Are Special Effects Killing Hollywood?
Special effects in TV and Movies these days can sell just about anything, in the context of making it look real, and do it for less money than was dreamed possible only a few decades ago. But this morning, a couple of stray neurons in my brain happened to fire at the same time and a new thought wafted through my mind; I found myself considering whether or not this new-found facility with the art of illusion was killing Hollywood, and taking gaming along with it.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the believability. I love that I can watch a completely artificial creation acted out on set by a live-action person, and that every nuance of that live performance can be incorporated and tweaked until Gollum looks as real as Frodo – who is half Gandalf’s height, and LOOKS it. I love that CGI made a series like Babylon 5 financially viable – even if it took 3 (or was it 4?) television networks to see the whole thing through to completion. I love the otherworldlyness of “The Matrix” and bullet time, and the walking undead of Pirates Of The Carribbean (which look as real as I always wished the ride did).
When I was younger, I had to work much harder to suspend my disbelief and accept the implausible for the sake of story or character. Nevertheless, I was able to lose myself in Spiderman (the comic) and never once question that changes in musculature towards a more fit human would enable him to mimic, proportionately, the feats of this or that member of the arachnid family. My imagination was getting plenty of exercise, so I found it easy.
These days, I find it much harder. Just as seeing the seams in matting green-screen to CGI jar me momentarily out of immersion in the story and remind me that what I’m looking at is faked, so I find that I have a lower tolerance for implausibility in my gaming. If something happens, I need to be able to look at the underlying mechanics and be convinced that – given the right assumptions – it would be plausible. Those mechanics need to be present throughout the world in which these things take place in order to fully sell the realism.
Take magic for example. In the olden days, it was enough for the wizard to state “I cast Magic Missile at —” and my mind would conjure up an image of the character waving his hands and diamond-shaped streaks of light erupting from his fingertips to arrow unhesitatingly towards the target. These days, I have to convince myself of the plausibility of the underlying mechanics – the wizard focussing on the target, the power welling up inside him (from where?), being shaped by his hand motions and the patterns within his mind (how do they interact?), erupting from the fingertips, still linked to the Wizards thoughts as he sends them flying between obstacles and around corners as though they were cruise missiles being remotely piloted – all before I can describe the action taking place with any conviction. What’s more, this underlying metaphysics has to be consistant across the entire gamut of arcane spellcasting.
Just as Hollywood benefits from the increased plausibility of its special effects, able to integrate the real and unreal in an ever-more seamless blend, able to tell stories that would simply not have been possible to depict, so my campaign world benefits from all this looking below the surface. It becomes easier for others to suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in the world when I – or someone else – has already done the heavy lifting for them, and the game environment itself becomes more realised and better-executed.
But this plausibility comes with a price tag. In Hollywood, it’s ever-increasing budgets, which demand ever-growing audiances with the motivation, the desire, and the disposable income to spend on a night’s entertainment – something that might be harder to come by in the modern economic reality. In the game, it’s more work for me as a GM, and has caused the gradual loss of players who find the effort involved becoming harder work and less entertaining. Ten or fifteen years ago, the gaming club where I play had weekly attendances of 40-60 players, week in and week out. Now there are about twelve of us – and two of those have been gaming for less than a decade.
Where are the new playes coming in to replace those who have moved aside, moved on, or moved away? They seem to be either busy playing CCGs like Yuh-gi-oh or computer-based games like World Of Warcraft – either sacrificing the entire need for suspension of disbelief in persuit of gameplay, or letting someone else do ALL the heavy lifting. Few from either group seem all that interested in tabletop RPGs.
And yet, there is hope – a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if the current economic climate does not force a retreat from big-budget blockbuster special-effects-driven movies on the part of Hollywood, even if the ever-mushrooming budgets do not force the entertainment industry to implode (something that has been predicted several times before without ever occurring), as the special effects become ever more seamless, audiances will stop being aware of them AS special effects and start focussing on the stories being told. The game-players will ultimately grow tired of shallow plots and start looking for depths and subtleties and a level of immersion that can’t be faked or glossed over with smoother 3D rendering. The WOW players will want to go beyond what the programmers have made possible, the card players will ultimately want something with a bit more depth than just another meaningless round.
One of my greatest dislikes about D&D 4th Ed is that it seems to be pandering to these non-gaming groups at the expense of the old school. But, by offering a conduit to the old school of gaming, it might just end up being the salvation of gaming in general. And that’s food for thought for the harshest critic of 4E, isn’t it?
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January 14th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I think that with the rise of home theaters (cable, satellite, Tivo, DVDs, Blu-Ray, big-screen flat panels, et al) Hollywood has to compete by creating huge CGI spectacles that just beg to be seen on the big screen. That and “date” movies seem to be the only major draws for actually going out to the movie theater these days.
As for RPGs, they originated (partly) from a literary tradition. The old school players were avid readers of Tolkien, Lieber, Howard, et al and they played talky, literature-inspired games. The new post-literate, ADHD generation has been been brought up on video games, manga and World of Warcraft. Their only saving grace is the Harry Potter books! To convert the kiddies to true role-playing someone should do an excellent tabletop Potter RPG.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
You’re right: D&D enables better stories and more flexible play.
But many people don’t want that as much as they like games where the primary objective is to game the system. In the old days, it was the rules lawyers and stats memorizers. In 3e, it’s the people who develop elaborate move/action combos and then just replay them repeatedly in games.
Card games and WOW cater to this urge, rather than subvert it. The main enjoyment of these games comes from fine-tuning skill and strategy through repetition. Role-playing, stories and flexibility are secondary and not the point.
I like D&D and I like role-playing but I’ve come to think that card games and WOW are the future … because they give the majority of people what they want.
January 15th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Both Lingshu8 and Dan Howard have made excellent points that indicate how RPGs will have to evolve into the future if they are to sucessfully capture a new and wider audiance. They will need simpler options that permit optimisation of a set of tactical choices, and they will need to emphasise action and glitz more than in-depth intellect-oriented plotlines. More Jerry Bruckheimer (I love most of his movies and TV shows, but still…) and less Alfred Hitchcock. My point is that when you look into most of the criticism of D&D 4e – and I’ve been vocally and publicly critical prior to starting this blog – these are exactly the sort of changes that have been made, and that have so inflamed many of the older generation of ‘traditional’ gamers. So the question you both raise, in essence, not whether or not 4e is an attempt to market to this audiance, but whether or not it has gone far enough…
January 15th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I don’t know any new gamers. All of the recent additions we’ve had to our group are old school gamers that, at some point, lost their original gaming groups. It isn’t like WoW or card games, where you run into people all the time who you never thought would play those games and they just started.
I’m not sure how this trend can be reversed. Like you said, people want someone else to do the heavy-lifting for them these days.
Samuel Van Der Wall’s last blog post..Contest Results: Sundered Skies & Savage Worlds
January 16th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Ahh… so many topics that I am passionate about. Thanks, Mike!
I think the reliance on CG visual effects (which are technically recognized as different from special effects, to my knowledge) is very bad for the overall quality of the movies we see—there’s little reason for film-makers to hire good story-tellers when explosions and CG superheroes pull in hundreds of millions of dollars. I couldn’t agree more that I love the technological advances and the ability to experience stories in ways we couldn’t before, but I can’t laud it beyond that because it’s being, well, abused.
As a side note, try watching the Little Shop of Horrors movie and notice how convincing they could make a giant puppet way back in 1986. I wish they used puppetry like that for more movie monsters these days, as I find it easy to be jarred out of the story with current CG (although it is getting quite good).
I think people flock to their ‘vices’ in tougher economic times, so (unfortunately) I predict that we’ll continue to see CG-centric films at the box office, and I expect people will continue to go see them. Like roleplaying, it can actually be pretty cheap when compared to other hobbies.
Now, I’m not going to paint myself as one, but as of right now I am definitely a 4E detractor. Still, my second-cousin is 16, and she got into D&D right after 4E came out. The 9-10 players involved in that campaign are looking to branch out to other games with other GMs, and her little sister (14) wishes she could join them. I’m not sure if that proves anything, but it’s evidence that new players are out there.
I’m not sure how I feel about Lingshu’s ADHD comment (You sound like a fist-shaker, sir!) but I’d wager a zillion gp that ‘your’ Harry Potter idea is well in the works. If not, I’d better contact J.K. about that. That, and read her books, I guess.
I hope Dan Howard is wrong… although really, I’m not sure if his predictions coming true would be such a bad thing for people who enjoy tabletop RPGs. It’s essentially a (growing) fringe hobby right now, as it has been since I started. I don’t mind playing on the fringe. :)
Sorry about the length. Thanks again for the post.
RPG Ike’s last blog post..Are there any antagonist GMs in the audience? Okay, I’ll speak slower…
January 16th, 2009 at 7:42 am
@Ike: It sounds like your second cousin proves my point, Ike. Interesting to see my speculations proving accurate in at least one case. And don’t worry about the length of replies; this post was intended to promote a dialogue that rises above the rhetoric that I’ve been hearing about 4e for a while now, and examine one possible silver lining.
@Samual: I have one “New Gamer” amongst those that I regularly GM; he joined in 4-5 years ago as a fresh-faced 16yo, having done nothing but computer-based RPGs and some Collectable Card Games. And he’s struggled, in some respects, but has found the ability of a GM to customise a game to accommodate whatever the PLAYERS want to do too addictive to let go of. At about the same time, we had another “New Gamer” start up as well, and he grew fascinated by the idea of DMing, and proved a natural at it. He’s since had to drop out due to university commitments, but we expect him back in 2010. So my thoughts had some basis in experience. But for every new player, there’s one who’se tried it and bailed, and 100 who’ve never even thought about it.
January 27th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Good work! Thank you!
I always wanted to write in my blog something like that. Can I take part of your post to my site?
Of course, I will add backlink?
Regards, Reader
January 28th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Your welcome, reader; glad you enjoyed it. Certainly, you can quote part of the blog post.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I think too much time and budget is spent on the special effects in the new movies. A better plot line and developed characters make a much more enjoyable movie.
I think most of the movies you want to see again don’t have that many special effects (as they are one shot wonders), but a complex story line leaves you thinking.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
I don’t completely agree with that assessment, Paul. Special effects have to be good enough to permit the suspension of disbelief, and are actually getting a lot cheaper. Many of the movies your comment criticises would be completely impossible to make ten or fifteen years ago; by far the fastest-rising componant of movie budgets over the last 20-30 years has been cast and crew salaries. That said, I definitely agree that a good plot line and developed characters are always better than the alternative. A complex storyline runs the risk of being confusing, but some movies go too far in the opposite direction.
However, you don’t seem to be making any allowance for the sense of wonder and total verisimilitude that good special effects can provide in service of a good storyline; your comments suggest a fundamental dichotomy between ‘enjoyable on a repeat basis’ and ‘special-effects heavy movies’, and I think that’s going a little too far.
The point that I was making with the post was speculating about the consequences of improved special effects, not about the merits or lack thereof of movies that feature them. One of the movies that I keep turning back to for inspiration is “John Carpentier’s The Thing”, and another is “Aliens” – both of which you would have to describe as special-effects driven.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Ok but my favourite movies are fight club and pulp fiction not too many special effects but fantastic story line and characters. I admit that lord of the rings, matrix and Alien are great and the best of both worlds they have a fantastic characters and story line and special effects but I think 80% of the new movies concentrate to much on special effects and no story line.
Paul
December 4th, 2013 at 11:45 am
[…] on imaginations and expectations, a subject I’ve discussed before – initially in Are Special Effects Killing Hollywood? and subsequently in an update to that article, The Gap In Reality: Immersion in an RPG […]