[Weekly Update] May 15, 2022 (Patreon)

I'm back from a two day film shoot, where we did a bunch of pre-vis for fight scenes! It was surprisingly tiring, even thought I'm mostly just waiting for the stunt team to figure things out.

And like a total amateur to the genre, I just winged it. And now I'm kinda afraid to look at the result.

CHANNEL UPDATE

Emergency update! I'm delaying all my plans by 2 weeks, because I found a way I can talk about Everything Everywhere All at Once before the film is available for streaming. We are going to take a look at Michelle Yeoh's entire career, and why she is the one and only choice for this film. I know we already talked about her in our Kung Fu Heroine video, but that was just a single chapter. With a full video, we can slow down and appreciate her acting in greater details.

We have a video about why kung fu movies are always so patriotic, and followed by a review of Gallants.

Finally, I hope you enjoyed our video on Malaysian cinema. It was nice to be able to explore another country's film industry. From what I've noticed, Malaysians are very politically conscious, and many viewers would prefer the video to go deeper into societal issues reflected in films, as well as the state of the film industry in general. Unfortunately, with little knowledge about the up to date social movements, the scope is just way beyond what I'm capable on a bi-weekly schedule. But that video is just part of my learning process. I'm sure I'll learn more from everyone as we continue forward.

MEDIA TALK

So I watched Morbius. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't memorable in anyway.

In all honesty, I enjoyed the film as a distraction, mainly because I have a soft spot for crappy late 90s early 2000s superhero movies, like the OG Fantastic 4, or the Ben Affleck Daredevil. Morbius feels so much like those movies, it kinda loops around and being fun for all the wrong reasons.

On social media, I said the film feels like it was written by one of those deep learning AI that has been fed thousands of scripts, and I wasn't joking. From what I've heard, even back in 2015, Hollywood has been using similar software to determine whether or not a certain aspect of the script will be loved by audience or not. It's basically a big data collection of films and their audience responses. If it appears frequently in highly successful films, then it must be a good inclusion. It would explain why modern Hollywood has shifted so much towards IP advertising, rather than star powers or artist recognitions. IP is one of those things that you can predict with the data bank.

Of course, one thing it doesn't predict is trend. A look at some of those supposed AI written scripts, and you can see it has nothing but old cliches. Because cliches, by definition, appeared the most often. The AI recognize the pattern, and attempts to replicate it, resulting in a cheap imitation. And that's exactly how I feel about Morbius. This movie is just a very solidly constructed, uninspired movie that follows too closely to genre convention, with minimal creativity.

So, what's the lesson here?

Well, this movie and the existence of crappy AI scripts prove that it is nearly impossible to write a good script by studying other scripts. Good story comes from living experience. That's why writers advise people to write from their life, not from what they've read. "Write what you know", as they say.

Another thing? If you are in the creative industry, you can let out a sigh of relief. Turns out, our robot overlord has yet to master the art of... art?

But what do you think? Do you think automation and AI tech will take over the creative industry soon? How is your industry affected by technology? Let me know in the comments. I'll see you soon, with a video about the queen of kung fu, Michelle Yeoh.