Is Hollywood running out of original ideas? Sometimes I think so, but occasionally my mind is changed. It has been a very long time since I have seen something with no familiar plot devices or story elements, something that is truly original, creative and innovative. However, some have come close. Avengers: Infinity War would be an example to this as I consider it more than a regular film, because nothing of that scale has ever been done before. Besides that, 2018 had a couple other instances of attempts at original material. Hereditary was, in my opinion, another piece that brought many new things to the horror genre, like psychological bombardment, and using real life events to absolutely emotionally wreck you as opposed to paranormal elements attempting to spook you. But act three decided to devolve into a jump scare ridden mess and diverging away from what made the rest of the film great.
These are just a couple examples. A director that I believe has a bright future ahead of him and a wealth of ideas for future films is Jordan Peele, director of Get Out, and more recently, Us. While I enjoyed Get Out much more than Us, both films succeeded in being very original, creative and bringing forth very interesting concepts. Jordan Peele has been heralded as creating an entirely new sub-genre of thriller, known as social thrillers. Social thrillers are stories that are told with real life issues being kept in mind. Get Out tells a story that is representative of African American oppression in the US. Absolutely skin crawling soundtracks and horrifying cinematography are implemented by Peele to tell his stories.
While truly great films have come out over the last 20 years, I feel as though everything is at least somewhat derivative, and that can mean only one thing, that the film industry has run out of original ideas, and the only thing that matters now is making money by utilizing CGI to dazzle the audience. Storytelling has taken a backseat to expensive and over the top special effects.
An interesting thought that I take into account is the fact that Pulp Fiction, Jurassic Park, and Forrest Gump, and The Shawshank Redemption were all in theatres at the same time in 1994. I consider all of these films very original and among my favourites of all time. The 90s was the last golden age of film in my opinion, and I don’t know if we can ever get back to that. One can dream.
