new Movies and TV series have no "soul"

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I think it has to do with the general meaning crisis and the fact that the vast majority of people are no longer anchored in any kind of life and worldview that makes meaning central and places psychological/spiritual growth prominently.

I work with a lot of young people and many of them, not all, have been raised by parents who themselves lacked deep meaning in life. these poor kids don't even know what they are missing... they have never known states of being like reverence, the sacred, awe, beauty, honor, humility, self sacrifice, selfless love etc. they don't know these things at all. they have never felt them or experienced them.

social media has also played a major role in the robbing of humanity of meaning.


I think the growing meaning crisis has robbed humans of generational meaning that had always been passed on before generation to generation.

It has almost nothing to do with cinema and I would include music in this too, but is reflected in media like cinema and music. how can a person make great art when the producers and actors etc are largely devoid of the ingredients for great art?

Here is a great introduction to the meaning crisis and how we got here. It's a lecture by cognitive psychologist John vervaeke

 
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F1980 said:
It's been awhile since I've watched a movie that really hits me. What's going on with these new movies and TV shows? They have no soul.
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There are good shows and movies but much less per capita. There is a river of shit you need to wade thru to get the good ones imo.

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Ted Lasso is a show I feel like had tons of heart and character development amd character arcs that were interesting and meaningful.
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Fargo on FX I really enjoyed several seasons (S2, S5, S1 were really good, haven't seen all of them and heard S4 was the weakest)

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a movie I enjoyed that really didn't get much attention was:

"Where The Crawdads Sing"

Daisy Edgar Jones I think is the name of the lead actress and i thought her performance was excellent, she gave nuance and depth to the character, vulnerability and strength to overcome adversity.

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Another one I enjoyed that went largely under the radar:

"The Last Thing He Told Me"
(on Apple Tv)

Jennifer Garner and Angourie Rice gave great performances imo.

Plays with the concepts of

*How well can you ever REALLY know someone?

*What lengths and extremes would a parent go to to protect their children?

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Peteyandjia said:
Watch MR. INBETWEEN on hulu.
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Something about that show is so awesome. Can't quite put my finger on it, I think maybe the naturalness to the dialogue just feels like real people (which is funny because somenof the storylines are completely ridiculous, but yet very easy to "suspend disbelief" and just go for the ride) not the fake movie trope of always having the perfect witty comic replies immediately.
 
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F1980 said:
I'm watching Masters of the Air. It's a limited series by the same people who made Band of Brothers and the Pacific. I'm 2 episodes in and I can't even pay attention to it. It's been awhile since I've watched a movie that really hits me. What's going on with these new movies and TV shows? They have no soul.
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It all sucks bra. Media sucks. People are more inclined to watch 2 hours of tik tok reels than a 2 hour long movie anyway. Wrong era for quality entertainment.
 
My list lately has been (in no particular order, and including some rewatches):

Scrubs
The Middle
Twin Peaks (season 2)
Under Arrest (aka To Protect and Serve)
Reno 911
Roseanne (season 1)
Vikings
Everybody Hates Chris



Meaning to get around to:

Six Feet Under
Columbo
Psyche
Dead Like Me
Only Murders in the Building
Archer
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia


So, yeah ... not a lot of new stuff. Luckily I don't watch TV very often and there is enough out there to keep me busy for years and years.
 
Just weaker storytellers in general and a dilution of talent. A lot of style over substance movies and shows as well that are meant to seem interesting but have little going on under the surface.
I genuinely think the change over to easier to work with digital technology, while making things easier for potential filmmakers to make higher quality looking/sounding content, has allowed in people that would never have made it back in the day in terms of ability. John Carpenter has said many times at USC film school everyone had to know how to do every aspect of filmmaking by the time of graduation: camerawork, negative cutting, picture and sound editing, color timing, etc., and working with the older tech took a lot of time and more skill and knowhow. Even guys that never went to film school and made low budget stuff had to learn all these tricks of the trade on their own and it made the barrier of entry much greater.
Of course we've probably seen people that had the talent that would not have made it back in the day get into the industry- which is a good thing, and we have more content than ever but quality should trump quantity.

I also think this style over substance aspect we have been getting is reflective of how so many people are looking for likes and approval on social media with how they look or some Tiktok or Youtube video or TwitterX or Reddit post, it's all surface shit and very ego driven so movies and shows being all surface shit with no depth of character makes sense.
 
You're also living in a time where access and supply have never been as plentiful and easy. Try not watching any media for a few months and then come back
 
JudoThrowFiasco said:
You're also living in a time where access and supply have never been as plentiful and easy. Try not watching any media for a few months and then come back
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Yeah we're oversaturated with stuff, that we easily become bored with it or find it uninteresting.
 
OP is nonsense. You’re drawing this conclusion by comparing one show to another from 20 years ago made by the same people that are now old as hell.

There’s plenty of great shows out there now. Movies, you might be right about though.
 
Two Crows said:
My list lately has been (in no particular order, and including some rewatches):

Scrubs
The Middle
Twin Peaks (season 2)
Under Arrest (aka To Protect and Serve)
Reno 911
Roseanne (season 1)
Vikings
Everybody Hates Chris



Meaning to get around to:

Six Feet Under
Columbo
Psyche
Dead Like Me
Only Murders in the Building
Archer
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia


So, yeah ... not a lot of new stuff. Luckily I don't watch TV very often and there is enough out there to keep me busy for years and years.
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You haven’t seen it’s always sunny or Archer? ?

Psych is one of my all time favorites, but I’m less surprised that you haven’t seen that. It’s got some of the vibes of scrubs but it’s like 10x better
 
Jesus X said:
The tick had some soul it is an amazon prime show but they fumbled that show by not giving it a 3 and 4th season.
The-Tick-Saison-2-Amazon.jpg
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Yeah that show was super funny. Big disappointment when they cancelled. They cancelled it like right after season 2 came out. It’s like they don’t give these shows any time to catch on
 
There are very few individuals who create now. It's all writers rooms and corporate oversight, so there's nothing truly personal anymore. Anything with a heart is squeezed until it's dry of emotional content.
 
Blayt7hh said:
You haven’t seen it’s always sunny or Archer? ?

Psych is one of my all time favorites, but I’m less surprised that you haven’t seen that. It’s got some of the vibes of scrubs but it’s like 10x better
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I have seen seasons of all three of them.

I sometimes rewatch stuff that I haven't seen in a decade.
 
I think that part of this is because we have so many options that we are kind of burnt out or have a higher expectation. For example, back in the 90s and early 2000s, you worked all day, no real entertainment at work in terms of media. Internet was still in its infancy, before YouTube, you had to download files from Napster or Livewire. That would take time as well.

So you are stuck at work and you only have your imagination. Flip phones were mostly for text messages and camera was crap.

By the time you got home, you were pretty much ready to indulge in any TV show or at least be patient enough to give it a chance to see if it goes anywhere or not.


Of course you had those crappy straight to DVD movies but its true, most stuff is recycled generic plot. Funny thing is, with the rise of social media, dating apps and also COVID, you can make tons of interesting movies with amazing plots.
 
Plissken said:
Just weaker storytellers in general and a dilution of talent. A lot of style over substance movies and shows as well that are meant to seem interesting but have little going on under the surface.
I genuinely think the change over to easier to work with digital technology, while making things easier for potential filmmakers to make higher quality looking/sounding content, has allowed in people that would never have made it back in the day in terms of ability. John Carpenter has said many times at USC film school everyone had to know how to do every aspect of filmmaking by the time of graduation: camerawork, negative cutting, picture and sound editing, color timing, etc., and working with the older tech took a lot of time and more skill and knowhow. Even guys that never went to film school and made low budget stuff had to learn all these tricks of the trade on their own and it made the barrier of entry much greater.
Of course we've probably seen people that had the talent that would not have made it back in the day get into the industry- which is a good thing, and we have more content than ever but quality should trump quantity.

I also think this style over substance aspect we have been getting is reflective of how so many people are looking for likes and approval on social media with how they look or some Tiktok or Youtube video or TwitterX or Reddit post, it's all surface shit and very ego driven so movies and shows being all surface shit with no depth of character makes sense.
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I feel like digital has been a positive for the arthouse scene in that its greatly lowered the cost of making a smaller scale film were film would previously have been one of the biggest costs and limitations. Its become much easier to have an "arthouse career" these days than it was 30 years ago.

The flipside of that is though I think mainstream Hollywood has little space for such people to switch across whilst retaining what make them interesting, much of the time they end up directing some generic action blockbuster.

Higher end shows do definately end up hiding behind slickness for me, to be fair it can definately work, something like The Old Man last year for example but a lot of these slick dramas and thrillers really are pretty generic in terms of story and character. TV in the US I think was in the past somewhere it was possible to build up more interesting offbeat characters and stories, stuff like the X-files of the Supranos.
 
roman510 said:
And then it was Chernobyl, fargo, better call Saul, house of the dragon etc.
So... No
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I never said there wasn't any good shows after True Detective. Reading comprehension bro come on!
 
Blayt7hh said:
OP is nonsense. You’re drawing this conclusion by comparing one show to another from 20 years ago made by the same people that are now old as hell.

There’s plenty of great shows out there now. Movies, you might be right about though.
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"Modern media has no soul, that's why NCIS is still pulling great ratings on streaming."


I wouldn't call NCIS full of soul, but it has been wildly popular with old people for decades. Even as cable was dying, NCIS was still pulling great ratings especially with the over 60 crowd.

I think the reality is that the way streaming is set up now, with back catalogs available to watch on demand, it's easier than ever to watch a classic popular series all over again.

So yes, anything new has to compete for views with the most popular series and films of the last 30 years. And that's fine.


Saw Dune 2 on friday with the family, plenty of soul in that.

Shogun (2024)? Plenty of soul.
 
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