If you\u2019re older than fifty then you remember when entertainment was big business.\u00a0 Big American corporations made our movies, published our books, recorded our music and amused us sitting around the television set every night.\u00a0 And they made good money doing it.\u00a0 Going to the movies was a national pastime and buying records of popular music was what teenagers did relentlessly.\u00a0 And everyone watched must-see-tv whether it was a Thursday night sit-com or the late-night show with Johnny Carson.\u00a0 Entertainment was bankable.<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s all over.\u00a0 Kids don\u2019t buy music.\u00a0 They stream it for almost nothing.\u00a0 They stream movies too so they don\u2019t go to theaters.\u00a0 And they really don\u2019t want to pay for it either.\u00a0 Same for books, same for television.\u00a0 The only thing that still kind of pays is cable television.\u00a0 That\u2019s because cable is set up so the fees are lucrative.\u00a0 But guess what?\u00a0 Millennials and zoomers have now cut the cable.\u00a0 Only old people pay for or watch cable.\u00a0 So, the change is complete.<\/p>\n
The result is that except for truly bankable extravaganzas like Marvel superhero movies (mostly) or Taylor Swift concerts entertainment producers aren\u2019t spending the money needed to make entertainment entertaining.\u00a0 Case in point, have you looked at broadcast television in the last five years?\u00a0 Don\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s unbelievably bad.\u00a0 The production values are awful, the actors can\u2019t act but worst of all the writing is putrid.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if it were written by emotionally disturbed cretins.\u00a0 The characters are unlikable and the plots are idiotic and completely predictable.<\/p>\n
After what passed for Oscar nominees this year, we don\u2019t even have to bother talking about how bad Hollywood has become.\u00a0 Up until recently the only bright spot was that some of the cable channels and corporations like Amazon and Netflix were spending generously on good writers and good actors for some of their series.\u00a0 It could be debated whether these shows were as well made as Hollywood movies were in their heyday but without a doubt, they were head and shoulders above anything that was on broadcast television in the last ten years and they absolutely entertained.\u00a0 But now even these shows are starting to fall apart.\u00a0 Amazon recently spent a billion dollars on a Lord of the Rings adjacent production called \u201cThe Rings of Power\u201d and it flopped very badly.<\/p>\n
So, what is next for entertainment?<\/p>\n
Well, the answer is confusing.\u00a0 What young people like is video games.\u00a0 And because of this they consume other entertainment in a way that relates to this medium.\u00a0 They like to read fan-fic about those games.\u00a0 In other words, fans of the video games write amateur stories and post them to websites so that other gamers can read them.\u00a0 And now these writers are even seeing their fan-fic turned into videos or even movies of these video-centric stories.\u00a0 These stories adhere closely to the limitations and conventions of the games.\u00a0 The characters are constantly referencing their health levels and skill levels as they attempt to conquer different challenges.\u00a0 So, the plot is very much tied to the experience of the game.<\/p>\n
I find all of this confusing and somewhat disturbing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t doubt that these video games are exciting and maybe even challenging but how much of the same thing can you stand to consume before something more original and intellectually and even emotionally stimulating will be needed?\u00a0 And at some point, wouldn\u2019t it be reasonable to want a movie about real life where normal people overcome the challenges that happen in the real world?\u00a0 Or how about a comedy or a drama?\u00a0 It can\u2019t all be video games, can it?<\/p>\n
Well, anyway that\u2019s what I was thinking about today.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how all this ends but it\u2019s something that is worth thinking about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019re older than fifty then you remember when entertainment was big business.\u00a0 Big American corporations made our movies, published our books, recorded our music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,5,4606,551,237,240],"tags":[1353,43,1310,38,1355,154],"class_list":["post-33036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-current-events","category-game-reviews","category-music-reviews","category-reviews","category-tv-reviews","tag-book-reviews","tag-movie-review","tag-music-review","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-tv-review"],"yoast_head":"\n