I have a novel hypothesis / wildly unfounded cloud-yell on this: we are seeing a shift away from stories and towards content.
Let's take your Star Wars example. Original Star Wars was supposed to be a childlike fairy tale, and there's nothing wrong with that (see C.S. Lewis). But it had some kind of coherent sense and consistency. It had the Hero's Journey. Its creators imagined a world and told a story of what happened within it.
Contrast Modern Star Wars. What is it supposed to be? It's certainly not a fairy tale, and it's not even really much of a story: there's no internal consistency. Characters don't really do things for reasons: Luke Skywalker almost murders a child not because there's any way that makes sense, but just because the Mentor needs a Dark Secret. Rey wants to redeem Kylo Ren not because she has any personal motive to do so, but because we need a Redeemable Villain. The world doesn't exist as a fictional setting: stuff just happens, the First Order appears out of nowhere, the Republic vanishes, now the Final Order exists, now it doesn't.
What it is is Star Wars content. There are people on a screen with lightsabers and blasters and spaceships - are you not entertained?
Just so with current-Phase Marvel. Does anything about Thor: Love and Thunder make a lick of sense? Does it have a solid plot? No - but look, Thor is here! And Valkyrie!
It's not really about it being for children. There are plenty of good stories for children: some of the best stories are age-agnostic. Great literature is not necessarily particularly highbrow or intelligent: Shakespeare and Homer were optimising for making good stories, not for showing off how clever and grown-up they were.
But it is really reminiscent of the rise of streaming as a phenomenon: when you watch a stream, there's no narrative, no coherent set of ideas coming together, just stuff happening. It's easy to procrastinate with it and to have it on in the background because it's not a story, it's just stuff. And so with a lot of modern cinema. No stories, at best a couple of Big Moments (that you can React to and talk about on Twitter!) strung together with content.
Cobra Kai is fun, not brainless, and sincere, and moreover it has competent storytelling and characterisation, which is an absolute breath of fresh air by the standards of a lot of current "rebooted" franchises.
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I have a novel hypothesis / wildly unfounded cloud-yell on this: we are seeing a shift away from stories and towards content.
Let's take your Star Wars example. Original Star Wars was supposed to be a childlike fairy tale, and there's nothing wrong with that (see C.S. Lewis). But it had some kind of coherent sense and consistency. It had the Hero's Journey. Its creators imagined a world and told a story of what happened within it.
Contrast Modern Star Wars. What is it supposed to be? It's certainly not a fairy tale, and it's not even really much of a story: there's no internal consistency. Characters don't really do things for reasons: Luke Skywalker almost murders a child not because there's any way that makes sense, but just because the Mentor needs a Dark Secret. Rey wants to redeem Kylo Ren not because she has any personal motive to do so, but because we need a Redeemable Villain. The world doesn't exist as a fictional setting: stuff just happens, the First Order appears out of nowhere, the Republic vanishes, now the Final Order exists, now it doesn't.
What it is is Star Wars content. There are people on a screen with lightsabers and blasters and spaceships - are you not entertained?
Just so with current-Phase Marvel. Does anything about Thor: Love and Thunder make a lick of sense? Does it have a solid plot? No - but look, Thor is here! And Valkyrie!
It's not really about it being for children. There are plenty of good stories for children: some of the best stories are age-agnostic. Great literature is not necessarily particularly highbrow or intelligent: Shakespeare and Homer were optimising for making good stories, not for showing off how clever and grown-up they were.
But it is really reminiscent of the rise of streaming as a phenomenon: when you watch a stream, there's no narrative, no coherent set of ideas coming together, just stuff happening. It's easy to procrastinate with it and to have it on in the background because it's not a story, it's just stuff. And so with a lot of modern cinema. No stories, at best a couple of Big Moments (that you can React to and talk about on Twitter!) strung together with content.
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