What Modern Day Movies Are Missing

Writing this blog, I’ve begun comparing the pros and cons of movies and books a lot more now. I think that one of the reason we have so few well done, original movies these days is actually a variety of factors coming from Hollywood, the audience, and the need to make money off the movie. To better organize my thoughts, I’ll put this in list form.

1. Time. In books, the author can write a book to be the exact length it needs to be. You can fit in a good introduction, and interesting plot, character development, and interesting supporting characters with their own backstory and motivations. In a movie you have 1.5- 2.5 hours to accomplish everything, plus room for all the action a book may graze over. TV shows often make better forms for adapting books, because the season lengths can vary, but movies can’t be too long or the audience will start to check their phones to see when the movie will be over.
2. Money (and prejudice). Whenever a movie goes into production, the idea of what will sell is prevalent. Often this means doing what has worked in the past, as opposed to trying something new. Already famous (usually white) actors are cast in movies to bring in the fan base, the same token female actress is the love interest, the same token black guy is the villain (or sidekick). Nothing new is brought to the table. Part of this is because of the way writers see the audience. They don’t seem to realise including more female characters doesn’t take away from the male audience, it only gives to the female audience. Including minorities that aren’t there just so that the writers can say they aren’t _____-ist  would bring in audience members that aren’t often catered too. Of course, since the perception that movies with girls are just for girls, but movies with men are for everyone is still maintained by the general population (for example, the term ‘chick flicks’), Hollywood won’t change until it sees an increase in demand. I don’t want to imply white people are uninteresting, but when that is the only story told by movies... it gets boring.
3. Special effects. This is just a pet peeve of mine, but one reason I dislike modern movies is the reliance on CGI. When you watch classics like Jurassic Park, the reason the dinosaurs still look good is because they are puppets. The textures, lighting, physicality... you can tell that that t-rex takes up space. Modern movies are just lazy. There is no need to CGI the set. Using it to create every alien/ monster is unnecessary. Using it so much only means that in ten years everything will look dated and cheesy. Often times it already does. Directors need to tone things down so the animators can make what has to be CGI the most realistic it can possibly be. I know they want to show off their huge budget, but it's better to use that on actually good writers.