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Avatar, all of them.
The first one existed purely to show off 3d film technology and push the limits of CGI.
The sequels false started under the premise that the first one had anything past colourful lights and sounds.
Also, Tron: Legacy, which I am very fond of because it’s essentially a Daft Punk music video.
I barely remember anything about Tron: Legacy besides short Daft Punk cameo that started Derezzed track.
Edit: also that they’ve used 3d model of CLU and that I have only noticed it was 3d model late in the movie.
I felt that Sucker Punch fits this. They had some cool dreamy sequences, which looked good in the trailer, but then you watched the movie and those were kinda it. I think they tried to get a little bit of depth in there by making a sad story to tie the dreams together, but to me at least it felt shallowly deep 😛
Avatar, most marvel and dc films, most nolan films
Hardcore Henry
But its style is so good, the lack of substance does not even matter.
Michael Bay. Although The Rock is hilarious.
The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (7-9). There’s lots of cool-looking shit going on, but taken as a whole, it’s completely incoherent.
The Last Jedi had some really powerful messages and was incredibly well made, but sadly it hurt some people’s feelings a bit so it’s seen as a bad movie despite commercial success and critical acclaim. And sadly that vocal minority made them backtrack a lot of the choices from that movie in episode 9, so yes, as a trilogy it became completely incoherent.
I liked The Last Jedi, but even on its own, it has problems. Coming to mind are the hyperspace ramming thing, the physics of the bomber run at the beginning, the nonsense of the mutiny storyline…
It’s a weird movie, the story around Rey, Luke, Kylo, and Snoke was excellent, but the story around Finn, Rose, and the general was awful writing and usually bland acting. There’s a really good movie in there, maybe one of the best Star Wars, if you cut out half of it.
There’s a really good movie in there, maybe one of the best Star Wars, if you cut out half of it.
And then, by those rules, now Episodes 1-3 have a heavily edited shot at being the best, as well. Haha.
As it so happens, I haven’t seen the original prequels in over a decade, and only watch the HAL 9000 edits, and I would say they are all substantial improvements.
It is kind of a bad movie though. Yeah, the switch away from some chosen one (s family) was cool, but the actual story of the movie is the most boring chase in the universe coupled with dicking around in some casino.
It’s about the same amount of plot advancement (maybe slightly more) than Empire Strikes Back, though.
Is it? I dont think i have watched the original trilogy in the last… two decades? Honestly after Ep 9 i felt totally done with star wars (will definitely agree that its worse than ep 8; i dont even remember the plot anymore besides palpy’s back!) and that feeling was cemented when i watched and absolutely enjoyed Andor for all the ways it wasnt star wars
When you break it down there’s a lot of parallels despite those elements being used in different ways: big battle on an ice/salt planet, chase through space, Jedi mentor on a distant planet, betrayal by a new character in/met in a glitzy planet, reveal/non-reveal of parentage, but on top of that you have Luke’s arc going from disillusioned mentor to learning from failure and facing your mistakes, and the ‘force is for everyone, not just a few genetic lineages’ with the casino planet epilogue.
All of Star Wars imho, they have little to no story, especially the first three made, they added space decision to an average western, dulled down the story & characters/ships to make the merch available at the same time as the movie (which was like the main goal with the first movie).
They are a cool space opera, but they all have short/“small” stories bcs that is probably what focus groups predicted will be the most successful for the business.
Neon Demon but in a good way, the style becomes the substance. Love that movie
Every Tarantino film.
Came here to say the same.
One of the best “all style” movies has to be:
“The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.”
Equilibrium.
More recently, Tron Ares.
Saltburn
Ghostbusters (1984)
Ultraviolet (2006)
Torque (2004)
Sin City (2005)
Drive (2011)
The Lighthouse (2019)I’ll probably come back to add more.
The Lighthouse (2019)
Incredibly strong disagree
What’s the substance of The Lighthouse?
What’s the meaning? The message? What’s the point of it?
Ghostbusters (1984)
I could understand that if you’re coming at it as a younger person who’s not impressed with the franchise and/or feels that it hasn’t aged well. But, man-- that thing was a tonne of fun back in the day, even if it wasn’t some kind of cinematic classic.
I’d argue that it was also seriously innovative, coming up with a bunch of novel tech, storytelling and plot points for that genre of movie. Lots of good acting, memorable scenes, and a truly inventive comedy adventure made for plenty of substance IMO.
Sin City (2005)
I’ll agree with that one. They did a very good job literally recreating scenes from the GN, but there was a surprising flatness to the film that really brought down the interest level for me. 2D characters might work perfectly well for comics, but when you bring in real human actors, it’s kind of a step backwards to play them the same way, I think.
I’m 45, and a massive Ghostbusters fan. But all it is, is a super fun zany romp. There’s nothing else of any meaningful substance. No major character arch’s or touching moments of humanity. Nobody reflecting on the nature of “living” vs “dead” if it’s all just different states of being. And the movie is certainly no worse off for the lack of it. In fact adding more meaningful scenes or concepts to it would probably make it worse.
A lot of people seem to believe a “low substance” movie is synonymous with being a bad movie. It’s not.
In my mind “Style” is entertaining and “Substance” is meaning. Ghostbusters and the rest of the movies I listed are all about only being some form of interesting entertainment. They’re lacking in any other real message, meaning, or point. (Or making it so unintelligible as to be meaningless) Some of them are very popular movies. Movies people don’t realize have no actual meaningful substance. Others are not. I would argue they’re all good at being the movies they want to be, and recognizing that sometimes substance isn’t actually worth anything.It’s true, your honor, ☝️ this man has no dick.
I’m 45
So yes indeed, coming at it as a younger person? 🙂 You would have been like 3yo when it came out, right?
No major character arch’s or touching moments of humanity.
In terms of the former, you’d be looking for something that’s rarely there in that genre of film, so… of course not? As for the latter, I think there were some memorable humanistic moments, primarily driven by Bill Murray, and really, all the better for the movie avoiding dipping in to maudlin sentimentality and whatnot, the way other comedy-type films have done, past and since.
In my mind “Style” is entertaining and “Substance” is meaning.
Yeah, I see what you’re saying with that. GB was certainly not about meaning, per se. But where I depart from you is that I take substance as being other things as well, such as the innovation I mentioned above. The film did fall in to a certain, fairly shallow type of entertainment, yet was still outrageously novel, interesting and even ground-breaking. That’s certainly “substance” to me.
What are your thoughts on the Avatar movies?
Are they substantive?No idea. I’m much more of bandes dessinées reader than film-watcher, in general.
That said, I’m with you in terms of films that contain meaning. I do appreciate it, and tend to rate such films higher.
Ghostbusters are probably like Beetlejuice back in the day. I did watch Ghostbusters when I was young, but only this year watched Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice is weird movie with a simple premise that somehow got a traction with children. Same as Ghostbusters I guess. They both have this weird charm that grabs your attention while having “no message”
The Tree of Life from 2011. I felt like half the movie was just shots of the universe with music. It was pretty nonsensical.
I’d argue visuals are a pretty l major part of a what makes a movie a movie, so you could argue this is a case where style is substance. You’re not watching Tron for the story.
That said, post-300 Snyder went up his own arse and the slow-mo action, music choices, composition from renaissance paintings - none of it informs characterisation, story beats, themes, or anything beyond “look how cool this is bruh”.
Enter The Void is pretty good.
Nah, it’s not
