- Joined
- Jun 18, 2019
By far my favorite decade for movies is the 1980s, it's actually scary just how on fire that decade was for movies, not only are there legit all time classics, but even the B movies often managed to be very entertaining, even when an 80s movie is bad, very rarely is it not still entertaining.
What's sad is almost as soon as the decade ended how steep the drop in quality was, we had a few years of a grace period in the early 90s with movies like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park keeping the magic alive but by the mid to late 90s with the rise of Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich things started to suck and remained a mixed bag at best for years, with Woke finally seeming to kill off whatever quality was left.
But what exactly were 80s movies doing that made them so good? What exactly was the formula and why did things move away from it and how could we actually get back to it?
I've thought about this a lot and focusing on Hollywood blockbusters and other mainstream films of course (although this can also apply to the B movies) I think I've boiled down about two main formulas that make an 80s movie what it is.
The first is what I like to call "the extraordinary meets the mundane", something incredible happens to everyday people in an everyday place or at least some kind of contrast between mundane reality and the extraordinary, some of the many examples being E.T., what if an alien landed in your backyard? Cocoon, what if sad old people in a retirement home met aliens that gave them a new lease on life? Back To The Future, what if an average teen in an average small American town found a time machine? The Goonies, what if an average group of kids went on an adventure for pirate treasure? Gremlins, what if strange little creatures ran amok in an all American town? Big, what if a kid got to be an adult? Big Trouble in Little China, what if in San Francisco's Chinatown there was Chinese magic and myth? Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, What if cartoons lived in the real world? They Live, what if the world of advertising and mass media was actually a sinister conspiracy? (Hmmm, wait a minute...)
I think you get the idea, another good example is Ghostbusters and the way it contrasts the incredibleness of busting ghosts with it being like a blue collar job as well as it's overall gritty New York atmosphere.
The second formula would be movies that are simply about some interesting real world subject matter and kind of distill the essence of what makes the topic interesting and capturing to some degree what it's like in real life even if it's still very much done in a heightened "movie" way, it's interesting how you can name almost any real world subject matter and chances are good there's an 80s movie about it, there's an 80s movie about karate (The Karate Kid), gambling (Let It Ride), buying a farm (Funny Farm), buying a houses that sucks (The Money Pit), Wall Street (Wall Street), trying to get laid (Porky's), the Japanese auto industry (Gung Ho), Christmas (A Christmas Story), going on vacation (National Lampoon's Vacation), going on vacation in the great outdoors (The Great Outdoors), playing hooky (Ferris Bueller''s Day Off), turning 16 (16 Candles), being in school detention (The Breakfast Club), babysitting (Adventures in Babysitting), homosexuality (Cruising), becoming a pimp (Risky Business, Doctor Detroit), nerds (Revenge of The Nerds), the news industry (Broadcast News), space camp (Space Camp) finding success in your job (The Secret of my Success), what it was like to be the guy that sang the song "La Bamba" (La Bamba), video games (The Wizard), autism (Rain Man) and so on, I think you get the idea.
Of course there would also be some "what if?" angle to the story to make it interesting with the subject matter just being the jumping off point, The Karate Kid isn't just about karate, it's about a bullied kid using karate to stand up to bullies, Funny Farm isn't just about buying a farm ,it's about buying a farm but it sucks and I'd also like to highlight the movie Let It Ride, a very underrated Richard Dreyfus movie that I watched earlier this year that is about a real life subject (the world of horse race betting), really captures what that subculture is like in an interesting way but also has an interesting twist to the story in that Dreyfus' character suddenly finds himself on a hot streak of luck that seemingly can't be broken and may or may not be divine intervention, check it out, it's a great movie.
Some other key factors and key differences with movies today is in the 80s movies were made to tell a complete story within one movie, if a sequel did happen, great, but generally for the movie itself it told a complete story, unlike today's world of increasing serialization.
There's also the factor of special effects, 80s movies would often have plenty of special effects but they were in the service of an interesting story, not just creating a story as an excuse for special effects, Cocoon is a brilliant example of that, the finale of the movie is a real showstopper of an effects sequences, but effects are done sparingly throughout the rest of the movie, there's also so much well done character drama and acting, all centered around old people, it's so radically different than what a summer blockbuster is today.
Cocoon is also such a great example of how potent the images and ideas in 1980s movies were, there's really something about that image at the end of old people rising into the Heavenly white light of a UFO, that right there is the essence of what I'm talking about with 80s movies, that contrast with the mundane and the wonderous, that hopeful, optimistic vibe, that's what really feels missing from movies today.
Those are my observations, what are yours? And do you think it'd be possible to recapture what made those movies special?
What's sad is almost as soon as the decade ended how steep the drop in quality was, we had a few years of a grace period in the early 90s with movies like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park keeping the magic alive but by the mid to late 90s with the rise of Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich things started to suck and remained a mixed bag at best for years, with Woke finally seeming to kill off whatever quality was left.
But what exactly were 80s movies doing that made them so good? What exactly was the formula and why did things move away from it and how could we actually get back to it?
I've thought about this a lot and focusing on Hollywood blockbusters and other mainstream films of course (although this can also apply to the B movies) I think I've boiled down about two main formulas that make an 80s movie what it is.
The first is what I like to call "the extraordinary meets the mundane", something incredible happens to everyday people in an everyday place or at least some kind of contrast between mundane reality and the extraordinary, some of the many examples being E.T., what if an alien landed in your backyard? Cocoon, what if sad old people in a retirement home met aliens that gave them a new lease on life? Back To The Future, what if an average teen in an average small American town found a time machine? The Goonies, what if an average group of kids went on an adventure for pirate treasure? Gremlins, what if strange little creatures ran amok in an all American town? Big, what if a kid got to be an adult? Big Trouble in Little China, what if in San Francisco's Chinatown there was Chinese magic and myth? Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, What if cartoons lived in the real world? They Live, what if the world of advertising and mass media was actually a sinister conspiracy? (Hmmm, wait a minute...)
I think you get the idea, another good example is Ghostbusters and the way it contrasts the incredibleness of busting ghosts with it being like a blue collar job as well as it's overall gritty New York atmosphere.
The second formula would be movies that are simply about some interesting real world subject matter and kind of distill the essence of what makes the topic interesting and capturing to some degree what it's like in real life even if it's still very much done in a heightened "movie" way, it's interesting how you can name almost any real world subject matter and chances are good there's an 80s movie about it, there's an 80s movie about karate (The Karate Kid), gambling (Let It Ride), buying a farm (Funny Farm), buying a houses that sucks (The Money Pit), Wall Street (Wall Street), trying to get laid (Porky's), the Japanese auto industry (Gung Ho), Christmas (A Christmas Story), going on vacation (National Lampoon's Vacation), going on vacation in the great outdoors (The Great Outdoors), playing hooky (Ferris Bueller''s Day Off), turning 16 (16 Candles), being in school detention (The Breakfast Club), babysitting (Adventures in Babysitting), homosexuality (Cruising), becoming a pimp (Risky Business, Doctor Detroit), nerds (Revenge of The Nerds), the news industry (Broadcast News), space camp (Space Camp) finding success in your job (The Secret of my Success), what it was like to be the guy that sang the song "La Bamba" (La Bamba), video games (The Wizard), autism (Rain Man) and so on, I think you get the idea.
Of course there would also be some "what if?" angle to the story to make it interesting with the subject matter just being the jumping off point, The Karate Kid isn't just about karate, it's about a bullied kid using karate to stand up to bullies, Funny Farm isn't just about buying a farm ,it's about buying a farm but it sucks and I'd also like to highlight the movie Let It Ride, a very underrated Richard Dreyfus movie that I watched earlier this year that is about a real life subject (the world of horse race betting), really captures what that subculture is like in an interesting way but also has an interesting twist to the story in that Dreyfus' character suddenly finds himself on a hot streak of luck that seemingly can't be broken and may or may not be divine intervention, check it out, it's a great movie.
Some other key factors and key differences with movies today is in the 80s movies were made to tell a complete story within one movie, if a sequel did happen, great, but generally for the movie itself it told a complete story, unlike today's world of increasing serialization.
There's also the factor of special effects, 80s movies would often have plenty of special effects but they were in the service of an interesting story, not just creating a story as an excuse for special effects, Cocoon is a brilliant example of that, the finale of the movie is a real showstopper of an effects sequences, but effects are done sparingly throughout the rest of the movie, there's also so much well done character drama and acting, all centered around old people, it's so radically different than what a summer blockbuster is today.
Cocoon is also such a great example of how potent the images and ideas in 1980s movies were, there's really something about that image at the end of old people rising into the Heavenly white light of a UFO, that right there is the essence of what I'm talking about with 80s movies, that contrast with the mundane and the wonderous, that hopeful, optimistic vibe, that's what really feels missing from movies today.
Those are my observations, what are yours? And do you think it'd be possible to recapture what made those movies special?
