Lindsay Ellis

Honestly, the biggest surprise in this video for me is that the Eddie Murphy Dr. Dolittle was a remake. And of a movie that disastrously unsuccessful, no less!

Huh… You really can't assume a film's commercial success by its critical reception, huh. I should have known better.

Thank god they didn't make Eddie Murphy sing. >.> …Actually, I'd be curious to see that.

Oh I grew up with the original Dr. Doolittle and I remember groaning at that remake because it only retains like 1% of it. The movies are themselves based on a series of children's books.

... my god Skillshare is trying to get a monopoly on all Youtube sponsorships!

Edited by kyun on Aug 31st 2018 at 2:49:39 AM

The point at the end with Venom and Titans trying to chase trends that have already started dying down was something I definitely felt with some of the more recent DC flicks.

I kinda liked how Lindsay half-assed the shilling part at the end, reading her phone and all. Still, that bothers me. Couldn't the sponsors just have an ad being shown at the start or the middle of the video instead of asking the youtubers to do the advertising themselves?

I'm honestly not sure we're supposed to take a film that has the phrase "like a turd in the wind" that seriously.

…But wait, they're gonna make a Grimdark Teen Titans too?

Edited by Lyendith on Aug 31st 2018 at 2:14:05 PM

I appreciate lindsey clarifying how the industry is different now to how it was in the sixties, and how the superhero genre probably won't match the musical genre one for one.

Yes the studios are big enough now that they can survive more flops than they could previously. And the musicals only died because studios refused to do appropriately budgeted productions and marketing.

What makes Marvel interesting to me is that at the same time as producing mega block busters like Infinity War, they're also making Ant Man films with a budget of 130M.

Edited by Whowho on Aug 31st 2018 at 2:30:06 PM

I doubt Ant Man was made for 130,000

Or you watched a VERY different version of the movie than I did.

Ah sorry I meant million.

Skillshare makes more sense though. By its nature, it's basically a place where Youtubers can share their own skills. They integrate it into the videos because Skillshare IS the creators.

It is interesting in how the MCU gets repeated success by being colourful silly and, well comic-like. While pretty much all of it's contemporaries that try to ape it's structure of serialised cinematics decidedly go for dark-and-gritty based on the Nolan Batman films, the first of which came out in 2005, the last in 2012 and it's peak (which is actually the movie everyone is trying to ape) came out a full decade ago by now.

It's not just non MCU Superhero movies trying to do the "dark-and-gritty ala The Dark Knight because it worked there" in The New '10s. The stillborn Dark Universe tried to do it with the goddamned Mummy which failed so utterly spectacularly it basically killed the whole project right out of the starting gate.

Basically, a fair amount of Genre films are trying to get the MCU's box office returns by aping it's structure but are still clinging to that desaturated, cynical "realism" that was so pronounced in blockbusters and genre films of the late 00s and early 10s without realising (or wanting to realise) that people have moved on from that.

Like Lindsay, I am somewhat disappointed that the Dark Universe died before it even started, though with a little different mindset. I think if instead of aping the grimdark tone of The Dark Knight, they should've gone full pulp with it and try to make the universe more in the tone of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the comic book, not the movie, that is). At worst it would've been a fun action romp series with classic horror overtones, at best it could've been great, even a genre classic.

But we already had a dark age of superheroes back then, during the era of Spawn, Daredevil, etc. :P

Didn't the Dark Universe fail twice before even being born, with the panning of Dracula Untold prompting them to reboot it after just one movie?

I'm pretty sure multiple Dark Ages are allowed.

So it appears a hero has risen to help those who couldn't make out what the fuck Venom was saying. It is the one and only, @Nellachronism

IIRC, Dracula Untold was never meant to be the starting film for the Dark Universe. The Dark Universe tie ins were added in as reshoots after the end of the films production as a sort of potential pilot and a way to potentially have a concurrent and intertwined Dracula franchise going at the same time.

When Dracula Untold flopped they basically ignored all that Dark Universe stuff and positioned The Mummy as the first in that franchise.

But yeah, it is impressive how Hollywood enjoys jumping in the trend. Besides superhero and musicals, you get the animated musicals in the 90's.

I'd add westerns but I'm not sure how much of that was actually Hollywood.

I'm actually surprised we didn't get a resurgence of pirate films, though I guess the Sword and Sandal got a short revival back in the early 00's.

Part of the problem is that pirate (or otherwise water-set films) tend to be a production nightmare. All POTC movies suffered heavy problems with their floating sets (i.e the ships) and the actors in it. The commentary track for the first film comments that a large chunk of the production was a living Hell because most of the crew and actors took medicine to keep them from getting seasick but forgot about the additional side-effect of drowsiness, resulting the entire film crew having a gargantuan struggle to stay awake and on point while they're filming the scenes. Master and Commander required a unholy amount of work and maintainance on the ships, e.t.c

So in general, it's just hard to replicate. The old swashbuckling films tended to get around this by using studio sets, but that doesn't really fly anymore.

Edited by Gaon on Sep 3rd 2018 at 5:52:07 AM

Maybe studios should infest in more animated pirate movies, if they don't want to do it in live action since it takes up so much time.

There was a new It's Lit a few days ago

Edited by Ghilz on Sep 8th 2018 at 7:20:11 AM

Lindsay's new video is out. A brief history of Youtube and the struggles of being ""authentic"".

Saw it on Patreon.

Also from her Twitter

Edited by Ghilz on Sep 11th 2018 at 3:38:15 PM

This was a really good video, and there's a lot to digest on what it means to be a consumer on Youtube.

I felt really called out during the bit on half-paying attention to what she was saying because I had GBF open.

Edited by Nouct on Sep 11th 2018 at 7:41:09 AM