[dclowd9901]

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.

[josefresco]

> 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.

[enragedcacti]

> 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...

[josefresco]

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.

[johnnyanmac]

>there needs to be this conflict or tension between the perception of the "monster" and the true reality of his humanity

I think a proper subversion would be to remove that tension and see the peppes reaction anyway. That shows the true reality of humanity once you're on the "other side" after decades of older generations thinking otherwise.

[enragedcacti]

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]

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.

[slumberlust]

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]

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.

[Thorrez]

That definitely sounds grotesque to me. Sure not "simply grotesque", but grotesque in a complex way.

[breakbread]

I was surprised at how many shots that I thought were terrible CGI were in fact practical effects.

[NoGravitas]

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]

The movie removed all nuance from the story. The monster having monstrous traits is an important part of the book

[johnnyanmac]

I think it's less about the traits and more about the reaction to the creation.

[Arkhaine_kupo]

> 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]

>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.

[butlike]

Personally, I didn't like it that much. Super long, droll, the casting was misstepped, and they changed the ending.

[josefresco]

It was too long.

[Frost1x]

Eh, I like an interesting spin on a classic. I’ve seen/heard the Frankenstein plot and small variations on it many times, taking a different direction is a good way to keep in a general universe but develop something new. If you’re not going to come up with new interesting content, at least don’t rehash the exact story I’ve heard many times. But that’s just my preference—I really enjoyed it and have become a fan of Guillermo del Toro works recently (due to exposure on Netflix). I’m not huge critic really so I won’t speak to artistic merit but I can at least say I really enjoyed it.

[jimbokun]

> 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]

Sympathetic sure! But the story doesn't work without the contrast between his outward horrid appearance and his inner humanity.

[skeeter2020]

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).

[sbarre]

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.

[HDThoreaun]

Just not true with HBO. Most of their content is consistently pretty good

[triceratops]

HBO is expensive and most people don't have it. Ergo most people never see or hear about their lower quality content. Only the good stuff that their rich friends rave about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HBO_original_programmi...

I don't recognize half the titles on that page.

They also make less content overall. This makes sense because they are one TV channel and assume you can get your reality TV fix somewhere else.

Netflix wants to be the only thing you watch. So they have to serve all needs.

[HDThoreaun]

You not recognizing their shows doesnt mean they are bad. Ive seen most of those and the overwhelming majority are at least solid. I understand netflix's business model, Im just annoyed that theyre buying HBO because they will likely make it worse. Maybe netflix wants more prestige content and will let HBO be HBO but I doubt it.

[jimbokun]

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]

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]

> 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]

Lol so this means Netflix/streaming is the next trend going down?

[johnnyanmac]

Given the state of streaming and revenue... Well, shit. Can they not take down my childhood with it please?

[johnnyanmac]

Yea WB went downhill... Because the merger had the new CEO slash with reckless abandon. His only goal was to get the company nice and pretty to sell, not to turn it around with quality content.

And he succeeded.

>The writing is on the wall

That everyone will blow themselves up to get a big acquisition paycheck as these companies crash a century of collective culture? I guess so.

[Mindwipe]

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]

AT&T was able offload a bunch of debt on to them, and cash out at about what they paid in 2016. Not shabby.

[johnnyanmac]

Its always Art that gets the shaft first when businesses implode. Shows the respect these people have for culture.

[cap11235]

At this point why would you consider WB as an entity at all. Thry were just another IP bundle

[phartenfeller]

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".

[andsoitis]

> 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]

U.S. version: "Even a blind squirrel (or pig) finds an acorn every now and then."

[UltraSane]

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.

[sparklingmango]

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.