Blockbusters are ruining the industry (and you're helping)

George Lucas recently said in an interview that studios lack originality while making movies these days. This coming from the man who milked everything out of “Star Wars” for 30 years might seem like the height of irony, but all things considered, he does have a point.

Movies are and always will be about making money. There's no changing that and arguing over it would be useless. But what is worth arguing over is the apparent transformation of movie studio executives into moustache-twirling villains who'd do anything to make a quick buck, and how we fall for it every single time. We now live in an age where a movie called “Thor 5: It's Hammer Time” not only seems plausible, but downright doable.

Looking back two decades at the 90s' box-office charts, only two of the top ten films were sequels. The top ten hosts the likes of “Jurassic Park”, “Forrest Gump” and “Titanic” -- all outstanding classics with very different plots and execution. Now looking at the top domestic grossers of 2014 so far, eight out of the top ten films are sequels. All of them are based on popular comics and YA novels with established and dedicated fanbases that would pay to see their heroes on screen even if I directed the movies. Will they stand the test of time and become classics? Probably not.

So what exactly is wrong with the industry? In the past, studios understood that the artistic vision of directors and screenwriters were important tools in creating good movies and back then, good movies made good money. Now they just don't care. And neither, it seems, does the audience. The studios only see movies as ATM machines and not as an art form, but you can't really blame it all on them. Why should they bother to try and make original movies when people will pay millions to see something with instant recognisability?

My favourite movies to talk about whenever this topic comes up is the “Transformers” series, but not because it's cool to rag on them though. It's because these movies, with every subsequent sequel, find ways to commercialise themselves in ways that are so blatant and idiotic that sometimes it seems almost intentional. You'd think that at one point people would get tired of seeing the same robots tear each other apart in set-piece after set-piece of incoherent metallic carnage, explosions and-wait-for-it BAYHEM. Apparently the general point to remember while viewing them is to “turn off your brain and enjoy”, and stop trying to figure out WHY everyone's hitting each other. We all know who's going to win in the end, don't we?

But criticising the plot (or lack of it) of “Transformers” is easy picking, and just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the movies' shameful materialism. Any self-respecting cash-in movie knows that product placement is a big deal, and the latest “Transformers” has product placement on steroids. Mark Wahlberg crashing into a BudLight™ truck and taking a swig of BudLight™ is about as subtle as it sounds. Recently a Chinese company sued the studio because it didn't show its brand of meat for long enough.

Speaking of China, ever wondered why the entire third act of “Transformers: Age of Extinction” suddenly jumped to China for no apparent reason? It's because China is the second largest box office in the world and all this, along with ten Chinese product placements, were an act to appease the Chinese audiences. Every imaginable thing was done with the intention of making money. And boy did it succeed. This movie made more money in China than in the US and more than $1 billion in total.

And people still ask why good movies are dying out.