[jonathanlydall]

I watched The Shining for the first time in around 2012 and when commenting to an older friend about it I said something to the effect of "It's good, but I didn't feel it was exceptional." to which he replied saying that "Yes, but consider that it was the first real film of that genre, it only seems "okay" today because you're comparing to all the films of the same genre which came after and were largely influenced by it."

I don't know enough about films to know that if he said was accurate, but it's stuck with me.

I was about 16 when The Matrix came out and I find it interesting asking people who were born after it came out what they think about it, if they've seen it their reaction is typically (much like me with The Shining) "seemed alright", while for me at the time the movie was phenomenal and in terms of many of its special effects, unlike anything I had ever seen before.

[ghaff]

There are a number of films: The Matrix, the original Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Avatar, I’m sure many others that were just so different and jaw-dropping in many ways when they first came out—in those cases because of effects of various types mostly—that it can be hard to appreciate their novelty at the time.

Some stand up better than others.

[ethbr1]

Citizen Kane, Casablanca

Appreciating "modern" before modern times requires taking the production date into context and being aware of what contemporary media was doing.

Unfortunately, the entire reason you're watching famous media decades later is because contemporary media is comparatively boring.

F.ex. How many people who have seen Citizen Kane have seen Louisiana Purchase? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_in_film

[ghaff]

Those are two of my favorite films. But Citizen Kane was largely unique as opposed to a precursor of a type. And Casablanca just put everything together in a package that really wasn’t that distinct from plenty of other love stories set against a WWII backdrop on the surface.

[ethbr1]

To me, both Citizen Kane and Casablanca feel pretty revolutionary in editing, compared to what was prevalent at the time. But this has intrigued me to do some '41/42 comparisons.

[troupo]

In comparison to many of the lazy movies of today I find The Matrix still as jaw-dropping. Even the two sequels tried to push the envelope.

But the original one was just so brilliantly made

[rvba]

The matrix to some degree is inspired by Ghost in the shell .