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30 Aspects Of Modern Films That Annoy People The Most, As Shared In This Online Group
Here are some boomer takes for you - in the old days, when the sky was bluer, the water was wetter, and the politicians were more honest, the films were much better as well. Indeed, if we consider the development of cinema from the point of view of the average quibble, then films can be compared to good wine - the older, the better.
It's a funny paradox - twenty years ago, you and I, for instance, heavily criticized Peter Jackson for his adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (by the way, I still wonder, why did they cut Tom Bombadil?), while today the trilogy looks like an absolutely immortal classic. At the time of Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio was "just another handsome guy" - but how happy we were for the Great Leo two decades later when his outstanding Hollywood career was finally crowned with a well-deserved Oscar!
But in fact, there are actually some trends in modern films that infuriate any picky viewer. Yes, from a technical, visual point of view, the films have only gotten better, but everything else... Just agree, there are many points here that can be complained about.
Recently, a thread appeared in the AskReddit community, the topic starter of which asked people just one question: "What annoys you about new movies these days?" As of today, the thread has nearly 5.8K upvotes, and around 8.7K comments, as varied as Eddie Murphy's characters in some of his own films. Acting and sound mixing, plot misses and endless sequels or remakes - in other words, modern Hollywood has left no stone unturned.
The most interesting thing is that another twenty years will pass and we will sing praises to the very films that we criticize with such passion today, but so far Bored Panda has collected for you a selection of the most interesting, unexpected and simply the most popular comments from the original thread. So please feel free to scroll to the very end, and if you don't find something on this list that bugs you personally, just be sure to add it in the comments. Credits.
Post-credits scene. We are almost sure that many claims can be made for the cinema of any era, both justified and not so, but these are all exclusively games of our subconscious. Someday we will talk about this in more detail, but this is a completely different story.
More info: Reddit
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How dark they are. Like literally dark. It's difficult to see what's going on, especially for those of us with vision problems.
Especially when trying to watch it on your TV in the middle of the day with the sunlight glaring across your screen.
The sound mixing. Turn up the volume to hear the dialogue and suddenly you have damaged ear drums because there was an explosion. It's insane. Looking at you Nolan.
Not just movies but TV shows - they take a book that's got great reviews, make a poor job of translating it on screen and then flip the ending so its the opposite of what happened in the book. Proceeds to blame the audience when they pan it for being c**p.
I always thought the problem was not sticking to the heart of the story. You can make changes all you need to if the core of the story is the same. Disney's Mysterious Benedict Society show is amazing...they made a ton on changes on setting and plot, but they kept the 4 main characters consistent and the message consistent.
That instead of actually making gay characters that are legitimately good, and have purpose in the narrative, they just make being gay that character's entire thing. Like: "Hey look at how gay this person is. We aren't homophobic at all" This is gonna sound awful, but no representation is better than s****y representation. Just talk to a gay guy, if you need information. I'm sure you'll get a lot of insight, and it'll make what you're working on even better.
Trailers. They're always about 4 minutes long, give away the entire plot, show all the best scenes and jokes and basically ruin the movie before you've even watched it.
If the whole plot and best bits of the movie fit into a 4 minute trailer, there's something horribly wrong with the movie.
Lack of originality and a reliance on franchises.
That it's somehow seen as avant garde to have your actors mumble. If I can't understand what they are saying I *will* lose interest. Also when an entire movie is too dark to see anything. Sure, there are times it needs to be dark for the plot, the time etc, but if I have to spend the whole flick squinting, I'm not going to enjoy it.
There needs to be a balance of aesthetic and the ability to actually understand what's going on
I miss practical effects and props because it forced people to shoot more in real locations. Kept movies feeling more "real" and grounded even with more fantastical setting. I think alot of 80s 90s movies and a perfect balance of practical and computer effects.
"Strong female character"= Frowny unlikable b***h contrasted with oblivious, stupid and petty men.
The issue is that when writing female leads, you just kinda... can't win. If she's not a "frowny unlikable b*tch", she is "emotional whiny b*tch". Doesn't fail? She's a Mary Sue. Fails more often? She's useless. Is she queer, person of color or any other minority? She's just pandering to the SJWs. In short, no matter what you write, the anti-sjw morons are gonna tear her apart anyway.
Or the 5 minute sex scenes that have nothing to do with anything but happen 5 times a movie.
When they aren’t “new” but an unnecessary sequel to something from 30 years ago, or a sequel to a movie that had a definitive ending and never needed a sequel. I’m looking at you, A Christmas Story Christmas.
For horror and mystery, everything having to be explained.
A movie like the original Alien would be lambasted by online critics if it were released today, for the simple reason that by the end of it you know next to nothing about what happened. What was the creature? What was the derelict? Why did the company want it, really? The movie has stood the test of time precisely because it avoided answering those and other questions.
A lot of movies feel like they were written by a marketing department.
It feels like they got 10 execs in a room and everyone wrote down ideas, characters, plot-points, etc that they know will sell - and then tried to organize them into a narrative structure.
There's no vision. There's no plot progression. Its just one random event next to another random event, and characters delivering s****y one-liners. Like writing madlibs.
Even B-movies from the 80's and 90's have better narrative structure and story-telling than half the new movies out today.
They don't make movies - they make 'content'
Lack of originality
Cant apply this to every new movie but most of them are recycling movies that have been made before.
I am 75 years old, and every almost movie I see I feel like I have seen before even though of course I haven't if it's a new movie. The problem is I've seen the same plots used so many times that nothing seems new today to me.
It’s just Marvel movies. I’m so freaking tired of regurgitated super hero formulas. Please god just give me one morsel more of original story. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once can only go so far.
Several things, really.
There's no Hero's Journey.
No character development that amounts to anything.
Lots of movies go out of their way to not offend the loudest 10% of Twitter trolls.
More and more movies are portraying men as weak, bumbling, incompetent, children.
Fight scenes look like they were shot in an earthquake.
110lb lingerie models with no muscle tone flat-lining a guy that outweighs them by 80lbs like they were Brock Lesnar or Mike Tyson.
"That's NOT how cars work! Like at all!" - me
"That's NOT how physics works!!" - everyone who passed middle school physics
"More and more movies are portraying men as weak, bumbling, incompetent, children." They are? Huh. I guess they don't like it when the tables turn at all. Case in point the very funny Ghostbusters movie. Written by SNL people *just like the original*. Exact same type of humor (less rapey, though) - but nope. We can't have nice things because men can't handle Strong Female Leads.
Most movies are getting watered down for the sake of mass appeal. I get why, but it just sucks
Formulaic plots. Gimme me a movie not afraid to make a dramatic and shocking ending. The film 'The Mist', based on the Stephen King story, had the bravest, and most unexpected ending.
Worst thing is lack of logic/realism. Inconsistencies within the world movie is in. Unrealistic physics. Awful stories, dumbass `funny` scenes that have nothing to do with the story. List goes on forever.
The overreliance on cgi. It just looks too plastic. CGI should be used where it makes sense, not for the whole movie.
Most movies are remakes. We are currently living in a time of close to zero creativity.
Forced diversity when it doesn't even make sense in the movie. I don't mind diversity, but it shouldn't feel out of place in the movie.
And forced diversity.. It's called representation...ugh, I saw some people online being annoying because the Sonic movies have an interacial couple...IT'S NOT FORCED IT MAKES ME AS A BIRACIAL PERSON FEEL SEEN!!!!!!!
Awful lighting, bad color grading, frequency of cuts, and why is every movie f*****g 2 hours and 45 minutes now a days? Make movies an hour and a half again, obviously I know there are exceptions to everything I said, tons of new movies come out every year that kick a*s but the big budget studio features just aren't doing it for me
I like longer movies but only if they use the extra time for a more complex plot. Adding more explosions or sex scenes aren't it
I hate the new Disney films the animated characters made to look half real half not real and they’ve made them look the same, they should make a new movie but in the old style animation like a lady and the tramp animation(without the racism obviously)
2D animation rules. I watched Avatar the Last Airbender for the 1st time in like 2020 and I was deeply saddened they don't make animation like this anymore.
Fight and Action scenes. It took weeks of training back in the days just to get one shot. You cannot fix that with 4 cuts per second. Bad Exampe: Taken 3, Good Example: Creed or John Wick
They're so LONG.
Where are my snappy, well-paced, 90 minute films? Why is everything two and a half hours long now?
Back in the 1960's (give or take a decade) movies were regularly 2.5 to 3 hours long. It was normal to have an intermission. Thinking about "My Fair Lady" and " The Great Escape" specifically but many others as well.
Story lines that are entirely dependent on special effects.
The colour palettes of the nowadays movies. Either they have to be way too colorful which destroys the atmosphere of the movie's plot (sometimes improves it too ngl but that's just a small fraction) or maybe just way too dark which sometimes is just hard to watch and make out what's happening with the scene itself.
Perfect example being most of the nowadays Netflix shows and movies, you won't make half of the scenes until the brightness is throttled all the way up to sun in your monitor. Lazy acting on their behalf for sure.
You can cover up a lot of issues with half ässed scenography by keeping the light low
2 things for me
1) Blatant trend hopping. It’s barely even been a year of the multiverse trend and I’m already so tired of it, and how many “Look guys, it’s a children’s property but it’s a slasher and has gore, isn’t that shocking and subversive????” have cropped up lately? It’s just annoying and unoriginal.
2) How American remakes/releases of foreign/international films soften all the edges and hate dark/morally ambiguous endings, i.e., Insomnia, The Descent, Oldboy, etc.
I'm tired of Disney just doing live action remakes of their classic stories instead of new stories! While everyone involved in making the live action remakes did a great job and I'm sure "The Little Mermaid" (next remake coming out I think?) will be fantastic, but I really miss NEW movies (both animated and live action) from Disney to share with the young (and some maybe not so young) loved ones.
I don't mind the remake of the classics if they fix the messed up bits in the classics! Like Ariel giving up her entire world for a guy she saw ONCE. Sure, wanting to explore and all but if he doesn't love you, you die/become my slave!
Load More Replies...Bad dubbing/voice acting. I might cancel a otherwise good movie if the voices seem wrong.
Bad dubbing is sooo off putting. I walk out and ask for a refund.
Load More Replies...I can't do movie discussions in most online spaces anymore because they've gotten so toxic. And a lot of people seem to confuse personal preferences with valid criticism. Film literally started as a short spectacle for entertainment. It was about visual effects, vignettes of life and humor, and occasionally the fantastical. It was not originally about complex long narratives. 4 of the original 5 movie studios didn't survive past the early days because they refused to invest in long narrative films assuming audiences would never sit that long. Cinema continues to evolve and there are certainly movies that are more meaningful but the idea that we've left the good days of cinema behind is kind of silly. From its very inception it's been about entertainment. Demand has always left certain film industry people who couldn't acclimate behind. There are still fantastic original movies being put out along with all of the sequels and franchises. Sure the MCU is tiring for a lot of people but
it's also popular for a reason and somewhat analogous to the glut of Westerns during different periods in Hollywood. Idk. Film criticisms is so weird right now between the very real review bombing phenomenon and the interesting divide that seems to be growing between critics and the audience, it's a very conflict fueled time to want to enjoy a movie. ETA: this is all about American film. The French were really the world leaders of film until WWI broke out and harmed the industry.
Load More Replies...I'm tired of Disney just doing live action remakes of their classic stories instead of new stories! While everyone involved in making the live action remakes did a great job and I'm sure "The Little Mermaid" (next remake coming out I think?) will be fantastic, but I really miss NEW movies (both animated and live action) from Disney to share with the young (and some maybe not so young) loved ones.
I don't mind the remake of the classics if they fix the messed up bits in the classics! Like Ariel giving up her entire world for a guy she saw ONCE. Sure, wanting to explore and all but if he doesn't love you, you die/become my slave!
Load More Replies...Bad dubbing/voice acting. I might cancel a otherwise good movie if the voices seem wrong.
Bad dubbing is sooo off putting. I walk out and ask for a refund.
Load More Replies...I can't do movie discussions in most online spaces anymore because they've gotten so toxic. And a lot of people seem to confuse personal preferences with valid criticism. Film literally started as a short spectacle for entertainment. It was about visual effects, vignettes of life and humor, and occasionally the fantastical. It was not originally about complex long narratives. 4 of the original 5 movie studios didn't survive past the early days because they refused to invest in long narrative films assuming audiences would never sit that long. Cinema continues to evolve and there are certainly movies that are more meaningful but the idea that we've left the good days of cinema behind is kind of silly. From its very inception it's been about entertainment. Demand has always left certain film industry people who couldn't acclimate behind. There are still fantastic original movies being put out along with all of the sequels and franchises. Sure the MCU is tiring for a lot of people but
it's also popular for a reason and somewhat analogous to the glut of Westerns during different periods in Hollywood. Idk. Film criticisms is so weird right now between the very real review bombing phenomenon and the interesting divide that seems to be growing between critics and the audience, it's a very conflict fueled time to want to enjoy a movie. ETA: this is all about American film. The French were really the world leaders of film until WWI broke out and harmed the industry.
Load More Replies...