You are here: Home » Culture

Lack of plot leads to success for Hollywood

By Gaveliers, The Gavel Media Team, on December 7, 2009 7:07 PM

By Dan Monan, Assoc. Culture Editor -
Financial and critical success have always had a somewhat tenuous relationship in Hollywood, yet in recent years, this gap has only grown wider.

Director Michael Bay (Transformers, Transformers II) recently released an interview in which he discussed his approach to directing. According to Bay, films such as Transformers II do not necessarily require a script before planning begins. Instead, concept art and action scenes are drawn up, and months later, a script is strung together from the pieces. While this would seem to account for the almost universally negative critical reviews Transformers II received, it hardly explains the over $400,000,000 in box office profits it garnered.

The question must be asked, why is it that each year millions of Americans clamor to see spectacle films, only to pause midway through, still uncertain of the main characters’ names?

An expanding disconnect exists between Hollywood films’ apparent quality — as determined by professional critics — and monetary earnings. As movie budgets spiral into the hundreds of millions of dollars, directors appear content with relying on special effects and other filler to distract audiences from the void left by the absence of plot and character. Many of the most successful releases of the last few years exhausted their budgets on massive destruction and computer generated effects — the plot forsaken in favor of a fireworks display of flashing lights — apparently satisfying some innate human urge to watch the world end. A new genre has arisen, humorously christened “destruction porn” by TV host Stephan Colbert, a name that appears to be sticking.

2012, the recent release by director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) follows this trend; boldly pushing the boundaries of just how far plot and character can be ignored in favor of scenes of apocalyptic destruction. Fearlessly making use of every tired action trope and cliché Hollywood has to offer, 2012 is little more than a two-hour kaleidoscope of fire and brimstone. If box office attendance is taken as a sign of success, 2012 is certainly that. Grossing over $450,000,000 worldwide already, the people appear to have spoken — yet critically, the film was denounced for its weak script and clichéd themes. Are movie audiences becoming less picky, or are critics simply missing the point?

“If you really want to see stuff blown up without any specific plot or semblance of acting, these movies are great. They hit the ‘So bad it’s good’ category,” says Staff Sheehan, A&S ’11.

This sentiment seems to be shared by many BC students and the American population in general, and might go a long way towards explaining recent trends in movie attendance. It seems many moviegoers are fully aware of the faults in the movies they watch, and embrace them despite and even because of those problems. Viewed from this perspective, the overinflated productions of Hollywood suddenly take on an almost humorous tone. Flying in the face of economic downturn and global insecurity, the profits of these epics of destruction continue to rise.

Despite the humor some seem to find in these movies —regardless of any shortcomings in their construction — a dark undertone exists behind this recent obsession. The entertainment industry has always been a reflection of the psyche of the people, with a film’s success often dictated as much by the current attitudes of the population as the objective quality of the film itself. Movies have always largely been about escapism, and it now seems that America’s audiences are craving stories of chaos and destruction that can be easily disregarded, even mocked.

Juxtaposed with the national and international developments of the past decade, it is possible that a war-weary and financially stressed audience is looking for images of destruction that do not immediately provoke disgust and outrage. Each day, the news brings more ill tidings and foreboding commentary from places both far off — such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — and along the proverbial “main street” of America. With closing businesses and lost jobs coupled with environmental threats such as global warming and the diminishing oil supply, at times it seems the world is ending. It is understandable that people might react by searching for an apocalypse at which they can laugh.

Mirroring this trend is the recent success of the new superhero genre. Superhero comics originally rose to prominence during the Second World War — with one prewar comic featuring Superman flying to Germany, grabbing Hitler, and carrying him away. It seems that once again, people are looking for superhuman figures who can singlehandedly solve immense problems.

The classic Hollywood theme of averting destruction with only seconds to spare has been replaced with a survivor’s tale of flight from inescapable disaster. A definite shift occurred at the beginning of the decade: films such as the first two Terminator movies from the late ’80s and early ’90s held out a semblance of hope, while the two recent sequels embraced the end. The list of recent films which follow this theme is almost too long to list, and not all of these films can be so easily treated as humorous escapism. Another selection of films, such as the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, offer bleak glimpses into a destroyed world, from which little hope or humor can be extracted.

Hollywood is first and foremost a business, and it will continue to cater to the desires of the audiences. Whatever the reason behind the recent deluge of disaster flicks, the one thing that critics cannot deny is these movies’ financial success. If nothing else, it is certain that more of these can be expected in the future, until the tastes of theater-goers change.