Once again we'll be extending our warmest welcome to WordMaster, who this time will be sharing her thoughts on the Academy, Oscars, and the hype that originality gets. Enjoy.
In the world of film buffs, there are two universally acknowledged truths: first, that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is narrow-minded, self-satisfied and woefully out-of-touch with reality; and second, that Hollywood has long since run out of original ideas and now exists only to churn out endless sequels, prequels, remakes and other disposable, mass-marketed drivel until society collapses under the weight of its own laziness. In short, film buffs are cynical as fuck.
When Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon (the third movie of a franchise based on a toy) becomes the fourth highest grossing movie of all-time, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close garners an Oscar nomination for Best Picture despite boasting a whopping 46% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s hard not to feel a little disenchanted. 2011 featured 27 sequels, skyrocketing past the previous record (24) set in 2003, and nine of the top ten highest-grossing movies last year contained either a number or a colon in their titles. Even the only non-sequel member of that club, Thor, is technically the fourth entry in Marvel’s ridiculously lucrative series of superhero extravaganzas set to (finally!) culminate in 2012’s Joss Whedon-helmed The Avengers, which, depending on who you ask, represents either a tidal wave of awesomeness so powerful its mere existence amidst the ranks of mortals is bound to unleash upon humanity the cinematic equivalent of a nuclear holocaust, or the bloated, overhyped personification of everything wrong with modern Hollywood (Spoiler alert: it’s the first one). Compare that to 2000, when only one sequel (Mission: Impossible II) made it into the top 10, or 1998, in which not a single one of the ten highest-grossing movies of the year was a sequel, and the ultimate box office champion was Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, a multiple Oscar-winning drama about WWII.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be yet another one of those sanctimonious rants about the degeneration of creativity and artistic freedom in Hollywood, though the fact that in the next three months, we will be getting a movie adaptation of a fucking board game is enough cause for a ten-page long tirade.
Seriously, people. It's happening.
With all this hullabaloo about sequels, remakes, prequels, reboots, sequels-to-remakes-of-reboots, etc., I feel as though people have forgotten to ask an important question: How much does originality actually matter? I’m not saying Hollywood should abandon all attempts at innovation (God, no), and now more than ever, it’s vital for filmmakers and the public to prove they care more about story and characters than brand name, but in the war against creative apathy, people have made originality seem like the be-all and end-all of good movies. Truth be told, it isn’t. Originality is important, but not all-important. To return to the earlier examples of box office returns, yes, in 2000, only one sequel made it into the top 10, but the highest-grossing movie of the year was Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which received a less-than-stellar 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. Also, the movie that made the most amount of money in 1998, after Saving Private Ryan, was Michael Bay’s end-of-world disaster flick Armageddon, a slice of blockbuster bombast arguably just as preposterous and inane as Transformers (albeit with at least a semblance of a heart, even if that heart is wrapped in ten tons of explosives) and a nominee for multiple Razzies, including Worst Movie of the Year. Frankly, I’d rather see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 at the top of the list than Armageddon.
A few days ago, I came across an article on EW.com by Adam B. Vary arguing that Super 8, J.J. Abrams’ June 2011 ode to 1970s science-fiction movies, deserved Oscar recognition (in case anyone bothered wondering, Super 8, along with several other genre movies, including Hanna, X-Men: First Class, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, got completely ignored by the Academy, scoring not even a nod for Visual Effects or Sound Mixing/Editing). As anyone who knows me can attest, I adored this movie, so naturally, I agree with Vary’s article 100%. However, as much as I would love to ramble on about why I think Super 8 is an amazing movie that should be admired for years to come and why the recent trend of dismissing genre film as frivolous escapism is condescending bullshit, that is for another time. I want to discuss not the article itself but the comments attached to it, many of which said something along the lines of the following:
- “I would hardly consider this movie Oscar worthy. It was technically proficient but highly derivative. It will probably be rediscovered on multiple repeats as a pleasant story to while away a Saturday afternoon, but nothing more. It had nothing new to say and was easily forgettable.”
- “Far too dependent upon all the films it borrows from, Super 8 brought very little new to the party.”
Any frequent Internet user is well aware that most people that use the Internet (this statement could be applied to the entire world, really, but it’s especially true on the Internet) are dicks, and the sooner you get used to this fact and stop letting every little “Fuck you” or “Your taste sucks” get the best of you, the better. I think I’ve gotten reasonably immune to Internet dickishness, but that doesn’t prevent me from occasionally wanting to explode with righteous (if irrational) anger, particularly if the thing being insulted is a movie I happen to like a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I accept the fact that these are opinions, and while I sometimes wish everyone had the same taste as me, I’m not going to point fingers (though I’m confident that the Internet would be a much better place if people stopped acting like their personal opinions are facts agreed upon by everyone).
The thing is, I feel more and more that the “it’s not original” complaint is a flimsy one at best. What does it mean to be “original” anyway? Fundamentally, it implies that the plot or concept of a movie is something that no one has ever thought of before, but in this day and age, after hundreds of years of storytelling, there is virtually nothing that meets those qualifications. To quote the Narrator from Fight Club, everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. That’s not to say that there aren’t any fresh ideas floating out there, but for the most part, they succeed because of competent execution, not ingenuity, because pretty much every conceivable plot structure has been used before, and film-makers all depend on their influences to some degree. Even Inception, a movie that has been widely celebrated for its ambition, was greeted by an ample amount of complaints about its similarities to other films such as The Matrix and James Bond, and the romance between Cobb and Mal was weirdly reminiscent of the one between Teddy and Dolores in Shutter Island (also released in 2010 and, coincidentally, starring Leonardo DiCaprio). Still, although the resemblances are indisputable, that doesn’t change the fact that Inception is one of the most imaginative, daring, memorable and outright thrilling movies of the past decade (IMO, of course), and I would have killed for the chance to come up with a story as awe-inspiring as Nolan’s, which, by the way, he first thought of in the 1990s long before The Matrix was even a thing.
Why can't I extract your dreams, you brilliant son of a bitch?
In fact, a great deal of classics can be reduced to a not-so-original plotline – Citizen Kane is about a man rising to power and then losing it; Casablanca is about a love triangle; Gone with the Wind is a sweeping, romantic melodrama set against the backdrop of the Civil War; The Godfather is a mob movie; Jaws is a monster movie; Raging Bull is a true-story boxing film; and so on – but that doesn’t make them any less exceptional or noteworthy. More recently, yes, we have Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves and The Last Samurai, but Avatar provided audiences something none of those three movies (and numerous others) had, regardless of the film’s arguable quality as a whole: pure, exhilarating, once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. And that’s why it’s the highest-grossing movie in the history of movies – well, that plus the 3D and IMAX. The Social Network is superficially Citizen Kane for the Internet age, but it’s so witty, so subtly acted and quietly mesmerizing that it hardly matters. The Artist may not have the most innovative plot, but it does have bottomless buckets of charm, a gimmick that actually matters to and enhances the story and a dog named Uggie. It’s not about what you do; it’s about how you do it.
All of this is to say, I’d be perfectly fine if Hollywood only produced sequels and remakes if they were all as good as The Dark Knight or The Departed, and besides, for as long as there are movies and people to make them, there are going to be inspired, thought-provoking ideas, though hopefully, they won’t all be confined to art house cinemas. Super 8 was a smart, entertaining, heartrending and all-around delightful experience for me, not to mention the rare summer tent-pole that cares more about its characters than CGI explosions, so in the end, I don’t give a shit if it is a little too evocative of E.T.-meets-Stand By Me or if it doesn’t “bring anything new to the party”. A good movie is a good movie, and not all movies have to be groundbreaking or revolutionary in order to be remembered or appreciated.
As C.S. Lewis said, “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
Picture References:
Battleship: http://teaser-trailer.com/movie/battleship/
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