People have always somewhat felt like the present quality of Cinema is the worst it's ever been, exactly how prominent that discourse is does have it's spikes and we seem to be in one right now. "Justified" by how financially poorly the film industry did in 2023. People are going to theaters less because of the lingering impact of the pandemic and normalization of streaming, I don't think it'll be permanent, I think it's gonna go up and down, but it definitely does not speak to the quality of 2023 films.
I even saw the title of a YouTube video I didn't watch explicitly saying "No you aren't just nostalgia blinded", I refused to even dignify such a claim with views. I guarantee you in 20 years people will be Nostalgic for phase 4 MCU and DCEU films and Live Action Disney remakes.
The current Golden Age people look back on is the 90s and early 2000s, but I unlike most my age don't just remember the movies from that time, I also remember the internet discourse around them, and it was essentially no different then now, only the details of the theories on why things got worse might have changed.
To an extent what percentage of movies are considered to be good or bad isn't actually viewed as being any different. It's just that the "forgettable" movies of the past are forgotten and the old "bad" movies still considered bad people talk about in ways that emphasize their charm, how they're a product of their time made in ways you won't see today, or from a respected director who's fanboys refuse to see no value in even their "worst" films. While everything today is just "soulless" focus tested corporate mandated garbage.
And people who insist on maintaining that the revaluated films shouldn't be revaluated blame it on Meme Culture, on people watching bad movies ironically and Memeing themselves into liking them. And that issue may tie into a potentially entirely different thesis, I may write something about the concept of "So Bad it's good". With movies like the Star Wars Prequels it is well documented that the people who like them always existed, the GenX haters just lost their control of internet discourse.
However an interesting case study here is The Mummy film from 1999, the people hyping it up as an unironically great example of the kind of 90s/early 2000s film they don't make them like anymore seemingly don't even know there ever was an Internet Echo chamber that considered it a very bad movie and an example of how 90s and early 2000s attempts to "rip off" Indiana Jones pale in comparison to the real thing. My memory of the era is that people who liked the movies existed but GenXers who hated it for not being a pure Horror Movie also largely dominated Internet Group think.
There are plenty of films, even Hollywood Genre films in 2023 that are not all that controversial to consider good, the Super Mario Bros movie, Across The Spiderverse, Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves, each considered perfectly fun movies that at the very least succeeded at what they were going for.
Now as far as the movies that I liked just fine but that enough Internet Group think hates to make them be perceived as failures, no thesis about why current movies are so bad fits. Peter Coffin's "Wookieepeditis" thesis doesn't explain The Flash which made Canon more flexible then ever. And culture war stuff influencing both films and internet discourse about them isn't new either, it's just the exact terminology that has changed.
On the subject of Indiana Jones anyone who thinks Kingdom of The Crystal Skull is worth redeeming but not Dial of Destiny has no consistent logic, both are exactly parallel in how much they either follow or break from the formulae of the 80s Indiana Jones movies.
I'm also going to just assume Anime films aren't being considered in this Normie discourse since it's technically a completely different Industry. But at any rate we got the best Detective Conan film in a decade, Maboroshi which I was not expecting but was awesome, a new Psycho-Pass movie that was great though I had issues with it's message which stem from those I always had even of the original show. And a new Miyazaki film which I haven't seen and probably won't but most people seem to think lived up to the expectations. I will see the Sailor Moon Cosmos films when they are Dubbed and I'm fairly confident they will be great.
There is a common claim some people make that children will enjoy everything they see and thus potentially be Nostalgic for it as Adults so the existence of very young people who liked something can never be a vindication. I hated Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory as a kid, I have Anti-Nostalgia for that movie. And it's not just that, even at my youngest there is plenty of stuff meant for my age demographic I saw and didn't enjoy.
My firm position is that if anyone liked something no matter how much I don't like it that vindicates it as being Good in some way, even children, especially children if they were even partially the target audience.
The problem with Nostalgia, the thing that can make it Toxic, isn't the positive feelings it provides you for your happy memories of the past, that is objectively what's good about it. It's when it causes you to irrationally hate the present by seeing every difference as only for the worse. So what bugs me now is people ironically using their critiques of Nostalgia to justify saying movies are worse now because Hollywood can't make anything that isn't pandering to some generation's Nostalgia.
New IPs are being created for future generations to be nostalgic for, it just may less often be movies and Triple A Video Games. And the truth is I think these people are massively underestimating how much of what they're Nostalgic for was also in part made to appeal to the Nostalgia of their Parents or Grandparents or even older siblings. Millennials have Nostalgia for Tiny Toons and Muppet Babies and Adult Swim Cartoons which were made by GenXers to parody cartoons they were Nostalgic for, and Degrassi's reboot which seems to have overshadowed the original. Hell I have a lot of Nostalgia for watching Nick at Night reruns of Happy Days.
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