Innocence in the 21st century.

[GeorgeMichael]

in light of new movies such as Enchanted, Bella, etc... I was wondering what other people would think about this topic. In today's modern life where most popular movies are the ones with nudity, drugs, violence, profanity (I don't usually say it like that but I'm trying to be formal :)) can a truly light hearted and nice movie actually be successful? Would people today actually feel towards the characters in the movie despite there being absolutely no death or action or has the Classic American Love film died out. Recently, with Enchanted being an exception because of it'd Disney marketing, all light hearted movies have bombed. Of course many of them were not well made but even several that were have suffered by their own sweetness for lavk of a better word.


So what do you think? Have we truly come to a place where a nice movie cannot be accepted anymore? (in case you wanted to know my mom was the one that placed this question to me and I could only answer yes, that i really didn't think it could happen that often anymore.)

[Rafael Domination]

Erm...I saw that Enchanted hit the top spot, so I'm guessing there's still room for innocence.

[Imelda]

Stardust. That didn't bomb, and that's so cuuuuute. :love:

[Tncowgirl]

The Ultimate Gift didn't really have anything wrong and it was good. I think they can, people are just.........odd theses days when it comes to movies and tv shows. I was sitting down last night to watch a tv show and my dad had to turn it off because they were going just as far as the 'rules' or whatever they use would let them and my dad doesn't want that stuff on our tv so he shut it off. Its getting old.

[Shaun]

Actually, Stardust did bomb. It cost roughly 65 million USD to make, and another 30 million USD to market it, and only brought in from US sales alone about 38 million USD. Include sales from England and other countries, converted to USD, we have roughly about 32.5 million USD. That means of the 95 million dollars (USD) it took to get this movie out there, they only brought in a total of 70.5 million. That's well under the mark. Even if we say that the marketing only cost them 3 million you're looking at a small profit margin. It's doubtful, considering the amount of marketing in the US alone, that it would be anything less than double digit millions though.
So by sales, Stardust was a flop. The sick part about that is that Stardust could very well be the best movie of the year. I'm dead serious. My sister and I were giggling like school children when Deniro came on the screen as the gay pirate. It was such a fantastic movie with an awesome cast and a great plot. Great pacing, great everything. I think the problem is the marketing. They marketed it as if it were some silly fairytale love story, but it's really more complex than that. They should have marketed it to families rather than to individuals, putting direction towards parents to bring their kids to see it. But, yeah, I don't know anything I guess :P

That last bit by the way goes for all 'innocent' films. They need to target the right audience. That will bring in ticket sales. That Enchanted flick is supposed to be really good and I want to see it. I think they have marketed it well by pointing it towards kids and it should do rather well in the long run.

[Zaphkiel]

Well, it's nice to have good movies that give values to the people, but let's face it...people want violence, sex, and R-rated action. The world has become a very corrupted place to live in now-a-days, and there's no getting around it. Most of Society doesn't want to see how the little boy stopped people from hunting animals in his village, they want to see how Bobby ends up screwing Susy(Exuse me if I offended anyone by this last statement, I'm just trying to make a point). It's sad to say it, but that's how the world is today; you can either face reality, or run away from it.

I'm not saying the Innocent movies suck, in fact, I like a lot of them. I'm just saying that we have to face the fact that we live in a violent society that loves watching violent things.

[Shaun]

Stardust was, by the way, one of the best movies I have ever seen and it had violence in it, but it wasn't gore. Limbs were lobbed off with loads of blood. There was a lot of violence in that film, but it was so well done and so good it didn't detract from the innocence.
You can make innocent films without showing guts and gore...

[Zaphkiel]

You just proved my point. People like violence. Limbs getting hacked off and loads of blood are still elements of entertainment to society.

[Shaun]

Well Star Wars has violence, but almost all the films don't involve any blood or graphic violence, yet they are successful. Same with Indiana Jones. Plenty of violence, but little blood or gore...Both those franchises prove that you can tell a story without a whole lot of gore and crap.

[Zaphkiel]

Your mixing up my words. I'm not saying that movies aren't successful without any hint of violence, I'm just saying most of Society look for violence. BTW, Star Wars was full of action, and limbs, along with heads flew.

[Shaun]

The new Star Wars were, the originals not so much. Not a whole lot of heads were chopped off in the originals (except I think in Empire, but they were really tasteful about it).

I agree with you, but I think 'innocence' could be termed as violence that isn't explicit. So Star Wars, enormously successful, would be a film of innocence to me.

But if we're talking like old 50s Disney, then that genre has been dead for a while. There's always violence in films, even in old Disney toons.

[Zaphkiel]

I see what you mean when I look at it from your perspective. I know Star Wars is probably one of the best things kids like to watch, and it's not gory, but the light saber fights and laser gun battles are action-packed elements, and they do retain some form of violence that attracts watchers. I mean, I can bet that Star Wars would lose a lot of popularity if it was for light sabers, the laser guns, the force, droids, and jet fighters, right?

[GeorgeMichael]

Well Star Wars started in the 70's and I mean like in the 2000's Because even when the new ones came out everyone knew that they would make good money even if they sucked because, well, it's Star Wars, it has like the biggest cult following right up there with Star Trek.

[Shaun]

I think the problem is the definition of 'innocent films'. Three really aren't any films out there that avoid all the things we've talked about. Every film either has violence, sex, or something else, in some form or another. Even that Enchanted movie has violence, as I hear the ending is a fight with a dragon.

[Zaphkiel]

That's absolutly correct.

[Shaun]

So, perhaps when we say "innocent film" we mean a film that isn't gory, doesn't actually show sex (nakedness and the like), doesn't have really bad language, and basically is just tasteful in how it uses such things. So Star Wars would, by definition, be an "innocent film", since it isn't a gory film, it uses the violence properly, and the sexual story line isn't explicit, but it is implied. Obviously Padme got pregnant from them doing it, but it's not show. We just know they love each other and they kiss.
But then, has the "innocent film" really died then? Plenty of movies are coming out that don't use excessive violence, etc. and they are successful...half of Will Smith's films are this way. I mean, there is some language in his films, but it's not language that can't be said on TV nowadays.

A note on language: we seem to think in this country that current bad slang is offensive stuff. Remember, back in the day, the word 'damn' was considered a curse word. Same with things like "stupid", "idiot", "gosh dangit", "dagnabit", etc. You can see how none of those words are considered curse words today, so it's only natural that as our language evolves, so too would our relation with curse words. "Bitch", "whore", "ass", "asshole", and "goddamn" are now, generally speaking, acceptable on TV, and sooner or later so will be "fuck" and "shit".

[Zaphkiel]

You put up a solid debate and your facts and insight are more than valid, which is very good, but isn't it true the Society's preference for violenc could highten to new levels. Causing them to place more R/X-rated material on TV. I think Society in future wil be worse than what it is now.

[Shaun]

Yeah, but that argument was used 50 years ago too when movies started to get a little more violent (as in some guy punching another guy with actual intent to hurt...which today would seem really mild). Most people aren't thinking about the fact that violence is in movies, they're not more concerned with the type of violence. Gore is the new 'in thing', and I'm not all that partial to it. I like some gore if it serves a purpose. Take Saving Private Ryan. The gore in that was tasteful because it served to show what D-day was really like. But in horror films, you don't need gore to make a film scary. It's almost unnecessary in most cases. Some of the greatest horror films could scare you without showing limbs getting chopped off or people eaten alive, or guts, or such things. But, this is the way things are changing and I think it is a result of the fact that horror is a failing genre that doesn't scare as much as it used to, and so new methods have to be used to entertain the masses.