10 Great Movies That Inadvertently Ruined Cinema

WhatCulture

And Steven Spielberg is the biggest culprit, apparently.

Transcript

00:00 "Just like if I won a car on a TV game show and then accidentally smashed it into an aquarium,

00:05 sometimes good things can bring about negative consequences."

00:08 This rings true in the world of cinema as well, with films that are praised for innovation

00:12 or success giving birth to a string of copycats which ultimately harms the overall experience.

00:17 It's a weird dynamic, as the films on this list are legitimately great, but have unfortunately

00:22 done more bad than good in the long run.

00:24 With this in mind, I'm Jules for WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Great Movies That Inadvertently

00:29 Ruined Cinema.

00:30 10.

00:31 The Godfather Part 2 Brought About the Use of Numbers to Denote Sequels

00:34 Having a "Part 2" tag on the end of a movie title might seem like something that has been

00:39 around since the dawn of time, but it's a little-known fact that Francis Ford Coppola's

00:42 follow-up to The Godfather was the first movie in history to make blatant use of this subtitle.

00:48 Before Coppola used "Part 2" for The Godfather's sequel, movie sequels tended to have different

00:52 names.

00:53 Once Coppola opted to do it this way, however, a new movie trend was born in that studios

00:57 realized that it was a neat way to market sequels.

00:59 After all, it's a lot easier to cash in by telling people this is the same experience

01:03 as the first one that they enjoyed, which a differently titled movie wouldn't be able

01:06 to do so well.

01:07 The difference was, though, that The Godfather was titled as such because it was an indication

01:11 that you needed to see the first film in order to understand the second.

01:14 Which, as we know today, doesn't exactly mean the same thing now.

01:17 9.

01:18 Jaws Became The First Blockbuster But Inspired Relentless Marketing Tactics

01:23 The success of Jaws is many-fold.

01:25 It's a great film for a start, but one of the reasons that everyone saw it back in the

01:29 day was because instead of being rolled out one territory at a time in the US as was the

01:33 norm, it was released in theaters everywhere on the same day.

01:37 This meant that the marketing budget and exposure people had to these adverts was excessive,

01:42 and as a result, tons of people went to see it.

01:44 This widespread campaigning of adverts was quickly adopted by other studios, and is now

01:48 the reason why every billboard, bus, and electronic service is smeared with film adverts.

01:53 It was always going to be the way that cinema was heading, but Jaws did it first.

01:57 8.

01:58 Heaven's Gate Changed The Way Movies Were Made Forever

02:01 And The Death Of Independent, Auteur-Driven Films

02:03 Heaven's Gate has become something of a fable of cinematic disaster.

02:07 After its budget rose to astronomical levels, and the director became notoriously difficult

02:11 to work with, the film flopped so hard that United Artists actually had to close down.

02:16 Now around this time, there was a boon of independent films financed by big studios,

02:21 the idea being hundreds of small investments to offset the risk of a project failing.

02:25 The issue was that this failure sparked panic within the big boys, and then they pulled

02:29 the funding.

02:30 This led to tighter control of budgets, which are still huge now, but now have much more

02:34 executive meddling than before.

02:36 7.

02:37 Jurassic Park Pretty Much Put An End To The Usage Of Practical

02:40 Effects And Animatronics

02:41 Stan Winston and Phil Tippett were the animatronic experts who worked on Jurassic Park, but neither

02:46 of them had a truly positive experience on set.

02:49 CGI was experimental at this point, but definitely on the rise, and in Jurassic Park it looked

02:55 phenomenal.

02:56 It was still expensive, but could move beyond the scope of animatronics.

02:59 This led Tippett to utter the line, "I've just become extinct."

03:03 And when you look at the landscape of today's cinema, you can see that unfortunately, he

03:06 was right.

03:07 CGI is now standard practice with films, and in fact they go overboard to sell any time

03:12 that they actually have a real thing in real life on a real set.

03:15 How bizarre.

03:16 6.

03:17 Shaky Cam Private Ryan made shaky cam a staple of mainstream

03:20 cinema.

03:21 So the concept of shaky cam is in no way a technique invented by Spielberg, but it was

03:25 one of the first blockbusters to incorporate this method into its shooting.

03:29 Before this point, the wobbly viewpoint was seen as unprofessional, but Spielberg used

03:33 it to great effect to disorientate his audience, especially during the Normandy Beach assault.

03:38 But as with all good examples, there have been countless times where this technique

03:41 has either been misused, or just done to hide shoddy action sequences.

03:45 It's gotten so bad that in some fight or action scenes, it's near impossible to tell what's

03:49 going on.

03:50 What was so immersive in one film is just cutting corners in others.

03:53 5.

03:54 Titanic Brought the Movie Song Back to Popularity

03:57 My Heart Will Go On is one of the biggest-selling singles of all time, and we have one of the

04:02 biggest-grossing films of all time to thank for it.

04:04 For a long time prior to Titanic, the whole "song from the movie" had just died out.

04:09 Yet James Horner convinced James Cameron that a cash cow needed to be milked for all it

04:13 was worth, and that they should pop this track in.

04:15 Thus breathing life back into the whole "movie should have their own song" phenomenon once

04:19 more.

04:20 And for a while, it was okay.

04:21 It was cheesy as hell, but it was just okay.

04:24 And now, it's just really annoying.

04:27 4.

04:28 The Sixth Sense Inspired Endless Left-Field Twist Movies

04:32 M. Night Shyamalan didn't invent the shocking twist with The Sixth Sense, of course, but

04:36 he damn near pioneered it as a marketing technique and selling point for motion pictures in general.

04:41 With The Sixth Sense, audiences were so impressed with the twist that they began clamoring for

04:45 more, and Hollywood obliged.

04:47 Which is to say, in the aftermath, Hollywood began to flood theatres with shocking left-field

04:51 twist movies - motion pictures that would market themselves on being built around twists

04:56 you'd never see coming.

04:57 The problem with this is obvious, with the now-expected twist becoming more and more

05:01 over the top, and declining dramatically in impact.

05:05 3.

05:06 The Original Star Wars Trilogy Implies That All Sequels Have to Have Weird Names

05:10 Earlier in the video, we touched upon The Godfather Part II's distinction of having

05:13 been the first mainstream movie to include "Part II" in its title.

05:16 Though the numbering system is irritating in an "oh my god, it reeks of corporate greed"

05:21 way, it's at least clean.

05:23 But we have the original Star Wars trilogy to thank for an even worse trend - the ever-weirdly-named

05:28 sequels.

05:29 Since The Empire Strikes Back, the movie industry has literally been throwing lame and often

05:32 very arbitrary subtitles onto anything and everything.

05:36 Thor The Dark World?

05:37 G.I.

05:38 Joe Retaliation?

05:39 The Dark Ryan Shadow Recruit?

05:41 What do they even mean?

05:42 Well Hollywood would say "Well, we're being creative, guys!"

05:45 But what it really means to us is… what?

05:48 2.

05:49 Avatar Made 3D Cool Again, But Is Responsible For Increased Ticket Prices

05:54 After several ailing attempts throughout cinematic history to make it relevant, Avatar was the

05:58 first movie that finally made 3D cool in the eyes of the movie-going public.

06:02 James Cameron set out to have the audience feeling like they were right inside the world

06:06 of stupidly-named precious resources.

06:09 And now the achievement stands tall.

06:11 Gravity aside, Avatar is still probably the best and most accomplished 3D film ever.

06:15 However, the films that followed in its wake were… not as well incorporated, and even

06:20 lower-ranked flicks offered 3D as a way to cash in.

06:23 As a result, prices rose to accommodate this new "viewing experience," and viewers were

06:27 subject to films shot in 2D, but awkwardly bumped to 3D in post-production.

06:32 And let's just say, it showed.

06:34 At number one, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 show that you can just

06:37 chop an ending in half.

06:39 If somebody told you that your film would make millions of dollars, you'd be pretty

06:43 happy.

06:44 Now, imagine if that same person told you that you could take your film, split it in

06:47 two, pad out some bits to fill in the runtime, and make double.

06:50 Well, if you have standards, then you'd probably be okay not doing this, but Harry

06:54 Potter proved that splitting your final arc in two really could bring in the muggle money.

06:58 The split arguably was never needed from a storytelling perspective, and encouraged countless

07:03 other titles to follow suit.

07:04 The problem with this, of course, is that moviegoers are now having to fork out twice

07:08 as much to see two parts of a story that only needed one part.

07:11 Twilight and The Hunger Games are guilty of this as well, and while it's so obvious

07:15 what they're doing, they still get millions of people to go in and see it.

07:19 And that's just annoying.

07:21 "Where am I?

07:24 Where am I?

07:27 WHERE AM I?"

07:34 How would you guys like to start a Star Trek channel?

07:36 Have we any idea what came through the rupture before we were able to shut it down?

07:39 We seek new life and new civilisations, but mess with us.

07:44 Real life dolphins that you have seen in a nature documentary, and I have dated at least

07:48 two women with tattoos on.

07:51 "Violence calls for a reason, it's not just because it's fun.

07:54 Whee!

07:55 Right there."

07:56 I'm the wisecracking first officer who kisses hot alien babes first, asks questions later,

08:01 embraces the chief engineer because he makes things work and look nice, Marcus is the captain

08:04 obviously as he's the only one who's verified on Twitter.

08:07 "Brian Blossom!

08:08 Brian Blossom!"

08:09 "I am in fact very much under probation, Sean Ferry."

08:15 As he was deemed to be satanic.

08:17 "Episode 14, Beverly F***ing A Ghost."

08:21 "One hundred key words, get in, this, get in, good."

08:29 "Oh yeah, exactly."

08:32 Which is great, but then her and Zulu end up dead.

08:35 Because that's who you go get sex advice from on the Enterprise.

08:39 This one may lean a little heavy on the conspiracy theory side of things, but they just haven't

08:46 showed it to us yet.

08:47 Terry Farrell grabbed my hand and said how proud that made her, and that is a memory

08:52 I really just wanted to share with everybody today.

08:54 Take a walk with me as we go and do some cetacean observations.

09:01 Hi Dad!

09:03 With that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture, and here are 10 examples of Star

09:08 Trek story arcs you can binge in a day.

09:11 The show is, to quote a famous Trek Culture voice, "piss funny."

09:15 So, so stupid.

09:18 Yeah.

09:19 Wait, what?

09:21 Guys, guys, we're cutting live to Adam Cleary right now.

09:28 Well...

09:30 *clicking noises*

09:33 *ding*

09:37 (bell dings)

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