New movies are better than old movies.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about film quality and the history behind it. She was adamant that films created today cannot stand up to the art that was created in decades prior. She cited movies like Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I disagreed and said something that might be downright blasphemous to my hipster, romanticist, millennial peers.

I said that on the whole, movies made today are better than the movies made in the past.

Alright, alright. Everybody take a big breath and let me explain.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are great movies from a long time ago. And there are some really crappy movies made nowadays. But to say the best of the movies made today are nothing compared to the movies made of yesteryear is ignorant of this concept we call “progress.” As time moves forward, technology develops and we learn new and better ways to convey emotion, transport the viewer, and tell stories.

Obviously movies from the 50's were made in the way that appealed most to those audiences. But those don’t always translate well over decades.

When movies first started getting popular, they were made to be like stage plays. They had big acting and high emotions to convey what was going on. They couldn’t zoom in on faces with multiple angles like we do today, so scenes with lots of emotion had to be big. Dramatic death scenes can be done with close up and intense emotion unlike the over dramatic productions in the past that went into killing off a character.

Production quality in films has gotten far better. With advancements in technology and design, films that feature anything from explosions to a single punch are shot better and look more realistic. Long running film franchises like James Bond and Star Wars are show a dramatic change in visual effects. For the most part, these changes are for the better.

Let me give another example. Not too long ago a remake of Ben Hur hit theaters. In anticipation, my father and I watched the original Ben Hur from 1959. This film undoubtedly was ground breaking for its time and set a new standards for film. It was action packed, intense, and had a fascinating story. But it also had some flaws. This 3-hour 45 min film featured a major role played by a man in brown-face, dragged out long-winded conversations about characters’ histories and featured 15 min scenes that could have been easily boiled down to 5 min.

The 2016 Ben Hur, while not as highly praised as the original, told the exact same story with a modern production value. The action was more intense, the characters were more relatable and scenes were not nearly as drawn out. This made the movie more enjoyable and would bring in more viewers that the original that was so long it needed an intermission.

Okay okay. I don’t hate all old movies. In fact, there are tons of old movies that are some of my favorites. I believe that the 80’s produced some of the best original works in cinema history; Jurassic Park, The Breakfast Club, E.T., The Goonies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc. That’s the biggest flaw of today’s movies. All we are getting are reboots, sequels, and comic book adaptations.

Hollywood needs to find its originality that it had in past decades and put them on a screen with modern production quality. Creations like Avatar, Inception, Interstellar, Ex Machina, and others have proved that original stories can be just as, if not more popular that another reboot or sequel.

I know that I have a pretty unpopular opinion, but I hope people can see my appreciation for modern day productions and the art that it crafted by today’s directors. Hollywood is still making groundbreaking art, but they play it safe and stick to their reboots and superhero movies. I love Marvel and DC as much as the next person, but I would love to see more originality on our big, beautiful 4K screens.