
‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year’s breakouts like ‘Project Hail Mary’ and ‘Obsession’ were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as ‘Supergirl,’ ‘Moana,’ and ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ looked lazy.
Posted by darth_vader39

34 Comments
In other words, the people that still go to movie theaters are the ones that can appreciate quality, not the people that just want to turn their brains off for 90 minutes
Yeah I think its pretty significant that the biggest hits of the year are Obsession, Backrooms, The Odyssey, Project Hail Mary, etc. and Toy Story, which I am way less familiar with.
So, maybe people don’t just want lazy CG/AI films plopped out. The practical effects in most of those movies looked fantastic and made me actually want to go to the movie theater again.
Sure, but Spider-Man and Avengers are going to blast past those movies regardless of quality….
WE’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS. It’s almost like out of touch billionaires shouldn’t be running every fucking industry.
Does it? Loads of movies get audiences to theatres and always have done, this isn’t new. We’ve also still had plenty of incredible movies that bomb
It’s just harder and more rare due to how streaming functions and cost of tickets
And Spider-man and Doomsday are about to do silly numbers
Seeing the success of The Odyssey and first thing Monday morning the new Avengers trailer dropped. Where a most striking difference in style couldn’t be any clearer. I don’t think it’s as black and white as “people hate CGI,” moreso the effort behind its use. Superhero films have become nothing but greenscreen stages ending up with shots of dark rooms where people fight with lighting up fists/weapons. It got lazy, everything became CGI (including the suits), and it became unbelievably obvious that half the cast isn’t in the room for half of these group shots.
The new Spider-Man looks great because it walks the line between the two. There’s a lot of CGI but it’s obvious that they went out and got real footage of an actor in a suit swinging in nature.
The effort is a big part of it. People want to see something that feels handmade and in the age of AI, feeling like human effort was put into it goes a long way.
Hollywood Executives: “But but but…the people don’t want to see my lazy green screen slop?”
Mando used a lot of practical effects aswell.
Nah. This movie just proves Nolan and IMAX paid off a lot of bot farms to create positive/divisive consensus for a boring bloodless sexless limp wristed commentary on war is bad. The shilling was so fricking shocking to watch in real time.
Exactly! I hope Hollywood actually learns this lesson.
Its too much slop. I Want to see people and sets and special
I don’t think most people care, they go for the big names, that’s it
This is an idiotic and reductive take on Hollywood problems.
CGI wasn’t the problem with those movies, they just needed better plots.
Obsession, PHM, Odyssey are all phenomenal stories..
The mandalorian shouldn’t be getting lumped in with this they did a lot of “hard way” effects. Its problem was they recut a tv season into a movie.
Yeah just watch Spiderman blow this arguement in two weeks
It’s so much simpler than that: People just want good stories that are well-told.
I mean the reason Mandalorian and Grogu didn’t do well is because Star Wars’ reputation hasn’t been great
I loved the movie
Just because there is CG doesn’t mean it’s bad. Project Hail Mary literally has CG
People want word of mouth that something has quality enough to spend their money on
It must be cinema. It must feel like it matters for them. I don’t care what everyone else consider quality standards. I want an entertaining idea and a lot of human effort to make it happen. Art is human. Only human. And sometimes mud and sweat. F that evident blue screens.
I remember watching Death Proof and doing a double take after watching a real car crash in a film. We live in such a sad artificially flavored world.
No, it proves something else. Ppl want to see good movies. That’s all, it’s never been more complicated than this.
It is true though. When I see quality movies I want to go to the theater to see them. The others I can wait to see when they are on a streaming service. I am not opposed to CGI, but it should be used creatively and not for everything.
I wish people would stop trashing CGI. The problems with many blockbusters now isn’t a lot of CGI
The Odyssey proves people will pay to see anything good/entertaining
Could also just be a coincidence. If the latest CGI stuffed franchise entries like spiderman or avengers don’t flop does this mean the trend is going the other way?
Or again, is it just a coincidence?
This is a really weird article. I was pretty tepid on The Mandalorian but that was undeniably not “easy” to make. On the flip side Scary Movie 6 was pretty phoned in and it was a massive commercial success. There are no steadfast rules to this shit. Sometimes audiences show up and sometimes they don’t.
I’m Gen X but thank the gods for Gen Z who are leading the charge back into movie theaters.
I still go to the cinema every chance I get, but in my age group I am the minority. Not sure if the article mentioned that, but a more accurate title would be “Gen Z Want Movies Made the Hard Way.”
I will always be grateful to that generation for saving the movie going experience. 🙂
Doomsday sweating in the corner.
As if CG was used less on Project Hail Mary or the Odyssey…. They still use a lot of CG in those but they do it smarter and better and focus more on getting good believable performances out of their actors. They’re just good concepts and good films.
Like diamonds.. I want them extra bloody!
I think this is kind of an insult to all the artistry in Mando. Sure, the plot was a traditional fun adventure, but they built huge practical sets and used a lot of old-school techniques like puppetry and stop motion. Also, why are we acting like CGI is easy?
The Odyssey and Hail Mary have a ton of CGI too. They didn’t exactly go to Ancient Greece or space to find an alien.
it also proves that ‘woke’ has never been the problem. The problem has been people purposefully forcing shit on us with the express intent to shove it down our throats… Odyssey picked the best talent possible and it shows, and everyone enjoyed it.
So if the question is “should I make this character a certain color or creed?” you failed. The question should always be “does this person make me feel exactly what this characters supposed to make me feel?”. Representation and diversity done right.
Supergirl and Mando were great though.
Kinda hope avengers doomsday fails for this reason. It’s just a cash in for Disney to make bank. No art or good storytelling involved
I don’t think the cgi was the deciding factor at all. Moana was a remake of a movie that came out a decade ago. Supergirl is the 10,000th generic superhero movie in the past decade. The Mandoalorian and Grogu is the 1,000,000th star wars installment in the past decade. Maybe, just maybe people want fresh ideas, not the same rehashed for the umpteenth time this year