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Comment by brandonmenc | Hacker News Reader

> Let’s start with a simple mystery: What happened to original blockbuster movies?

Cinema as the high form of popular theater art is done - for better or for worse - just like vaudeville et al. before it.

The new form is the epic, original, streaming TV mini-series - some of which are good enough to be considered very long movies.

As much as I also bemoan the disappearance of an endless stream of great popular cinema, something new and interesting and evolving has taken its place. And cinema will continue to exist in a niche, just like vaudeville and theatre still do today.

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TV mini-series aren't a new thing though. They were all the rave in the 80s/early 90s but they stopped for some unknown reason.

Pervasive computational special effects became widely available around the early 90s (Silicon Graphics, Pixar, ILM); maybe writers migrated towards movies around then, because they could tell visually compelling stories.

maybe (again, maybe) the expanding availability of high bandwidth cable access has shifted attention back to homes as theaters?

I think it was for the same reason the Naked Gun series didn't do well despite people loving the movies - producers misunderstood how audiences watched television.

Now however, people's viewing habits have changed. Are there mini-series from that era you'd recommend? I'd be curious how they hold up.

Lonesome Dove (1989) is one of the greatest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_Dove_(miniseries)

Here is a list of mini-series from before 1995, sorted by number of IMDb votes:

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=tv_miniseries&...

Sorted by IMDb rating:

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=tv_miniseries&...

Roots is probably the most famous of them. Winds of War, and its sequel. The Thorn Birds. Lonesome Dove.

Production quality and acting in most of those earlier TV mini-series were abysmal compared to recent content. Stuff that I had enjoyed years ago seems unwatchable now.

Novelty isn't the question, quality and originality of the series is.

I'm no fan at all of television generally. But the quality of programming available since the year 2000 absolutely dwarfs virtually everything that came before. Shows such as Miami Vice, Moonlighting, and Hillside Blues were considered landmarks of their time. They're at best mediocre by current standards against The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Firefly, etc. The remake of Battlestar Gallactica towers above the original in all aspects --- production, casting, writing, effects, complexity.

There remains a great deal of dreck on television, but the best that there is exceeds virtually all that came before it.

(I'm partial to some earlier PBS and BBC programming, as possible exceptions.)

Erm, Hill Street Blues.

I think I mentioned I don't watch much television?

Because they were seen as lesser artistic outlets than cinema due to the rigidity of television schedules and advertising. These days, it's the Netflix series that gives you the most artistic freedom. You can make any number of episodes of any length to tell your story and you're free to appeal to a niche audience. Movies are forced into a relative narrow length window and business constraints force you to appeal to an international audience.

The creativity is still there. It's just in a different place.

the unknown reason was that technology gave Hollywood a big spike of spectacle that TV mini series didnt have the budget/resources to match. (green screen technology, CGI advances, 3D animation) But technology has improved so the gap is less, and the resources being allocated now matches movie production.

One thing though, a movie theater is still a special place. It makes the experience different than at home.

Now it's true that big tv shows have funds and tech to match the high grade results that only movies could afford.

Home TVs have gotten bigger, and higher resolution. Theaters are still better, but they're not as much better as they used to be.

tvs have gotten a lot better, but every time I go to the movies, I'm reminded of how wide the gap is. for one thing, it's not just about the picture.

And are very cheap as well (relative to how expensive they used to be)

Also, you can buy a damned fine projector for <$3000 if you have a room you can house it in (about price of high end laptop with a better amortization schedule). Throw distances are easily doable for a 12’ span. Shorter throws are getting more common. You can buy a paint system to put a permanent, pro-quality screen up for a fraction of the cost of a roll-up screen (couple hundred plus ur time). Get yourself a receiver and 6 speakers (including mandatory sub) and you’ll be sitting pretty with a 10’+ screen at home. Paint your walls, ceiling of the room black and you’ll have 90% of what you get at the theater minus the people and overpriced food.

That's actually the whole point.

In the 80s you had one small stereo CRT TV.. now you may have a 8k wall with 12.1 thx++ sound system.

Yet I bet 10$ a movie theater is still different.

It's not the technical merit, it's going somewhere else, public place, size of the room.. ambiance.

Some of the newer, fancy movie theatres with comfortable reclining chairs and great sound systems are indeed a nice way to watch movies, except the part where other people are around. Film viewing is not a good team sport, with the possible exception of comedies where the live laughter can enhance the experience (although still easily ruined by people who yell back at the actors).

Well thank God for the pandemic, then. There was a point in time where the theaters had reopened but the majority of people were still afraid to go. Was perfect, 98% of the time we’d have the theater to ourselves. Never a crowd. Those days are gone in my town though. Dune IMAX was packed!

Good movies are still readily available, they just don't make it as huge blockbusters because people want a visual spectacle in theaters, not an action-less drama. I just watched "Worth" and it was great, easily comparable to an acclaimed movie from 30 years ago, but if I was gonna pay 20 dollars to go to a theater I would choose Dune.

The analyses on why movies looks like they do today has been done to death already.

What happened was that piracy and other forms of commodification gutted the entire middle segment of movie making. What remains today is indie movies and Marvel-style blockbusters and very little in between.

It's not just that people would spend less on watching movies or watch pirated content for free. It's that they would rather spend their entertainment money on streaming services, computer games, etc.

You could in fact make the exact opposite creativity argument by looking at computer games. Since the late 90's we have gone from Half Life to Half Life: Alyx.

> The new form is the epic, original, streaming TV mini-series

While there are some of those, and they might have been the height for a while, I think the new high form is the epic, original, streaming TV series, not particularly “mini” (i.e., half-/full-/multiple season series instead of smaller ones.)

Great point. And just to reinforce it, I find the 16-episode pre-produced korean drama format very compelling. It's some of the best TV content I've watched lately.

Its not really blockbuster movies that are gone, its the mid-budget movies that thrived in the 90's and early 2000's that I miss.

Original content is on youtube now.

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