Dear Hollywood,
I, as well as 300 million other Americans, have been wondering something over the past several years (or more). We have been cautiously optimistic, waiting patiently for the return of great Summer blockbuster films. But it seems that our waiting has been in vain.
Finding films worth seeing in the theater has been in a rather slow decline over the past two-and-a-half decades. At least 20-25 years ago we had Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Narnia series, Sony’s fairly decent Marvel films–and even though they weren’t up to par, the early 2000s brought us George Lucas’ personal vision of his Skywalker saga (who would have thought we would pine for those days?).
Speaking of Lucas and Marvel, up until recently, Disney was releasing great films in the MCU; and with the announcement of their acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, fans were anticipating Star Wars films to surpass George Lucas’ prequel efforts. But now, both franchises have flopped, and it makes us scratch our heads and wonder why. Afterall, they started out fine. Superheroes and Star Wars would have been the primary inspiration for today’s Lucasfilm and MCU writers and directors to have become Lucasfilm and MCU writers and directors–am I right?
So when, where how and why did the ball drop? The previous generation of filmmakers were inspired by the excellence of their predecessors such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. Lucas has said in many interviews that the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series were influenced by the sci-fi and action/adventure serial films of his childhood. Those Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials inspired him to recreate that Saturday matinee fun, but on a grand-scale that no one had ever seen or imagined before (which in turn inspired the 70s remakes–as well as Star Trek). The same goes for the Lucas/Spielberg collaboration on the Indiana Jones series. The Christopher Reeve Superman movies are another great example.
According to a recent article in Far Out Magazine, Spielberg told NPR. “My film school was really the cultural heritage of Hollywood and international filmmaking because there’s no better teacher than Lubitsch or Hitchcock or Kurosawa or Kubrick or Ford or William Wyler or Billy Wilder or Clarence Brown. I mean, Val Lewton. I mean, those are my teachers.”
In addition to his directing, Spielberg is also a talented writer–having had a pen in hand for many of the films he directed–and even ones he didn’t. For example, I had just recently watched Poltergeist for the first time in 40 years, and it still holds up as one of the most well-written horror films of the past 50 years. Although Spielberg did not direct that film, it was one of many great films in which he co-wrote and produced. Others that he produced (through Amblin Entertainment) include, The Mask of Zorro, Men In Black, Twister, Gremlins, the Back to the Future trilogy, Goonies and plenty more.
But let us also not forget Spielberg’s aforementioned great directors and great films from the Golden Age of Cinema that this writer is still discovering. There is almost an endless supply of great films from 1930-1970 that has unfortunately been nearly forgotten, that literally remains to be seen. But is great cinema all in the past? There should still be a bright future ahead. Afterall, these great dramas, comedies and westerns of yesteryear should still be an inspiration to today’s filmmakers.
So on behalf of moviegoers everywhere, I ask again, how is it that today’s writers and directors have not taken copious notes, examined, replicated and even exceeded what those Golden-Age directors, plus Hollywood’s New Wave of directors such as Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese, Coppola, Kubrick, Hughes and Zemeckis have done? How is it possible that today’s moviemakers–who grew up in what is the most imaginative era of filmmaking–have not taken on the mantle and carried the sacred torch of their predecessors?
Is it because there is nothing more imaginative left? Have they (their forerunners) done it all? Maybe when it comes to special effects and grand-scale production, yes. With Lucas’ ILM, there’s hardly anything yet to be done–except tweak the technology. But what about writing and imagination? What about just having fun? Why is it that the best we get now is nostalgia through reboots and sequels? Not that it wasn’t a trend in the 90s too, but I had thought we had gotten past that when the 90s ended.
Perhaps the answer lies in film schools. Let’s face it, the same professors that were once there 60 years ago are no longer teaching–if alive anymore. Has the quality of film schools drastically plunged over the past 50 years? I don’t know. But it seems as if the quality of what is coming out of those schools certainly is–at least in the writing and tone of modern day films.
Even the best films of late don’t have that upbeat, enjoyable tone anymore. Take the Star Trek reboots for example. As excellent as they are, the characters don’t have character. They were rather dry compared to the jocular bantering of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in the original series. The same goes for the latest Ghostbusters films. They’re good, but only kind-of comedies.
That’s not to dismiss Spielberg and Lucas’ own occasional writing flops, but at least they still had a certain spirit to their writing and filmmaking. It seemed as if it was almost a rule that films were fun, uplifting and make-you-feel-good (remember the Rocky and Karate Kid films?). No matter what genre of film it was, nearly every movie had humor. Even dramas such as The Breakfast Club had its moments of brevity and spunk. Prior to 2010, there were movies that you wanted–and just couldn’t wait–to go see. Summer blockbuster season in the latter quarter of the 20th Century used to mean something. Heck, sometimes I’d go to more than one movie in a day; or see the same movie twice in a row; or come back and see the same film later on with other friends and family who hadn’t seen it yet three or four times in one summer.
Where have those days gone? Why is there no great anticipation for Summer films anymore? Why is there no joy in movies anymore? Is it because there is no joy in the ones producing films anymore? That very well might be the answer.
As the Statler Brothers once sang, “whatever happened to Randolph Scott has happened to the industry.” That was 50 years ago. Movies came back with a bang after that was written, and let’s hope it does so again.
A Closer Look 
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