Watching the new Star Trek and Indiana Jones trailers, I started to think how big-budget action/sci-fi/adventure movies have been in a bit of slump lately. Perhaps its because of the revolution in filmmaking that CGI created an overemphasis on the process of making movies rather than the end result of the movie itself. The Star Wars movies definitely fell into this slump. Instead of seeing SFX as a tool to further methods of storytelling, it instead became the focus of movies, which is probably why those movies felt so flat.

This isn't necessarily exclusive to our own time. How many bad stop-motion creature-features were released after King Kong? very few movies can last beyond their age and really become classics - but what really makes a movie timeless is good storytelling. I feel that's the direction many movies are headed in. Superman Returns was a great movie because it focused more on the characters, with less emphasis on action and excitement. Batman Begins was great because it got to the heart of the character and had depth - the special effects, fight scenes, and costume dressing was merely window dressing. Those movies shrugged off the gaudy, overly stylized and SFX-dependent features of the 90s.

I think that CGI in the early 90s led to a lot of great movies that couldn't have been done in the 70s or 80s. However, towards the end of the decade, each effects driven blockbuster seemed to want to just one up the big hit of the previous year in the special effects department. The Mummy became The Mummy Returns which became Van Helsing. The quality of storytelling went down the drain. After the backlash from the much hyped Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels (neither of which had the story to back up the visuals) things began to take a turn for the better. The wave of realistic action reboots (Casino Royale and Batman Begins) came mostly because of the success of The Bourne Identity. Since then, I feel, that there has been a larger focus on plot and characters than just the effects budget. Even a totally effects driven flick like Transformers felt more real than it would have had it been made during the "CGI Boom" of the late 90s.

Only the few ones that collected 5-9 or more academy awards are achieved certain artistic feats here and there including directing, cg etc... and rest of them are mostly balancing budget or profit.

I think our summer tentpole films have been a lot better this decade than the 90's (esp late 90's). 97 and 98 were the worst... MIB (was ok), Godzilla, Armageddon... and of course Batman & Robin. Just awful years... (not to mention Dante's Peak, Volcano, Daylight, etc)

Sure, maybe the writing isn't that much better, but "big" movies now at least look a lot better...and I usually at least leave the theater with the feeling I got my money's worth.

Just go down the line and compare the big film franchises we've gotten this decade - X-Men, Spidey, Batman, LOTR, Harry Potter, Narnia (and soon to be Transformers, Iron Man, etc) - those alone blow any other decade out of the water.

no...

they're not...

I think they are. I have really liked 80% of them. Better then the ones in the late 90s I think

They are much better than the 90s IMO. You are always going to have duds though. As previously mentioned, studios seemed to have moved on from just trying to impress people with CGI advancements.

Studios primarily seem to be more forward thinking today though. That means they are making a lot films expecting to sell numerous sequels before a single shot is filmed.

Wasn't T2 kind of first of new generation big budget movie? At that time it offered fine newer action&CG combination. Since then maybe many big budgets only followed T2 path not making own distinct paths. (excluding LOTR-3, titanic or those that grossed over 1bln in income)

Jaws is to Star Wars as T2 is to Jurassic Park.

Today Summer Blockbustes are what is wrong with Hollywood, as they are souless movies that focus on action & cgi, instead of characters and a good story. Sure there are exceptions: Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and if you want to go back to the beginning of CGI: Jurassic Park & T2 are great movies.

What made the movies great like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Back to the Future in the late 70's/early 80's was the characters that became iconic, and the story were always good as they were made for adults to enjoy. They had good humor, good drama, and didn't cater to kiddies. Most movies now play to kids, instead movies from 25-30 years ago that played for teenagers/adults AND kids could enjoy.

Characters like Darth Vader, Indiana Jones, Marty McFly, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, were iconic characters that people recognize today. Think of movies in the past 10 years like Independence Day, Armageddon, and The Mummy and tell me if any of those characters resonate today.

But also do not forget about super budget movies like BF-Greek Wedding. budget 5mln, grossed over 200mln (exceeds big budgets) within few months. It was kind of shocking in the movie on wedding table there were only few glasses full of vodka (water?) and silverware yet we only enjoyed fun wedding adventures.

Maybe Greek Wedding is good success example for most Big Budgets.

"Welcome to Earth!"

I liked Will Smith's character in ID4.

I think film crews had to be more clever and creative in order to produce special effects over 20 years ago (example: The Thing). We now take these effects for granted because they're always done by computer. Before movies were made by computers, the human element behind creating a difficult shot seemed to give the film more heart. (You don't get much more soulless than Mummy Returns or the Star Wars prequels.)

Once Cameron and Spielberg heralded in a promising new era of CGI with T2 and Jurassic Park, the potential of the technology quickly plummeted as good storytelling was deemphasized.

Possibly it is dull period for hollywood CG life. Or CG inventions shifting to kids' movies.

Yeah, but can you even remember his name without looking it up?

Captain... something. Hey, man, names don't define people. Judge me for what I've done, not for who I am.

Steven Hillard. I might be wrong on the last name but I'm fairly sure I'm close dammit.

Close. Steven Hiller.

For the record I did cheat and look it up.

^^^ I looked it up. it's Steven Hiller. Us not remembering his name has less to do with him being unmemorable and more to do with him not having a memorable name. I mean, who can forget a name like Marty McFly?

I don't think it's fair to discount recent movies as exceptions, as I assume there were plenty big movies in the 70's and 80's that have come and gone with characters that are vague memories in many people's heads just as there have been in the 90's in 00's.

Recently? Jack Sparrow, Spider-Man, Shrek, Jason Bourne. I don't think it's that dire.

For me the last truly great summer blockbuster was 1995 with Braveheart. It marks the last time we saw epic battles that didn't involve 1000s of CG troops but real extras. It really makes a huge difference.

Coli has a solid point though that the characters were iconic and the stories memorable prior to CG(see William Wallace, Hamish and Robert the Bruce to name just a few from the aforementioned film). In the majority of flicks today the "characters" are the CGI which is bad. You walk out talking about how great the CG was but not the real actors or story. Perfect example, Transformers. Outside of ILM the movie is garbage, but since people are enamored with shiny things that transform the movie was a huge success.

I think that, as the CG craze died down a bit, directors are focusing more on the story for the big pictures. It's true that they were all trying to one-up each other at one point, but I think they've realized that the public also needs a good storyline more than ridiculous looking computer images. Also, as CGI gets better people focus on it's shortcomings less and less, so story becomes an even more essential element to a successful tentpole feature.

While they only have one "franchise" so far, don't forget Pixar's films, which consistently churn out memorable characters.

I strongly disagree with this. The human characters were solid, and were in the movie much more than the transformers.