10 Great Movies That Inadvertently Ruined Cinema

WhatCulture

And Steven Spielberg is the biggest culprit, apparently.

Transcript

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

00:04aquarium, sometimes good things can bring about negative consequences.

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

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

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

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

00:24With this in mind, I'm Jules for WhatCulture.com and these are 10 great movies that inadvertently

00:29ruin cinema.

00:30Number 10.

00:31The Godfather Part II brought about the use of numbers to denote sequels.

00:35Having a Part II tag on the end of a movie title might seem like something that has been

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

00:43to The Godfather was the first movie in history to make blatant use of this subtitle.

00:48Before Coppola used Part II for the Godfather sequel, movie sequels tended to have different

00:52names.

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

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

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

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

01:06to do so well.

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

01:11that you needed to see the first film in order to understand the second, which, as we

01:15know today, doesn't exactly mean the same thing now.

01:18Number 9.

01:19Jaws became the first blockbuster but inspired relentless marketing tactics.

01:23The success of Jaws is many-fold, it's a great film for a start, but one of the reasons

01:27that everyone saw it back in the day was because instead of being rolled out one territory at

01:32a time in the US as was the norm, it was released in theaters everywhere on the same day.

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

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

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

01:49why every billboard, bus, and electronic service is smeared with film adverts.

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

01:57Number 8.

01:58Heaven's Gate changed the way that movies were made forever and the death of independent

02:02auteur-driven films.

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

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

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

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

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

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

02:29funding.

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

02:34executive meddling than before.

02:36Number 7.

02:37Jurassic Park pretty much put an end to the usage of practical effects and animatronics.

02:41Stan Winston and Phil Tippett were the animatronic experts who worked on Jurassic Park, but

02:46neither of them had a truly positive experience on set.

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

02:55phenomenal.

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

02:59This led Tippett to utter the line,

03:01I've just become extinct.

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

03:06was right.

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

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

03:15How bizarre.

03:16Number 6.

03:17Saving Private Ryan made shaky cam a staple of mainstream cinema.

03:20So, the concept of shaky cam is in no way a technique invented by Spielberg, but it was one

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

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

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

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

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

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

03:48what's going on.

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

03:54Number 5.

03:55Titanic brought the movie song back to popularity.

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

04:01of the biggest grossing films of all time to thank for it.

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

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

04:13worth and that they should pop this track in, thus breathing life back into the whole

04:17movie should have their own song phenomenon once more.

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

04:22It was cheesy as hell, but it was just okay, and now it's just really annoying.

04:28Number 4.

04:29The Sixth Sense Inspired Endless Left Field Twist Movies

04:31M. Night Shyamalan didn't invent the shocking twist with The Sixth Sense, of course, but

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

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

04:45for more, and Hollywood obliged.

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

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

04:56you'd never see coming.

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

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

05:05Number 3.

05:06The Original Star Wars Trilogy implies that all sequels have to have weird names.

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

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

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

05:21it's at least clean.

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

05:27sequels.

05:28Since The Empire Strikes Back, the movie industry has literally been throwing lame and often

05:32very arbitrary subtitles onto anything and everything.

05:36Thor The Dark World, G.I. Joe Retaliation, Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit, what do they even mean?

05:42Well Hollywood would say, well we're being creative guys, but what it really means to us is,

05:48what?

05:49Number 2.

05:50Avatar Made 3D Cool Again, But Is Responsible For Increased Ticket Prices

05:53After several ailing attempts throughout cinematic history to make it relevant, Avatar was the

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

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

06:06of stupidly named precious resources.

06:08Even now, the achievement stands tall.

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

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

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

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

06:28to films shot in 2D but awkwardly bumped to 3D in post-production, and let's just say,

06:32it showed.

06:33And number 1.

06:34Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 show that you can just chop an ending

06:38in half.

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

06:43Now, imagine if that same person told you that you could take your film, split it in

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

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

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

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

07:03other titles to follow suit.

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

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

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

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

07:19And that's just annoying.

07:21How would you guys like to start a Star Trek channel?

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

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

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

07:48two women with tattoos of them.

07:51Twilight's all for a reason.

07:52It's not just because it's fun.

07:54Whee!

07:55Right home there.

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

08:00Chris is the chief engineer because he makes things work and look nice.

08:03Marcus is the captain, obviously, as he's the only one who's verified on Twitter.

08:07Brian Marshall!

08:08Brian Marshall!

08:10I am in fact, to be still, very much under probation, Sean Ferrick.

08:15As he was deemed to be satanic.

08:18Episode 14.

08:19Beverly.

08:20Fuck.

08:21A goat.

08:22One hundred king food.

08:23Get in.

08:24This.

08:25Get in.

08:26Good.

08:27Yeah.

08:28Which is great.

08:30But then Ahura and Sulu end up dead.

08:34Because that's who you go get sex advice from on the Enterprise.

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

08:45showed it to us yet.

08:47Terry Farrell grabbed my hand and said how proud that made her.

08:51And that is a memory I really just wanted to share with everybody today.

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

09:01Hi Dad!

09:02With that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture and here are ten examples of Star Trek

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

09:11The show is, to quote a famous Trek Culture voice, Piss Funny.

09:15So, so stupid.

09:19Yeah.

09:20Wait, what?

09:22Guys, guys, we are, we are, we're cutting live, live to Adam Cleary right now.

09:32Well...

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