I recently learned that there’s a rumor that the last third or so of Assassin’s Creed: Origins was actually re-written without the input of the lead writer of the series, and that is both not that much of a surprise, and also very upsetting! Because this means that the writing of the game could have actually been good, and tied into the rest of the series.
At least we have Odyssey. Which doesn’t fix the problems Origins made, but it is very good.
Here’s an essay about why I’ve been watching more Netflix.
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I’m Worn Out on Movies
So I think some time last year I did an essay explaining that I’m getting a bit tired of superhero films. And that still kind of holds. But right now I’m just sort of worn out on big blockbuster movies in general. I’ve seen a couple of posts on Tumblr echoing this statement bouncing around, but I thought I’d give my take on it.
I used to be really good at keeping track of what movies were coming out when. After college I started noticing that I sort of lost the knack over time; I suspect it was a heapload of depression that contributed to that. But this year it’s downright terrible, as I feel like every weekend I’m being blindsided by every new release. It’s like there’s a massive movie (or a movie that the attached studio is hoping will be massive) coming out every weekend, and I don’t have time to keep up.
What really sucks is that theaters can’t really keep up either. Now if it’s not a big blockbuster that’s earning tons of cash it doesn’t stay at the box office for much more than a week. Which I don’t blame theaters for this, because they’re running a business, and if a movie isn’t making them money then they shouldn’t be forced to keep showing them. But it frustrates me because I’m not someone who feels like he needs to see movies on opening weekend, and yet now a lot of movies I feel as if I have to if I want to see them at all.
I knew Avengers: Endgame was going to be in theaters for a while, so I didn’t rush to go see that. I thought to myself one weekend, a couple of weeks after the new Hellboy had come out, “Hey, I guess I’ll go see it since it’s not doing so well the theater for that film won’t be packed.” So I looked at the theater’s website to discover that no theater in town, or anywhere near town, was still playing Hellboy.
This wasn’t a huge disappointment, mind you, considering that it had gotten a pretty big critical thrashing. I don’t put all my stock on reviews, but reading through the reviews I did see, it looked as if all the problems I was worried the film would have from watching the trailers were there. I wanted to see for myself to make judgments (and I had enough points on my Regal Card for a free movie anyhow). But that wasn’t going to happen soon if it was out of theaters.
“Well alright then,” I said to myself. “I’ll go and see another movie that I’m interested in, Missing Link from Laika Studios.” Except guess what! It turns out that Missing Link was another film that was no longer in theaters. Which was a shame because this one actually got good reviews, and Laika has always done really stunning stop-motion animation films. This shouldn’t have been a huge surprise either; I had no idea when it was released in the first place, and despite being critical darlings and fan favorites, the Laika films had never actually been very good at making money.
But surprise or not, the point was that it had gotten to the point that if I wanted to see a movie at all, it had to be one of the big blockbusters. And I didn’t want to do that. And now I’m finding myself just not caring about movies coming out which makes me sad because I feel like that hipster in one of my classes in undergrad who was like “I don’t really watch movies anymore, because none of them are good.” You know what tone of voice with which read that verbatim quote in your head. It’s obnoxious.
And it doesn’t help that so much of it is the same studio! Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Disney are basically owning the majority of the film industry by releasing more big budget films than any other studio. It’s weird because I encounter people saying they don’t go to the movies anymore except to see Marvel films as if that’s a completely normal thing, to have that sort of brand loyalty to a movie franchise. Nowadays there are a couple I’m excited for, but at this point it’s more like it’s an obligation, like if I miss out on what happened I’ll be out of the cultural loop and won’t understand conversations with people.
And out of Disney’s big films being released this year, three of them are remakes: Dumbo, Aladdin and The Lion King are all coming out over the course of five months; there’s hardly enough time for any of them to breathe!
I missed when I wasn’t being inundated with big movies all of the time! I missed when there were movies I saw because I wanted to see them, not because they were part of a cultural movement and there’s some sort of obligation to see it to understand a later movie that I might like later on. I want to get excited for movies just on their own merits and ads. I don’t want to be exhausted by this anymore.
I want to stop feeling like every movie is a cultural event. I just want to have fun at the movies every now and then.
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