Creation for the Sake of Consumption

So many things feel empty

Star Wars, written and directed by George Lucas

When it comes to movies, I understand there needs to be a merging of art and commerce. I’m trying to make a living of writing and filmmaking, after all. I just wish the pursuit of profit and sustaining it came with a desire to create something meaningful and worthwhile.

I’m not saying it should all be art. I love Star Wars as much as I love Wong Kar-wai’s films. They’re two very different things, but I can see the need for both of them. They each have a purpose. They each get the heart beating, but in different ways. One makes you feel your pulse through your entire body, that throbbing as if you were sitting on a subwoofer, the other reminds you that your heart is both a physical and spiritual entity.

Star Wars in as interesting case study in this regard. It’s so entrenched in our daily lives, in the pop culture zeitgeist, that many of us forget it was once an original IP. Before the sequels, the prequels, more sequels, and the television spin-offs, it was a concept like nothing most audiences had ever seen. George Lucas combined all the things he loved as a boy to make something that felt fresh and, with Spielberg’s Jaws, reinvigorated the moviegoing experience at a time when audiences were disillusioned with an onslaught of derivative Westerns.

Sound familiar?

But what’s interesting is, even though Star Wars ushered in a new kind of cinema - the summer blockbuster - and was an original idea, it also arguably created the situation we’re in now.

A screenshot from Chungking Express, written and directed by Wong Kar-wai

Studios are driven to get as much money as they can out of a concept. They’re compelled to greenlight what can guarantee a return on their investment, which, these days is established IP that already has an audience, superhero films and book adaptations, and those come with a price tag. Again, this all makes sense given how expensive it is to make these films and how much work and advertising is needed to get butts in seats.

I just wish there some interest in making the stories worthwhile.

You’ll have to excuse my generalizations. I’ve enjoyed many superhero films. They have their place, too and, honestly, I find the debate about them pretty boring and unnecessarily scandalized. All I’m saying is it feels like there’s a substantial amount of entertainment these days that’s been made just for the sake of profit. Not only is a lot of it derivative, but even worse, it feels redundant. Both the studios and the streamers are guilty of this. It feels like less and less time has been taken to get the stories right. This was true even before the streamers. A movie like Sinners shouldn’t be a rarity, but alas, it is.

YouTube has made us complacent. They might be the worst offender. Of course, there are filmmakers and creators there who work hard to make something special, but content creators (a term which I abhor) are doing everything they can to create the antithesis of something special - content. Stuff to generate clicks, to be stuffed like a turkey with advertisements, and all so they can make a profit. It’s pure junk food, both for the mind and the soul, empty calories devoid of nutrients. They have no choice but to keep creating to survive. There’s little to no time to make something worthwhile. They have to churn it out on a factory line because there’s an insatiable demand.

It’s no surprise many of them burn out. As the years ago by, and as they get older, they’re faced with the idea that all they’ve made is a Big Mac. I’d get existential, too. But because YouTube and TikTok are keeping us at home, it’s changed the way Hollywood is making films. They feel like they have to keep up, to make their own factory line for fear we’ll lose interest. But it’s created a torrent of mediocrity that’s turned many of us away from going to the theater in the first place, especially when tickets are so expensive.

Audiences waiting in line to see Star Wars, Vancouver 1977

Is it too much to ask for some pursuit of quality in the things we create? I’m not seeking perfection, but I’m sick of sitting down to watch something and feeling nothing. So many movies leave an absence in their wake. Of joy, or hate, or fear, or anything. I just want to feel something. It doesn’t need to be profound or earth-shattering, it doesn’t need to change the way I see cinema and the format.

It just has to do something. Anything. It can’t just be a vehicle for profit. So much of what’s being made today is made for the sake of being made. It’s thrown together and rushed for a release date that was announced two years too soon, to fill a quota, to comfort the board at the quarterly shareholders meeting.

Just get the story right. That’s all I ask. Give the writers time to iron out the kinks. People might balk when something gets delayed, but they also can’t stop talking about it if it’s good. We’re all just looking for something to help us catch our breath, to give us a moment to pause and forget about the things we’re dealing with or to give us some context for the things we’re going through. We’re putting our limited time aside. And nothing feels worse than feeling like we did it for nothing.

See you next week,
Keith