Is the new buzzword in Hollywood: Realism?

[Thespeckledkiwi]

I have been thinking about this for a very long time. In fact, I believe it's been over a year since I started slowly collecting information on this particular subject. I believe Hollywood and other sources of entertainment have now latched onto a small but growing trend of creating realistic shows. It begin for me with the X-Files. They took some of the more popular myths; UFOs, Mothman, el Chupacabra and other ideas and created a more realistic approach to them, giving them more of a scientific grounding than a fantastical approach to them. They used science and realism. Then you got Spider-Man. The designers of Spider-Man took a realistic approach to his webshooters, believing that a teenager wouldn't be able to create something like this and decided to give him organic webshooters. You also got the Ultimates, reorganizing and giving the Avengers a more gritty and realistic approach to the world, instead of comic book one.

And then Batman Begins hit theaters a few years ago with Nolan taking a firmer grip on the origins of Batman, changing some of the bad guys around so that they didn't have weird beginnings or weird associations with mythical things like the Lazardus Pits and how Joker wasn't dipped in a chemical bath.

You also have stories like Heroes and Smallville. Comics like Thor that were relaunched.

And I am wondering how long will Hollywood continue on this path before turning toward another buzzword?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It certainly is the buzzword on this BBS anyway.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

As RJ (our beloved mod) can tell you, I've been working extensively on a realistic approach to fantasy creatures and their place in this world.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Unless Hollywood stops making sci fi/fantasy/comic book movies, I can't say they're being very serious about "realism."

Movies are as outlandish and fantastical as ever. On TV, I think it's more the case of audiences not liking anything that looks "too weird." The present-day/real-world based sci fi shows aren't offputting like some Star Trek alien is.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

But those comic book movies, people want a more explainable solution. Look at Begins, Transformers, and Spider-Man.

 

[Kegek]

Unless Hollywood stops making sci fi/fantasy/comic book movies, I can't say they're being very serious about "realism."

True, but I think TheBolianChef's point is trying to depict sci-fi/fantasy/comic book scenarios as plausibly as possible. I think this makes sense - to be outlandish is to invite humour, and if you want your audience to take you seriously, taking yourself seriously and drenching it in as much realism as can be afforded (that is, so as to not undercut the melodrama) is rather popular now. That's the sense in which one can talk of Hollywood's modern preoccupation for it - certainly, experiments with realism itself are nothing new to either cinema or Hollywood. It's a trend, I guess.

I don't think it's either a bad or a good idea. Some stuff can benefit from a quasi-realistic portrayal - other material is better left in its realm of whimsy. This realism - in Batman, Bond and so on - is often accompanied by a darker tone, and I think that too is pretty popular now. There have also been movies that have been dark without any pretence of being realistic - 300 comes to mind. And there have probably been movies that emphasized their realism without being dark.

 

[drasche]

Unless Hollywood stops making sci fi/fantasy/comic book movies, I can't say they're being very serious about "realism."

Movies are as outlandish and fantastical as ever. On TV, I think it's more the case of audiences not liking anything that looks "too weird." The present-day/real-world based sci fi shows aren't offputting like some Star Trek alien is.

Agreed. When I saw this thread title, I instantly thought about Emmerich movies

 

[Deckerd]

I think Hellboy looks pretty weird. And his chums.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

But those comic book movies, people want a more explainable solution. Look at Begins, Transformers, and Spider-Man.

Peter Parker still gets bitten by a radioactive spider, how do the movies differ from the comic books in any substantive way?

I don't know enough about Batman or Transformers to know wassup with them.

Moviegoers love fantasy scenarios. The biggest movies so far this year:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Iron Man
3. Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull
4. Hancock
5. Kung-Fu Panda
6. Wall*E
7. Horton Hears a Who
8. Sex in the City
9. Prince Caspian
10. The Incredible Hulk

A total of ONE real-world based movie in the top ten! And I wouldn't call that one a documentary either. Reality has been almost entirely chased out of the movie theaters. And it's taking over TV as well. New sf/f shows did disproportionately well last season and the few new shows this fall reflect that trend.

I'd say that the trend is the opposite: goodbye to reality, altogether. And more specifically, wild fantasy scenarios are more acceptable in the movies than on TV but that could also change.

But for any story to work for a mainstream audience, you need to have a certain degree of emotional reality. Batman is a conflicted vigilante, Bruce Banner is fighting his emotional demons, Peter Parker is just trying to make a living, Hancock is a jerk who just happens to get superpowers. So the transition to mass popular culture maybe is driving a slight bit more realism in comic book characters, but from what I remember of Batman, The Hulk and Spider-Man, they had all those issues in the comic books decades ago so this seems like tweaking more than substantial changes.

 

[Trent Roman]

[
Peter Parker still gets bitten by a radioactive spider, how do the movies differ from the comic books in any substantive way?

Ah, but in the film it's actually a genetically engineered spider that transfers its powers to Peter. Which makes about as much sense to anybody familiar with genetics as the radioactive spider did to anybody familiar with physics, but it's just that gen-en is the cutting-edge tech of today, and lack of knowledge by the layperson makes it seem more plausible than radiation (which everybody now knows will kill you, or at least make you bald and boil your balls).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Ah, but in the film it's actually a genetically engineered spider that transfers its powers to Peter.

Thanks, I forgot that detail. Yeah, radiation was the hip "scary" thing in the early 60s just like genetic engineering is now. Radiation would sound downright quaint.

Edit: If anyone is itching for realistic movies, just be patient. The Oscar-bait movies start being released in the fall, and I'm sure the pattern will repeat from last year. Box office successes = sf/f, Oscar nominees = stories that could actually happen in the real world.

(2007 also had a solid slate of sf/f movies in the top ten, again with the sole exception being a fantasy wish fulfillment scenario, this time for boys rather than for girls: The Bourne Ultimatum.)

 

[Kegek]

I don't know enough about Batman or Transformers to know wassup with them.

Well, they look more real. That's a rather flimsy note as the comparison between ILM's CGI robots would be cartoon characters from the 1980s and a toy line.

The extent to which Bay's Transformers movie is more realistic is essentially this:

1) No mass shifting. In the cartoon, it was possible for Transformers not just to turn from a robot into a car or other applicance, they could also change their size as they did so. Now you have to be the same size in either form. (They may have stretched that with the Decepticon spy, but that's their stated policy...)
2) More Earth-centric. Not really emphasizing realism, but the film never leaves our planet and spends most of its time with various human characters.

That's not really a big shift towards realism, but I guess it's something.

 

[stj]

As near as I can tell, there are only a few shows or movies that are praised for realism. That may mean an everyday setting for a story just as flambuoyantly fantastic as ever. But as near as I can make out, what it really means is that the person claiming something is more realistic is just saying the he thinks it's cool, not comic booky. The Joker surviving an acid bath is fantastic. But his smear proof makeup in Dark Knight is every bit as fantastic, except that an average audience should know even more about cosmetics than acids.

I read a review of The Closer and Saving Grace that claimed Grace Hanadarko was more "real" than Brenda Johnson. Whatever that woman liked more about Holly Hunter's character than Kyra Sedgwick's, it wasn't realism in any rational meaning of the word. I think the trend is just in the PR. Realism is supposed to be more toughminded, so praising stuff you like as realistic is cooler than admitting to whatever it is you really like?

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

But those comic book movies, people want a more explainable solution. Look at Begins, Transformers, and Spider-Man.

Peter Parker still gets bitten by a radioactive spider, how do the movies differ from the comic books in any substantive way?

I don't think they could change that but they made it more 'realistic' in the way he has his webs created. They made them organic instead of the fluid, because it wasn't realistic.

Moviegoers love fantasy scenarios. The biggest movies so far this year:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Iron Man
3. Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull
4. Hancock
5. Kung-Fu Panda
6. Wall*E
7. Horton Hears a Who
8. Sex in the City
9. Prince Caspian
10. The Incredible Hulk

A total of ONE real-world based movie in the top ten! And I wouldn't call that one a documentary either. Reality has been almost entirely chased out of the movie theaters. And it's taking over TV as well. New sf/f shows did disproportionately well last season and the few new shows this fall reflect that trend.

While they might be fantasy, the directors, producers, and such have taken a more realistic approach to movies like the Dark Knight. Again instead of the chemical bath that the Joker was created from, they dismissed that. No acid in Harvey's Face. Instead it's burned away. They took what they had and created a realistic approach to that.

Wall*E has realism in it as well. Hancock, very much so. Incredible Hulk and Iron Man has elements of realism as well.

What they are doing to the comic books and to those movies is removing those fantasy elements like Mr. Freeze, like web spinners that can't be made, and creating more real life approaches to them. That is what Hollywood is doing. It's creating an approach to movies to tie them into our society today, while keeping elements of real life together. The Dark Knight has multitude of these.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I don't think the issue is realism, it's just taking itself seriously. Grounding things emotionally. Iron Man and Spider-Man, while funny, also took their premises seriously. It wasn't realistic, but it was just executed with craftmanship. When things start getting campy, self-mocking, too winky, and stupid, and audience starts to feel stupid, like 'why am i wasting my time with this shit when I could be watching that romantic drama the next theater over?' They start getting flashback of all those horrible cheesy comic movies that gave us the "drought" before X-Men/Spider-Man came to the rescue. The Dark Knight would be just as great a film if Nolan skimped on the "realism" of the costume and created something that looked cooler and wasn't realistic, and so forth.

Temis said it quite well. Emotional Reality. Spider-Man isn't realistic in the least, but the movie presents itself well, makes Peter Parker into a character people want to see more of.

 

[Dream]

Spider-Man isn't realistic in the least, but the movie presents itself well, makes Peter Parker into a character people want to see more of.

I doubt many people want to see the dancing around in bars emo Peter in the next movie though.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Spider-Man isn't realistic in the least, but the movie presents itself well, makes Peter Parker into a character people want to see more of.

Spider-Man isn't realistic but the directors did take a few realistic approaches to Spider-Man.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

While they might be fantasy, the directors, producers, and such have taken a more realistic approach to movies like the Dark Knight.

More realistic compared with what? SF/F stories have always had to have an emotionally real core, or else they don't work as stories. LOTR focuses on friendship and honor. X-Men is about a minority struggling for acceptance. Finding Nemo is about parental responsibility. Then there are the dopey spectacles that aren't really "about" anything, like Independence Day and Armegeddon, but we still have those around too: POTC, the Mummy franchise. Nothing has changed.

You're trying to make a case that the evidence doesn't in the least support. What the evidence does support is that movies have become fantasy spectacles and actual "realistic" movies may still exist but have become a struggling minority in the top echelons of box office. People don't want realism in movies anymore, at least not in the ones that motivate their butts to the theater.

In 1980, these were the top ten movies:

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. 9 to 5
3. Stir Crazy
4. Airplane!
5. Any Which Way You Can
6. Private Benjamin
7. Coal Miner's Daughter
8. Smokey and the Bandit II
9. The Blue Lagoon
10. The Blues Brothers

Only one of the ten can truly be called sf/f. Two of them are pretty far out-there comedies, but can't really be called sf/f. Two of them (9 to 5 and Coal Miner's Daughter) tackle reasonably serious, realistic subject matter - they show situations that could happen to real people, that people in the audience could relate to, far more than they could ever relate to costumed vigilantes or victims of genetically engineered insect bits. Even Stir Crazy and The Blue Lagoon could happen in real life and are therefore more realistic than the sf/f movies popular today.

I don't think the issue is realism, it's just taking itself seriously. Grounding things emotionally. Iron Man and Spider-Man, while funny, also took their premises seriously. It wasn't realistic, but it was just executed with craftmanship. When things start getting campy, self-mocking, too winky, and stupid, and audience starts to feel stupid, like 'why am i wasting my time with this shit when I could be watching that romantic drama the next theater over?'

The winky approach puts the movie in the realm of comedy, and comedy has become the last bastion of "realism" in movies. The dramas are sf/f, the comedies are all geared towards male wish fulfillment (Judd Apatow) or female wish fulfillment (Sex in the City, Mamma Mia).

But there are also sf/f movies with silly comic aspects, and it doesn't hurt them at all. The notion that movie makers lose the stupider elements from comic books before adapting a movie doesn't surprise me, but they don't have to. That godawful Mummy movie is doing just fine. Maybe it's just that comic book property owners take their material more seriously. If you mess up Batman, there won't be another Batman down the line but the Mummy and POTC franchises you could dream up are infinite, so who cares if you run them into the ground?

 

[melancholymecha]

Heroes is realistic?

 

[Lapis Exilis]

The problem here is the words.

As Temis rightly points out, realism has to do with actual events that could happen in the real world. Taxi Driver has realism, Juno has realism. Both of those even have a certain level of artistic invention that of course makes them unrealistic - because all art is unrealistic in the final analysis, since it is an invention. What everyone is praising in science fiction/fantasy might better be termed naturalism - which is a stylistic choice to make fantasy worlds that line up plausibly with the real world (or a real world), i.e. to create soemthing that happen naturally or scientifically.

Thus, Peter Parker getting bitten by a genetically engineered spider and growing organic webshooters feels more natural (or plausible) than getting bitten by a radioactive spider and inventing an entirely new chemical substance while in high school. Both premises are equally fantastic, but one fits better with current science and doesn't ask the audience to buy Peter as the age old comic trope of the hero having an extremely over the top set of skills, including a genius level intellect.

The naturalism trend means movies that both visually look like they are set in the real world (from Iron Man buzzing the Santa Monica pier to The Dark Knight's relentlessly mundane Gotham/Chicago), and stories that revolve around some of the implications of "what if this did happen in the real world"? So you get Heroes, where part of the story has to do with how people with superpowers could biologically exist. You get X-Men where the existence of mutants causes societal upheaval. You get Batman where going outside the law to enforce the vision of a singular power spawns desperation and chaotic acts of terror from the enemy.

However these story bits are generally surrounded by good old fashioned wish fulfillment fantasy. Heroes has characters time jumping and living out lives in other eras, Wolverine is an extreme badass with claws, Batman's a billionaire who takes time out from hanging with a dozen gorgeous ballerinas to jump off of Hong Kong skyscrapers. None of that is the slightest bit realistic, but all of it has been done in varying degrees of a naturalistic style.

Realism and naturalism are often used interchangeably, ever since both trends turned up in literature and art in the 19th century, and I'm playing with the definitions just a tad, because both technically apply only to art that attempts to reproduce the real world as closely as possible and really shouldn't be applied to fantasy at all. But since it's a style of storytelling rather than the genre itself we're talking about, I think it's a fair use of the words.