[betterunix]

"At the very heart of the film industry’s longevity is the art of narrative storytelling which has been refined continuously"

The overwhelming majority of Hollywood movies are terrible, shallow stories with formulaic development that are designed to grab money from specific demographics. There is hardly anything artistic left.

It may be what people want, but let's not pretend that great works of art are what keep Hollywood profitable.

"you have to remember this is a sixty-five billion dollar a year industry that has survived multiple world wars and the great depression"

The typewriter industry also survived those wars and the great depression, and where is it now? Times change, and businesses that adapt poorly to a changing market will be replaced.

[dylandrop]

People always enjoy escapes from reality. This is what makes Hollywood so successful. And while artistic movies might not be the biggest money makers, there are still plenty of respectable titles that earn a large amount of money and are tasteful/fascinating to watch.

In regards to your second point, I think you didn't read the full article. The point is that Hollywood historically HAS been a VERY successful industry at rebounding, most specifically in the era of the TV (which is probably most applicable here).

[dylangs1030]

I'm not sure you grasped the real point of the author's post.

It doesn't matter if you think the movies are crap - the "art of narrative storytelling" isn't mutually exclusive with shallow film making. It's a technical expertise with developing a story/dialogue/scene sequence. The literal story can be shallow and unappealing, but the story's visuals, acting, etc. are all highly tuned.

I also don't agree that "works of art" are what keep Hollywood profitable. You just said most movies are terrible and formulaic. Those are the biggest money makers, unless you call those more artistic than the indie films everybody loves.

You go on to compare Hollywood to the typewriter. The typewriter is an extremely poor analogy. It was literally eclipsed by superior technology and made obsolete.

You cannot make Hollywood "obsolete" - there is a worship culture to celebrities, a direct product of Hollywood (as the author describes). Hollywood survived the television being put into homes, which would arguably be more of a technology progression. You can't just beat a cult of personality with technology is the author's point - Silicon Valley isn't going to remove something so deeply embedded in America just by getting "smarter" about it. It's vastly more complex than that, and it's not going away just because a startup comes out with something that attempts to make Hollywood "obsolete."

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that your argument doesn't work.

[larrys]

Typewriter industry didn't continually have to be creative through those time periods. Hollywood did. It has to be creative and constantly come up with new "merchandise" in order to survive. IBM just had to come up with the "Selectric" or make slight improvements to satisfy what amounts to almost a cash cow type business in a more or less stable market.

Hollywood is in the entertainment business. They have adapted well to (as a business venture and to make money) the entertainment business over time. Movies aren't made the same way they were in the 30's, 50's or 70's.

While they certainly make their share of mistakes (with flops and not knowing necessarily what will be the next blockbuster) so do VC's and angels. They just try to match the best pattern they can and spread the money around. Hollywood does a version of the same. But Hollywood has been much more successful (at scale that is) than the "startup" industry has been. (Even taking into account VC investing prior to the Internet).

"Disrupt" hasn't been around that long. Hollywood has. People buy the product.

[diminish]

Here comes the formulaic HN movie, two hackers decide to kill movie industry.....

[jmduke]

The overwhelming majority of Hollywood movies are terrible, shallow stories with formulaic development that are designed to grab money from specific demographics. There is hardly anything artistic left.

This argument is not necessarily in conflict with what you quoted.