The Sad State of the Modern Blockbuster

Charles Deemer once observed that, "writers are not trying to write the Great American Novel by the Great American Screenplay." Screenwriting is now one of the most competetive forms of writing in existence. Sadly, due to the faults of moviegoers and filmmakers, modern blockbuster screenplays are typically less realistic, less clever, and less satisfactory than the blockbuster screenplays of decades past.

Bad screenplays have and always will be written, but many more great screenplays resulted in blockbusters before 1985 than in the modern age. Of the American Film Institute's fifty best movies ever, only one (Schindler's List) was made after 1985. The classics, on the other hand, are prime examples of originality, solid plot structure, smart dialogue, and masterful character development. Society used to collectively spend more money to see movies with all these wonderful qualities than to see poorly made films. It is not so today.

There is a stark contrast between the quality of modern blockbusters and the quality of classical blockbusters. Of the top 10 highest-grossing (adjusted for inflation) pre-1985 films, there are no sequels, and the average Rottentomatoes rating is 96%. Among the top 10 highest-grossing post-1985 films, there are 3 sequels (Phantom Menace, LOTR:ROTK, LOTR:TT, 7 translations from true events or another media (Titanic, Spider-Man, Passion of the Christ, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, LOTR: ROTK, LOTR:TT), and an average Rottentomatoes rating of 83.8, with two films getting a score lower than 65% (Phantom Menace and Passion of the Christ).

Not only do modern blockbusters have unoriginal stories to tell, but also their plot structures are linear and boring. In nearly ever scene of the 1973 smash The Sting, the direction of the plot is twisted surprisingly but with absolute believability. The more recent Titanic, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, and LOTR films (to name only a few) faired decently with the critics but follow a very straightforward plot with few twists.

When plot twists do occur in modern hits, they exist not to push forward a realistic progression of events, but rather to jump from one disconnected, unlikely moment to the next. Gore Vidal explained it best when he said, "Cars chase one another mindlessly along irrelevant freeways. Violence seems rooted in a notion about [creating fantastic images] rather than in any human situation anterior to those images."

Today, blockbusters often pursue a rigorous imitation of life with what sells (sex and violence) while they hunt ridiculously improbably sequences of events to avoid realism with characters' decisions and motivations, because those might not be the selling points of a movie. Screenwriters are simply too lazy to search for a succession of actions that is both plausible and exciting.

For example, in Spider-Man, Peter Parker is, at first, shy (so that there can be interesting scenes of him feebly trying to attract a popular girl), and then suddenly becomes bold and daring (so that there can be exciting scenes of him saving lives and swinging through city streets). Classical blockbusters prove that events can be believable and exciting. In Ben-Hur, the audience is swept through a revolt, a love that battles beyond social status, an arrest, a miracle, a naval battle, a chariot race, and a crucifixion, all while the characters and plot remain believable.

Great dialogue is sadly becoming a lost art. In most modern blockbuster screenplays, dialogue exists for exposition or to briefly set up action. Vocal character development, concept exploration, and moral conflict have been stamped upon by fast-pastfast-paceded action and special effects. The most repeatable dialogue in recent smash hits is often a near copy of dialogue from classical blockbusters. The famous "I don't care" from The Fugitive is analogous to Gone with the Wind's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." The line "We need bigger guns" from Godzilla (1998) was taken from Jaws: "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Even good dialogue loses its glory with overuse and poor use.

Characters in today's runaway hits are inconsistent and shallow. Individuals change without reason and act without motivation or internal conflict. In classical blockbusters, each main character was the complex, conflicted, driving force behind the course of a movie. Maria in The Sound of Music pushed the boundaries of her convent and shaped the world around her. Moses in The Ten Commandments argued with the most powerful man of his day and led thousands of Jews out of slavery. Today, characters simply react to a situation into which they are helplessly cast. Aragorn in the LOTR films has little personal motivation and only reacts to the circumstances around him. Dr. Alan Grant and his family in Jurassic Park find themselves on an island of escaped dinosaurs and must survive their attacks. Xander Cage in XXX is dragged powerlessly from one scenario to the next by Agent Gibbons.

Why do unoriginal, mediocre films succeed? Because moviegoers are content with awful and average screenplays, especially if special effects, action, and an A-list star sell the movie. Meanwhile, films with original and excellent scripts do poorly at the box office (for example, all Charlie Kaufman movies), because moviegoers are lazy and uninterested in something new and fresh; they want something that will thrill them but not unnerve, confuse, or challenge them.

Will this trend continue? Probably. Hollywood is a business, after all, and if special effects and action sell more tickets than originality and great characters, then we'll get more special effects and action. And, as Terry Rossio (co-writer of Aladdin and Pirates of the Caribbean) observed, "the mindless drivel Hollywood churns out is only rivaled by the mindless drivel [new writers] churn out to replace it.

Thankfully, great movies still come out every year. Whether or not they are uber-blockbusters, I can still spend my $9 on the good ones.