| ▲ | dclowd9901 6 hours ago |
| They're starting to up their quality. Frankenstein and Death by Lightning were two standout successes recently. That said, I'm more uncomfortable with the continued consolidation of media ownership and more outsize influence of FAANG tech over media. |
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| ▲ | josefresco 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Frankenstein and Death by Lightning were two standout successes recently. IMHO Frankenstein" was pretty terrible. The makeup was awful, the effects were cheap, the monster... wasn't a monster! The entire premise depends on him being a monster, not some sort of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO. |
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| ▲ | enragedcacti 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The entire premise depends on him being a monster, not some sort of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO. This is a misconception on a similar level to thinking the monster's name is Frankenstein: "As depicted by Shelley, the creature is a sensitive, emotional person whose only aim is to share his life with another sentient being like himself." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein%27s_monster#Perso... | | |
| ▲ | slumberlust 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I disagree that it's a misconception. Yes, the premise is that the true 'monster' was the creator, but the monster itself is intentionally grotesque and disfigured to teach us the beauty on the inside lesson. | | |
| ▲ | enragedcacti an hour ago | parent [-] | | He is unsettling but definitely not simply grotesque and disfigured: > His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. |
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| ▲ | josefresco 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Thanks for stating the obvious and I assure you I know the story well. In order for the entire premise to work, there needs to be this conflict or tension between the perception of the "monster" and the true reality of his humanity. This movie failed at effectively portraying this conflict by humanizing the monster too much. Just my 2 cents. | | |
| ▲ | enragedcacti 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Ah, I understand what you mean. I don't think the viewer necessarily needs to experience the dissonance personally for the premise to work. That said, I agree that it could have afforded being less black and white, it at times felt like a children's movie with how plainly the message is communicated. | |
| ▲ | HelloMcFly 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Completely agree. The movie ruined Dr. Frankenstein's motives by adding his benefactor, and ruined his monster by removing the inner rage he felt and expressed towards the world the shunned him. A very, very odd decision by GDT. Similar to Spike Lee remaking High & Low, but removing the critique of capitalism and the complicity of the wealthy so he could make Denzel the true protagonist. |
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| ▲ | NoGravitas 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The creature was always supposed to be a mix of sympathetic and monstrous. He becomes a monster by turning himself implacably toward revenge, but we can sympathize with him for what sets him on that path. The entire premise rests more on Victor being a monster. I thought the movie handled both of those fairly well. There's really no living director who gets the Gothic sensibility quite as well as del Toro. | | |
| ▲ | HDThoreaun 8 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The movie removed all nuance from the story. The monster having monstrous traits is an important part of the book |
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| ▲ | butlike 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Personally, I didn't like it that much. Super long, droll, the casting was misstepped, and they changed the ending. | | | |
| ▲ | Arkhaine_kupo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The entire premise depends on him being a monster Have you read the book? She emphasises how pretty all the body parts that Victor picked were. | | |
| ▲ | josefresco 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. As I said, the contrast between "pretty" or "human" traits vs "monster" just wasn't there. |
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| ▲ | jimbokun 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The entire premise depends on him being a monster, not some sort of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO. Uh, the "monster" is definitely the most sympathetic character in the original novel. | | |
| ▲ | josefresco 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sympathetic sure! But the story doesn't work without the contrast between his outward horrid appearance and his inner humanity. |
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| ▲ | breakbread 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I was surprised at how many shots that I thought were terrible CGI were in fact practical effects. |
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| ▲ | phartenfeller 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's about all the other projects that would have had great quality but did not secure funding because Netflix prefers to fund mass-produced mediocrity.
In Germany we have a saying "Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn". |
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| ▲ | andsoitis 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's about all the other projects that would have had great quality but did not secure funding because Netflix prefers to fund mass-produced mediocrity. In Germany we have a saying "Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn". Did you see the show Dark? | |
| ▲ | bookofjoe 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | U.S. version: "Even a blind squirrel (or pig) finds an acorn every now and then." |
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| ▲ | skeeter2020 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Netflix has always had one or three stand-out projects over a year, but is that what we want from studios? It is like the tech model: 1 big success for 10+ duds (the VC show) or another superhero installment (the Google/Meta cash cow movie). |
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| ▲ | sbarre 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You're describing TV and movies since forever. Ever year there are a few good shows and movies and a lot of mid-to-bad shows and movies. This is not a Netflix thing, nor is it new. | | | |
| ▲ | jimbokun 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | By the definition of "stand out" you can't have very many right? If all of them "stand out" then none of them do. | |
| ▲ | nebula8804 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If WB was any good, would they have been snatched up by Netflix? All these studios fought the good fight against big tech over many years but the writing was on the wall. Hopefully a future Progressive presidency reviews all these mergers and breaks up big tech big time. | | |
| ▲ | Arkhaine_kupo 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > If WB was any good, would they have been snatched up by Netflix? Yes because the situation of WB has nothing to do with their performance. In 1990s they merged with TIME publishing right before the internet killed all magazines. In 2000s with AOL right before th dot com bubble. In 2010s with AT&T who realised they needed a shit ton of money to roll out 5G so they took a massive loan and charged it to Warner debt. So WARNER keeps performing and the business side keeps adding debt from horrible decisions | | |
| ▲ | kovezd 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Lol so this means Netflix/streaming is the next trend going down? |
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| ▲ | Mindwipe 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Honestly Warner would have been fine if they hadn't been saddled with the debt that AT&T used to buy them. It wasn't an issue of Warner's business performance. | | |
| ▲ | truelson 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | AT&T was able offload a bunch of debt on to them, and cash out at about what they paid in 2016. Not shabby. | |
| ▲ | cap11235 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | At this point why would you consider WB as an entity at all. Thry were just another IP bundle |
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| ▲ | sparklingmango 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In parallel, they're also starting to downgrade their quality. In the latest season of Stranger Things there's a wild amount of in-scene exposition, where the characters explain what's happening while it's happening. I did some digging and learned that they may be dumbing down their shows because they know users typically look at their phones while watching Netflix and users are more likely to drop off of a show if they don't know what's going on. See here: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jan/17/not-sec... Edit: I did really enjoy Frankenstein. |
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| ▲ | UltraSane 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Frankenstein looks oddly cheap and fake with really bad lighting in many scenes. You can tell they used the volume virtual production to shoot scenes and it doesn't look great. |
