Read books as kid.
Only 45 minutes in and we could barely make ourselves stop (bed time).
That said, I never bothered to finish the 3rd book and I don’t remember the 3rd movie. Turned into a typical war film/book from what I recall. Little interest to me.
I hope my memory is wrong.
- Your memory is wrong and your username is ostentatious. No-one needs more than four pant.
- Turned into a typical war film/book from what I recall. Little interest to me.
  What? I'm honestly doubting you ever read Tolkien at all.
  
  How DARE you question a 38+ year old vague memory/impression! So offended! 😉