How do they not know...?

Either they know and just don't care, or they truly don't realize what they're doing.

To me, it's perfectly clear that a movie is essentially a product designed to be sold, regardless of its actual quality.
Fine. I'll give you that.

However, there is one thing I can't wrap my head around. Aside from complete novices in the industry, when an established director—or even seasoned professionals like screenwriters—set out to make a film that ends up being a total disaster, do they actually realize while they're working on it that the result is going to be such a mess? And if they do realize it, why on earth would they proceed that way?

Or perhaps they simply don't recognize that they're producing garbage?
Or maybe they just don't care because they're only in it for the paycheck? That feels like the most likely truth to me.

A prime example comes to mind: George Lucas with The Phantom Menace, and honestly, the Clones wasn't much better either.
He poured so many years and so much effort into creating these Star Wars sequels, only to deliver a total catastrophe. He even admitted after the release that he wasn't satisfied with the first one. 😵

How is it possible that he didn't see the flaws while the script was still being written? He clearly has the money and the time, so he shouldn't have to answer to producers the way many others do—which, unfortunately, is often why we end up with bad movies.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what someone more knowledgeable about cinema than a mere layman like myself thinks about all this.

silentpilot6 said:Maybe they just don't care and they're only in it for the paycheck? That feels like the closest we'll get to the truth.

BINGO!!! Let's be real: 90% of people aren't making movies out of pure altruism; they're driven by greed (and in the world of high-budget blockbusters, that percentage is basically 100%).
Kudos to the few who actually do it for the love of the craft, but let's face it—those people are incredibly rare...

The whole "I wanted to make a film with a deep message... BLABLA BLABLA" routine is just for suckers. The real version is more like, "I wanted to make a total piece of junk, but since my contract guarantees me a massive payday, I couldn't care less."
Or take George Lucas's approach: "I wanted to make an amateurish flick with catastrophically bad acting (and I actually ordered the good actors to perform poorly) just so I could rake in all that cash from the merchandise later!!!"

PS I forgot to add IMHO

The real issue here is that directors spend way more time actually making a movie than the audience spends watching it. When you’re grinding away at a project for three or four years, you completely lose your ability to judge quality objectively. You end up with movies that look absolutely terrible on paper but turn out to be gems, while other projects look perfect in theory and end up being total disasters.

...I was actually just diving into the special features for the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition, and there’s this one moment where Andrew Jackson expresses this hilarious desire to be hypnotized once the whole trilogy is finished. He basically wants someone to wipe his memory so he can forget he spent eight years working on them and forget he ever even saw them—that way, he could sit down in a theater like a regular viewer who has no idea what's coming and finally judge the work based solely on what works and what doesn't.

My take on George Lucas is a bit different; I think it really comes down to the massive expectations set by the fanbase. They’ve placed the Star Wars trilogy on such a high pedestal, calling it the greatest story ever told, that they were essentially expecting the cinematic equivalent of a 'second coming of Jesus Christ' from any new installment 😕.
As for George Lucas, he just made the kind of movie he wanted to make—something fun and breezy for a Saturday afternoon, which is exactly what the originals felt like to me.

The real issue is that directors spend way more time actually making a movie than audiences spend "consuming" it. Over that kind of stretch—say three or four years—you just completely lose your ability to judge quality. You get movies that look like absolute garbage on paper but end up being hits, and then you have others where it’s the exact opposite.

I'll give you that a director can lose their touch, but honestly, with all that massive studio money involved, shouldn't they be able to hire someone—or an entire army of people, really—just to tell them what's working and what isn't? If eighty percent of the public can point out every single flaw in a piece of junk, why can't someone do the same for a director before it even hits theaters? I know they try, but we still keep getting trash and movies ruined by stupid little details.

PS maybe they release garbage on purpose just to lower everyone's standards so they can hit us with a "masterpiece" later on.😉

If I can just jump in here to push back a bit on what was said regarding George Lucas and the stuff about PM and ABC.

It’s not really accurate to say those movies were total disasters; I think it’s more about the expectations people had (which is basically what Richard Hernandez13 was getting at).

I guess we all pretty much expected them to feel just like the original Star Wars films, but George Lucas had already done that—he’d already told his story.

It seems like all he really wanted was to be "the first" to try something new, which is why we ended up with that annoying Jar-Jar Binks, and why we got that whole army of robots made with CGI that actually look real. And honestly, that’s probably why those movies hold a specific place in cinematic history.

Eric Jackson43 said:If 80% of people can point out all the flaws in some total piece of junk, why can't someone just do the same for the director before the movie even hits theaters? (I know that's supposed to happen, but we still end up with garbage and movies that get ruined by stupid little details).

Are you talking about test screenings?
The whole point of those is usually just to sand down any unique edges until the potential audience becomes one giant, boring consensus—that’s how movies turn into pure mediocrity.

Just like anything else in this world, a movie can turn out to be good, bad, or absolutely horrific. It can even be pure genius, of course. There’s a whole laundry list of reasons why that happens, but honestly, I can never quite pin down what the actual core question is.

I mean, even if you try to frame a specific question, we always end up circling back to that elusive element of magic and wonder within a work of art; sometimes it clicks perfectly, and other times, it just fails to land...

Fair enough. Maybe my example was a bit silly, but even George Lucas admitted he wasn't happy with the film. It makes me wonder how he didn't realize things were going off the rails during production. But, it is what it is. I can relate to this on a personal level; if I finish a project and find myself unhappy with it just a month later, wouldn't I feel that same dissatisfaction while I'm actually working on it?

Second example. Take a seasoned pro like James Cameron. I'm not sure if you've ever seen his Ghost of Mars 🤮 🙂
If he didn't realize he was filming such total nonsense while on set, someone should honestly, I don't know, hit him with a Major League Baseball bat 😬

That, for instance, is the kind of movie where even I think I'd realize something was wrong just by reading the script.

Sandra Moore said:Just like anything else in this world, a movie can be good, bad, or just plain terrible. It can even be a masterpiece, of course. There are countless reasons why—but I honestly don't see what the question is here.

In other words, even if you ask, we always end up circling back to that intangible sense of magic in art; sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't...

If we're going to use movies as our benchmark—and let's be honest, at least 95% of films don't even deserve to be in that conversation—then let me draw a comparison.

I personally know a few painters, and it isn't uncommon for them to create something, realize they aren't happy with it, and simply toss it out or completely redo it.

However, you can't simply draw a parallel between painting a picture and making a film, given that one requires significantly less money and time than the other.

The question is actually quite simple. If, for example, 99% of the audience and 99% of the critics can clearly see that a movie is garbage, how is it possible that the director or the screenwriter doesn't see it too, or simply doesn't care? That is the real question.

There’s just an endless flood of ugly imagery everywhere—on t-shirts, in magazines, on book covers, plastered on cars, coming from unpleasant people, and even showing up in these pathetic, cheap sets of silverware. Honestly, this kind of Ugliness is just baked into the fabric of our world...

offtopic:

Sandra Moore, clear out your inbox 🙂

Sorry for crashing the party 😵, go ahead and keep talking about whatever you were on about. Honestly, I haven't even been following the thread.

Adam Wright56 said:If I could just offer a small counterpoint regarding what was said about George Lucas in relation to the Prequels and ABC.

It’s not really accurate to say the movies were total disasters; it’s more about the weight of expectations (which is exactly what Richard Hernandez13 was pointing out).

Most of us naturally hoped they would feel like the original Star Wars films, but George Lucas had already moved on—he had already told his story.

Personally, I was looking for something more than just high-budget fluff with acting that felt like it came straight from a local community theater troupe... Even Bruce Lee looked out of place in "Attack...", and he didn't even manage that in Hammer's Dracula !!!
I had a feeling Episode I and II wouldn't be masterpieces, but I didn't expect them to be quite this bad... You can't hide behind CGI and all that other nonsense; George Lucas has just become a factory worker producing content by the ton.

silentpilot6 said:Here’s a second example for you. Take a seasoned pro like James Cameron. I’m not sure if any of you have actually sat down and watched his Ghost of Mars 🤮 🙂

It was John Carpenter, not Cameron.

Ghost of Mars is really his best of work—it was intentionally crafted with that trashy, campy vibe (plus some great old-school metal 😁), mostly because here in the States, people tend to view Carpenter as a bit of a washed-up figure. Honestly, though, the French absolutely adore him. 😁

Ghost of Mars acts more like a tribute to B-horror, B-westerns, and the classic John Carpenter style.

silentpilot6 said:The question is actually pretty straightforward. If, say, 99% of the audience and 99% of the critics all agree that a movie is total garbage, how is it possible that the director or the screenwriter doesn't see it, or just doesn't care? That's what I'm asking.

Well, the thing is, art doesn't truly exist until someone actually watches, listens to, or reads it—so that feeling of whether something is "trash" or "masterpiece" is entirely about subjective impression. What we generally label as a masterpiece is usually just a matter of a larger or smaller consensus.
For instance, if you personally think those Lord of the Rings movies are absolute junk (and let's not get into why 😉), you're going up against the fact that 99% of audiences and critics consider them top-tier cinematic achievements.

So, who's actually wrong in that scenario? You, or them?

George Lucas and those other directors making massive spectacles like Star Wars or LOTR have a major handicap right now. These kinds of movies rely way too much on special effects. The problem is that visual effects don't blow anyone away anymore; they aren't some kind of miracle. Any director with half a brain can churn out CGI these days. Lucas went overboard with Star Wars and tried to use special effects in almost every single scene, even when there was zero reason for it. The result is just this plastic, computer-generated mess that leaves you feeling nothing because we've ALREADY SEEN IT ALL before.
They should take a page out of Steven Spielberg's book and actually look at how he handles his films—knowing exactly when to use an effect and, more importantly, when to leave it out. The best example is Minority Report.

Just imagine how much better LOTR would’ve been if they’d just cut those few stupid scenes—like how they completely butchered The Two Towers because of some bits that total maybe two minutes of screen time, which, let's be honest, were incredibly naive and totally undercut all of James Cameron's hard work, IMO.

nimblemarlin17> I guess George Lucas went overboard with Star Wars, using special effects for basically every single scene. Even when they weren't even needed. You just end up with this plastic-looking CGI movie that doesn't leave anyone feeling anything because we've ALL seen it before.

"We've all seen it before"??? 😕

Kill me now, but I honestly can't think of a single live-action movie before, say, Minority Report where they had a fully CG character throughout the entire film that actually looked good—like, genuinely good. And don't even get me started on Attack of the Clones.

Now, whether that stuff impressed people, looked cool, or left them totally cold... I guess that’s down to individual taste and how much someone knows about film. But the fact remains that Lucas was the pioneer here. It might not mean much to us, but it certainly meant something to him and his bank account. That’s pretty much the whole philosophy behind Episode 1 and 2.

Carpenter 😁 sorry.
Look—it could be a tribute to someone or something, but let’s be real: this movie is absolute garbage. Isn't it? Is there actually anyone out there who genuinely enjoys this? Let’s just forget about those weird dedications. And here is the big question: maybe we're just projecting what we want to see onto it, because it clearly wasn't even on his mind when he made it.

Listen, I don't particularly care for LOTR because of the points Eric Jackson43 mentioned, though I'll admit the pacing could have been handled better. But I won't get sidetracked by that now.

Let me put it this way: if I had never read the books, I would have thought the movie was freaking amazing. But after reading them and seeing how much better the whole thing could have been executed, well... damn. 👎

Alright. It seems we've landed on two possible conclusions.
Either they simply don't care about anything other than making a quick buck, or they genuinely don't realize they've made a terrible film.
I know everyone has their own opinion, 😁, but take Battlefield Earth for example. John Travolta is pushing to film a sequel to that absolute catastrophe. He obviously has no idea what a 🤮 he actually made, which is honestly pathetic.

Icepick said:Seen it already??? 😕

Kill me now, but I honestly can’t think of a single live-action movie before, say, PM where we have a completely CG character throughout the entire film—and one that actually looks good, too. And don't even get me started on HBO.

Look, whether that blew anyone away, seemed cool, or left people bored is down to personal taste and what you know. But the fact remains: Lucas was the first. It might not mean much to us, but it meant everything to his bank account. That’s basically the whole philosophy behind episode 1 and 2. [/B]

Oh, please. Computer-generated characters have been around since Terminator 2. They were mostly perfected by Jurassic Park, and there hasn't been a massive leap forward since then. Lucas didn't invent CG characters. He just overused them. Personally, I'm over it. You can make a visually stunning movie without all that crap, which the old SW movies proved plenty of times.