Since their invention, movies have both created entertainment as well as educated millions of people all over the world. They take the form of anything from short educational clips to two-hour action films, and each movie that we choose to watch has some kind of effect on our everyday lives. However, over the years there has been an obvious decline of the quality of movies despite the technology that has been developed in the film industry. Although technology allows filmmakers to create more realistic movies, it seems that they rely too much on technology to make up the majority of the attraction of the movie. This often leads to a general neglect of a movie's plot or character development in a movie. The plot of a movie is extremely important, as are the characters. Earlier movies are considered classics because of a rich plot and believable characters. Yet, these same movies obviously lack the technology that exists in today's blockbusters. The news regularly reports inflated movie budgets of some of the biggest films that are being worked on or are about to be released. However, it seems almost shameful for a studio to spend almost a quarter of a billion dollars just to create a single movie, and often they have little to show for it besides fancy graphics and a lot of action-packed scenes with no real plot, no believable characters, and to an extent, no "soul" to be found in the production at all. It is interesting to see how quickly they waste money and watch it vanish like a popsicle left in the sun to melt away, and yet movie production companies come away from the table with very little to show for their efforts. Producers, Directors, and more believe that throwing money at a movie project is what makes the movie. They believe that the more they spend in creating a movie, as well as remaking films that people possibly have seen a hundred times before (or at least making films that repeat an overdone plot), will bring a wider audience to the theaters. While movies with huge budgets are impressive on paper, such a train of thought is a sad (and often costly) mistake which can be seen in the number of ticket sales and the reception of the movie among movie critics. What truly makes a good movie is an unique idea for a story plot. True movie making begins with development of an interesting plot with believable characters that the audience can relate to, rather than with the money that you can put into making the movie.
Big budget movies with poor plots and characters are only a part of the overall picture of why modern movies tend to have less quality than classic ones from decades past. Another issue is misuse of sexual content in a movie for the sake of making the movie look "cool" or for advertising through controversy. One popular school of thought in all forms of media is that "sex sells." While for some this may hold true, the idea that sexual scenes in movies can bring in the public is not often true. While it may be true that the sudden view of a sex scene of any kind may make you conveniently pay attention to the movie, if there is no real purpose for the scene, it is still an element that can be done away with. Besides, if the rest of the movie is boring with a poor plot, then the movie still has a poor plot, sexual content or not. In looking back at classic movies, and even television shows from the black and white era, it was rare to find controversial content. The television show I Love Lucy was the first to display an interracial marriage. This show also showed Lucy and Ricky's bedroom on a number of occasions, and in the original episodes, they were shown sleeping in separate beds. They were never shown in the same bed until some years later in the series, years after their child in the show, Little Ricky, was born. It is common in movies from the same era, many of which are considered classics, to underplay or completely avoid the subject of sexuality, or at the very lest to downplay it to a more modest form in the films.
Abuse of mature content in modern movies does not stop with sexual content. A movie centered around revenge can be a satisfying plot for some movies if the hero of the tale has been wronged by another character in the movie, or was placed in some trouble because of them. Still, some movies go completely over the edge when it comes to the level of violence they present on screen. While some degree of violence in movies may be appropriate or even expected, such as in a war movie, some movies do not necessarily need violence, or at least not to the degree it is featured. Violence in movies often does not stop at the idea of a fight scene with a character punching someone in the face, and perhaps showing a little blood as a result. Most modern movies with violent scenes include vast amounts of blood and gore from a single wound, and often include unrealistic (and fairly graphic) deaths. Movies for which such violence is not warranted often suffer from the violence because it detracts from the plot, diverting the audience's attention to the violent scene and not the underlying event or why the event is happening in the movie. Examples of such movies that feature scenes of gratuitous violence include titles such as the Saw series, Kill Bill, and Machine Girl. For Saw, high levels of violence, blood, and gore are understood and expected as it is a horror film. Likewise, Saving Private Ryan is a film based on war, which is by nature bloody and horrible. Kill Bill and Machine Girl, however, simply exist apparently for purpose of displaying violence which does not add much to the plot and could easily be done without. Even The Birds, a classic horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, had violent scenes of birds attacking children on a playground. Yet, this movie had an underlying plot besides showing violence, and these scenes were not used to the point of detracting from the plot. Still, the movies that did have violent themes that succeeded in the box offices were older films such as The Godfather. This movie not only enjoyed initial success in theaters, but generated successful sequels and a number of home releases including modern re-releases on BluRay and DVD. This movie and its sequels were successful, not because of the amount of violence, but because of the detailed storyline behind them. Another example of a successful classic that featured violence but had a relevant plot is d**k Tracy, which was a comic centered on the 1930's gangster plots. The Shadow was yet another 1930's mob story featuring a man with psychic powers who used his abilities to alter the minds of the people around him so that they were not aware of his presence until he was ready to strike his opponent. The movie was based on the radio show of the same name, and the violence displayed in each was carefully selected and shown based on the situation of the plot. The story was held together and was not overshadowed by things like daggers flying through the air at people for no apparent reason. The plot revealed the reason for the violence displayed in the movie, as it is in the previous examples of classic films. This is where classic films tend to succeed while modern films fail due to over-emphasizing the violence in the movie to make the movie appeal to the public, as opposed to emphasizing a good plot and story.
Another detractor of plots in a movie is misuse of history or blatantly incorrect information presented as "fact" in a movie. Using history as a plot is an excellent tool, but stretching the truth of history to attract an audience is sometimes not the best course of action when the exaggerated events in a movie become more important than the true history behind the movie's events, which is the actual plot. A good example of this is the 1997 movie, Titanic, that which took place on the doomed ship of the same name. While the movie used the ship as its setting, the ship's destruction and history of the crash were not emphasized very much at all. Instead, the movie was more of a fictional love story, with the focus of most of the plot on these two fictional characters, presenting only bits and pieces of historical account as the directors and writers thought were necessary to drive the love story of the movie. This could be disappointing to those who went to the movie, originally expecting to see a movie focusing on the fate of the real-life ship and all of its passengers, and instead received this love story with little connection to the real event. New films are not the only ones to overlook true history in favor of fabricating a story around an historical event. Some older movies also overlooked this historical flaw. Still, this stretching of historical context is not quite as harsh as is done in modern movies today. Mary Poppins, for example, is set in England in 1910. In this film, Mr. Banks, played by David Tomlinson, said "Its good to be an Englishmen in 1910" in his introductory song, and in this same song he sang the line "King Edward is on the throne", which actually is a false statement for the movie's time and setting. King Edward was on the throne, but only until May of 1910. After he suffered a series of heart attacks and died, King George, his brother, took the throne. While Disney did not state any particular date in the movie other than 1910, it is still evident in the movie that the season is late spring or early summer. Given this, King Edward would have been on his death bed at that point in the film, and King George would have already assumed power. Still, small oversights such as this do not detract from the overall setting of the movie, and the plot is generally light-hearted enough that an oversight in historical context does not mislead the audience.
Not all modern movies suffer the flaws listed above. Some, such as the original Jurassic Park, are considered modern classics. This movie presented facts (and some interesting theories) about dinosaurs, the way that their bone structure was arranged, and the size of the dinosaur was compared to a human. The movie also showed how dinosaurs might act in the wild. All of these details about dinosaurs are entertaining and educational points of the movie that help to drive the movie's plot along. Without such details, the movie would have lacked some in its plot. Twister is another movie that successfully used details to educate and entertain its audience while tying together the plot. This movie not only taught people how to read weather patterns and about the ranking scale of tornadoes (the Fujita Scale), but it also had a wonderful display of how tornadoes actually act and the force of these storms. In the movie, for example, are scenes of tornadoes picking up parts of a wooden gate that were flung through the air, eventually finding their way into a random victim's chest. Obviously this would be considered a violent scene, but it is essential to the movie's plot to demonstrate just how dangerous a tornado can be in real life. Another memorable scene in the movie shows tornadoes lifting frightened cattle and tossing them through the air. This added a comical effect to the movie, but also demonstrated the true power of a tornado. Of course, even this movie stretches the truth a bit in the number of tornadoes occurring in the movie. Still, this tends not to detract from the plot, and the movie was very popular, drawing in crowd that returned to see the movie several times in a week. It was only a couple of weeks later that the movie was released to VHS, which was surprisingly fast for a theatrical film production. The movie was popular enough to remain in theaters for the next month, and enjoyed success at the box office and in VHS sales. Unfortunately, it's rare to find a modern movie that follows the same production value and quality as these exceptions have, though there are some films that are high in quality.
Of course, it is always up to the viewer to decide what makes a great movie and what does not. Someone might actually like violent themed movies with pointless plots, or huge-budget theatrical productions with outstanding graphical effects and action but little else. It is the individual person's choice as to what they want to see and what they think is a good movie. They are the ones taking the risk when buying the ticket. What truly counts is if they think the movie was worth to sit through the film and if they found enjoyment in the movie. Another telling feature of a good movie is if these same people are later willing to buy it when it is released for home viewing afterward on BluRay, DVD, or as digital downloads or Pay-Per-View. I personally believe that movie quality has declined, despite the drastic jump in technology, for all the reasons mentioned above, but the primary reason for the decline is that it seems like producers and directors have gotten away from the business of making an entertainment plot and instead are just making eye-candy. Movies also influence the youth of today. Some people might disagree with that statement and say that other things have more influence. Even so, it is evident that movies do indeed have an impact somewhere on someones life, even if it is only minor. If that's the case, shouldn't movies have a high quality plot with believable characters that a person can relate to, and perhaps even have a moral or a life lesson to present to its audience? After all, when was the last time that you or a friend experienced originality and performance from a movie?
VampiricRogue Community Member 
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