Opinion: Old movies are better... period

2023 certainly proved to be a year for film and television, for better or worse. A year of strikes, box office flops, media chao, and one where many are still not convinced to go back to the theater at all.

Yet people are still not fully convinced that the current state of movies could be better than the classics of old.

This should come as no surprise to everybody, though there are always a few people who think “Wait... what?” Yes, about 99% of the time, older movies are overall much better than anything released over the past ten years.

For one comparison, let’s compare “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” to “The Rise of Skywalker.” Now, for some, this is not a fair comparison, because one is a perfect masterpiece and the other one is a “corporate mishap.”

However, what’s missing from that “unfair argument” is the fact that both those films had behind-the-scenes issues and that they were both rewritten before the main shoots.

Most people in the Star Wars fan base are aware that Episode IX was conceived radically differently from the finished J.J. Abrams product and was even given a different title: “Duel of the Fates.”

The “Empire Strikes Back,” on the other hand, had an original draft written by writer, Leigh Brackett.

Lucas apparently read it and hated the script, but Brackett died before he could demand rewrites from her. While she still retained writing credit, the movie widely varied from whatever it is she wrote, still unknown to this day.

It’s a matter of who is handling the movie.

Lucas probably had more care in the messy behind-the-scenes situation of whatever Star Wars movie he was handling.

Disney, on the other hand, was too busy making sure it still made that deadline, making “The Rise of Skywalker” a rushed product. A corporation is less likely to make behind-the-scenes issues of a movie work in the end.

Not to mention, the "corporatizing” of movies has certainly plagued what has been churned out for the past couple of years. The behind-the-scenes conflicts are certainly one example.

But another is obvious: nothing ends anymore.

Let’s take the “Back to the Future” trilogy for example. It was a contained trilogy and has had no sequels or remakes or other film/TV show continuations since 1990.

If “Back to the Future” were made today, it would have received more sequels than just the two, spin-off streaming shows of who-knows-what characters, potential prequels installments and it wouldn’t be surprising if Marty opened a multiverse or something.

It makes the beginning, middle and end natures of stories essentially obsolete. Studios can’t just let their own stories rest and be allowed to endure timelessly. If something is successful and brings in a lot of bucks, then their mentality is that these must be allowed to continue.

Not letting stories end leads to brand dilution (as Marvel is suffering from right now), and then eventually these stories or properties fizzle out and nobody cares anymore.

After all, did anybody genuinely want a sequel to “Joker?” What partially made that first movie good was the fact that it was one self-contained story. Now that’s ruined because some executive at Warner Brothers noticed that it raked in a billion dollars at the box office, and “the show must go on.”

That led to 2024’s upcoming “Joker: Folie a Deux,” a movie with a ridiculous musical premise that nobody really asked for.

On top of that, after the success of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” Tom Holland is now slated to return for another trilogy of films.

Okay, but wasn’t No Way Home already teased by the director of “Spider-Man: Endgame”? Didn’t the arcs for all three Spider-Men technically end in this movie alone? When will this ever end?

As stated before: brand dilution.

Now, there are a few films released this year that I believe hold a candle to films of the past. For one, “Godzilla Minus One” was a surprise entry, but a welcome one to be sure. How could anybody expect a Godzilla movie (whose series has been mostly monster-fighting/destruction shlock after the first film) to be made that fantastically?

It’s thoughtful, effective and exceeds what it needs for a monster movie. Sure, it’s tied to something pre-existing, but it goes far beyond its original property.

“Oppenheimer,” despite being tied to the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, also has enough legs to stand the test of time. Even outside the Christopher Nolan followers, this film has a pretty solid base and will be watched endlessly over and over again.

Additionally, “Air” was also a nice little biopic that maybe could gain some traction in the coming years. Though it's small scale and not groundbreaking in any way, it's still thoughtfully made and well-acted and encourages audiences to “pursue their destiny” even amidst uncertain circumstances.

Now, what’s nice about most older movies as well is that almost all of them (less said towards the last quarter of the 20th century) don’t even have ties to previous franchises or other entries.

Sure, “Gone with the Wind” and “The Shawshank Redemption” were based on books, but aside from that, they were purely original in execution.

Not to mention, did Alfred Hitchcock ever feel a need to make a sequel to“North by Northwest”? Or the need to make a spin-off entry of James Stewart’s character from “Rope?”

Would John Ford remake “The Searchers” without John Wayne and instead with a new ensemble cast? No, because that would have been unnecessary. Something studios don’t understand now.

Movies are in a real mess right now.

If studios weren’t so corporatized and focused primarily on the needs of the stories they tell and the audiences they tell stories to, then perhaps movies wouldn’t be so messy.

But at least there were still a few good films that leaked through.

Logan M. Sharp is a fourth-year student majoring in film production. To contact him, please email lxs5590@psu.edu