The Trios": The ultimate movie killers of the new generation?

They have finally arrived:

Spider-Man 3
Shrek 3
Pirates of the Caribbean 3

Three prime examples of the Hollywood circus. Movies that say absolutely nothing, movies that lack any sense of direction, and movies that desperately struggle to outdo their predecessors—and in doing so, outdo one another. They are films that attempt to cram every possible visual onto the screen at once, pushing the camera to its absolute limit just to capture everything, completely disregarding the sensory overload forced upon the viewer. These are movies without an audience; they are merely sponges designed to soak up cash.
In other words, the true cinematic killers we were raised on and what we have come to expect.

Utterly insignificant, these films play a very simple game: break every record at any cost. They aim to grab 90% of their total revenue on opening day by using cheap emotional tricks and sheer momentum, all to secure enough capital to birth their next offspring. This is how they feed; this is how they are born. Their "soul"—everything a film once meant for culture—has been traded away for box office returns.

Everyone will flock to see them, even though we already know exactly what happens; we can see the plot from start to finish. Within a month, they will be forgotten, and then the Transformers sequels and such will be arriving.

While you are watching the new Pirates, enjoy the unbearable fireworks and the barrage of special effects and scenes you won't even be able to follow. All you'll be able to mutter is "wow!"

So what’s the actual point? 😕
Why go with "next generation killers" specifically? 👎
They aren't the first, and they won't be the last...
What about stuff like Star Wars Episode VI, Star Wars Episode III, Rocky III, Rambo III, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Alien 3, Friday the 13th Part III, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Are we really going to keep listing them all? 👎

feralorca82 said:So that's the point? 😕
Why specifically "new generation"? 👎
They aren't the first or the last...
What about, say, Star Wars Episode VI, Star Wars Episode III, Rocky III, Rambo III, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Alien 3, Friday the 13th Part III, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...? Are we going to keep listing them forever? 👎

That is precisely why I use the phrase "new generation." The ones you listed are from previous eras, but I see you're missing the point entirely, given that you've cited "third installments" that don't even belong to that category.

Actually, I listed them for a reason 😉

Looking at that list of "third entries" feralorca82 put together—honestly, in my opinion, those were actual sequels for reasons beyond just padding the bank account:
Star Wars Episode VI, Rocky III, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Alien 3, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...
Their whole point—aside from, obviously, making a buck😁—was to actually dig deeper into the story and the characters, you know? A genuine desire to say something new... or something like that.
Nowadays, when studios churn out sequels to massive hits, it’s just the peak of corporate strategy—the goal is pure profit, and hey, they’re great at it. They’re products designed to make money that happen to be perfectly entertaining and satisfying. But today’s blockbusters are basically disposable goods, meant to be replaced by the next big thing. For comparison—take the 1978 "Superman" or "Jaws"—those aren't just mindless, disposable products. High-budget blockbusters don't have to be stupid, consumable junk.
Why are today's hits such "movie killers"? Because everyone assumes a hit movie has to be a dumb, disposable one. Popular movies shape the audience and, eventually, the directors of the future.

Look, I was just waiting for this to happen... Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 were pitched as trilogies from day one, so they were built for that purpose. As for them becoming massive hits and pulling in huge numbers... honestly, so be it. If you or I don't think they're anything "special," that's fine, but clearly someone else does. Unfortunately, everyone’s a critic these days.

And regarding Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and especially Alien 3... what was there besides a massive cash grab? Where exactly am I supposed to find some deep artistic meaning in a disastrous, nonsensical mess like Alien 3? (To be fair, the director's cut is decent enough, but that barely even made it out). No offense, but... that's bull.

Honestly, all these modern sequels are just total garbage. If you want to talk about a massive distinction, look at the gap between Live Free or Die Hard and Spider-Man 3. It’s pretty simple: every single Spider-Man movie is trash, whereas the Die Hard predecessors actually stand as top-tier action classics.

Charles Evans said:Every single modern sequel is garbage. The only massive difference between Live Free or Die Hard and Spider-Man 3 is that all the Spider-Man movies are trash, whereas the Die Hard predecessors are actually solid action films.

I thought the first two Spider-Man movies were decent enough, though I skipped the third one entirely.
As for Live Free or Die Hard—honestly, screw the PG-13 rating. It basically means they stripped out the grit, leaving us with maybe one swear word and way too little blood.
I’m really holding out hope for a director's cut or something similar on DVD. They clearly slapped that PG-13 label on it just to squeeze more money out of the masses. These producers who butcher a movie to fit a PG-13 rating don't seem to grasp that this film is made for Die Hard fans like me—not for some kids watching mindless junk like The Fast and the Furious. Besides, the theater box office sells tickets to everyone regardless of age, so why bother watering down the content?

The trailer makes it look like this movie is nothing more than mindless junk aimed at kids. Honestly, Bruce Willis must have been in some serious trouble if he actually agreed to star in this one.

Everyone thinks they're an expert these days, and apparently, they've got an opinion on everything too. 🤮

Spot on. There are plenty of people who feel that way, but you definitely aren't one of them.

Honestly, all this constant bickering just wears me out... I feel like everyone should just grab a pen and actually try writing a script themselves for once... 🤣
It’s so much easier to just tear a movie apart, isn't it? I don't think you guys are even really talking about the films anymore, you're just turning everything into some massive global issue. It feels like people have these huge biases baked in before they even hit play. I mean, what's really the point of that? <--- you don't have to answer my rhetorical question, though.
Let's all just keep fighting... because that's clearly the easiest way to go!

feralorca82 said:It feels like everyone’s turned into some kind of psychic expert lately, you know? Like, suddenly everybody thinks they can see right through everything and, on top of that, they just can't stop being a critic about it. It's kind of wild how much everyone's opinion matters to them these days, I guess. 🤮

You don't exactly have to be some big-shot critic just to have an opinion, you know? And honestly, thank God for that.

Richard Howard2 said:They’ve arrived:

Spider-Man 3
Shrek 3
Pirates of the Caribbean 3

Three prime examples of the Hollywood circus. Movies that say absolutely nothing, movies that lack direction, and movies desperately trying to outdo their predecessors—and each other. They attempt to cram every visual stimulus into every single frame, pushing the camera until it captures everything at the expense of the viewer's ability to process it. These are movies without an audience; they are merely sponges designed to soak up cash.
In other words, they are the true cinematic killers we grew up with and what we have come to expect.

Utterly insignificant, these films play a blunt game: break records at any cost, grab 90% of their revenue on day one through cheap emotional tricks and sheer momentum, and become all-time blockbusters just to birth a franchise. That is how they feed. That is how they are born. They trade their "soul"—everything a film once meant to culture—for box office returns.

Everyone will go see them, even if we already know exactly what happens. We know the plot from start to finish. In a month, they’ll be forgotten; Transformers and the rest are already on the way.

While you watch the new Pirates, enjoy the unbearable fireworks and the barrage of effects and scenes you won't be able to follow. All you'll be able to say is "wow!"

The point of those movies is pure entertainment, not philosophy.
If you want something high-quality, go watch Fellini, Luna, Almodóvar, Kieslowski, etc.
I’ve seen over 3,000 films in my career, and I still enjoy movies like Pirates because they are FUN, nothing more, nothing less...

fadedseal8 said:The whole point of those movies is just pure entertainment, not some deep philosophical lecture.
If you're looking for something actually highbrow, maybe go check out Fellini, Kubrick, Almodóvar, or Scorsese, stuff like that.
I’ve probably sat through over 3,000 movies in my life, and honestly, I still love flicks like Pirates of the Caribbean because they're FUN, nothing more, nothing less...

AMEN TO THAT!!!🙏

wiredranger30 said:Well, he actually asked "what's the point," which implies he doesn't see the point and is begging for an explanation (which you didn't bother giving), and you're only drawing that conclusion because he listed the "wrong" third installments 🙂. Let me guess, those "wrong" ones are Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and maybe even Rocky .

You have a point; my apologies to feralorca82, but I can't shake the feeling he was using that question rhetorically just to be contrarian rather than asking it sincerely.

So, what we are discussing here is a phenomenon—separate threads exist for specific movie discussions—that has exploded since the year 2000: the hyper-production of massive hits that weren't originally conceived as tight trilogies (unlike LOTR or Star Wars). Essentially, once a certain success occurs, there is a frantic race for sequels (averaging about a 2-3 year gap) characterized by the requirement that every single entry must outdo the previous one in every conceivable way. This means the film isn't its own benchmark for quality; no movie is made to stand alone as its own entity, but rather serves as a sort of technical upgrade to the predecessor (a "MKII" or "MKIII"). It keeps the same foundation but polishes, sharpens, and surpasses everything established by the first. In other words, it is a race against oneself—a repetitive loop of the exact same model.

Consequently, everything follows a linear progression, a kind of exponential curve.

The first film:
- characters
- plot
- set design

The second film:
- characters^2
- plot^2
- set design^2

The third film:
- characters^2^2
- plot^2^2
- set design^2^2

and so on.

There is nothing inherently new in them; they simply take the old elements and double them in every aspect compared to the last one.

To this list, I would add the second and third Matrix films, the second and third X-Men films, the second and third Mission: Impossible films, etc.

After watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2, I thought to myself, "How on earth are they going to top this content-wise in the third installment when this is already the ceiling—the absolute limit of what a viewer's brain can process as audiovisual information?"
That is precisely the attempt occurring in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, where they try to outdo themselves, outdoing what has already been surpassed, which results in an extreme nihilism toward everything the film attempts to express.
The film becomes a massive void, a form without substance, a nothingness that expands (inflates) and fills itself with that very emptiness.
The cash registers get full while the movies go empty.

Why does this matter? Let's not fall for the classic excuses that "it's all just for entertainment," because if anything reflects our society, it is the trends found in mass production, not in the niche or specialized realms of expression catering to marginal groups.

Mass production reflects the mass state, and the mass state then reflects mass production. One suggests the other in an infinite exchange (much like alternating current).

Because, the truth is, we can no longer blame the filmmakers for this; it is exactly what we want. We can no longer grasp a film as an independent work, seeing it only as a technical upgrade to the one before it.

This extends beyond trilogies as well. For instance, upcoming Transformers movies must be more technically impressive than, say, War of the Worlds, or any other surrounding films.

We have arrived at a fascinating phenomenon based on the linear advancement of cinematic technology, where only models and templates are swapped out. This isn't an isolated case; it is an instance of a global trend. In music, one song must be a technical modification of the previous artist's hit; in manufacturing, a Creative Zen must be a technical modification of the iPod (and a new iPod is just a technical modification of the old iPod); in art, a work must be more provocative than the one preceding it.

Everything has to accelerate—faster pacing, higher volumes, brighter lights, records being shattered left and right, and an endless stream of increasingly bizarre footage flooding YouTube. Why? Because the money has to keep piling up. That isn't the direct motive, mind you; it’s the indirect one. Once we finally broke through every technical barrier regarding how to "achieve" a cinematic look—once there was no longer a single technical hurdle standing between us and a finished film—we were left drifting in a world of pure nonsense. Now, all we can do is keep ramping up the speed within that void, simply so we don't accidentally stumble face-to-face with "The Reason."

Richard Howard2 said:I’d throw in the second and third parts of The Matrix, the sequels to X-Men, the later Mission: Impossible movies, and so on.

Look, X2: X-Men United and Mission: Impossible 2 are actually better than the originals, regardless of how much you hate modern sequels and new releases.🙂

But The Matrix is a whole different beast... Honestly, I’d almost call those sequels spin-offs rather than true follow-ups, because there wasn't really a massive need for them in the first place. So, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions aren't just "The Matrix 1 but bigger"—they're just their own things.🙂

Quote : a Matrix

casualraven said:Look, I know you’ve always had a deep-seated disdain for sequels and anything that isn't the original groundbreaking entry, but let's be realistic here. X-Men 2 and Mission: Impossible 2 actually stand taller than their predecessors. It's just a fact. 🙂

Let’s be clear: we aren't discussing the technical quality of any single motion picture here. We are addressing a phenomenon. I am requesting that all comments and personal perspectives regarding the film be kept strictly within their designated threads. Please, stay on topic.

Quote : a Matrix

The Matrix is a whole different beast entirely... If you ask me, I’d have categorized the sequels as mere spin-offs rather than true continuations. There wasn't really a compelling necessity for them to exist in the first place. The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions aren't just "upgraded versions" of The Matrix; they are simply their own separate entities.

They’re all just sequels at this point—nothing more than iterations two and three. The first one always stands alone; it serves as the benchmark against which everything else is measured.