The Dude
Ossiriand
Oct 28 2020, 1:00pm
Views: 2711
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I am in full agreement with you there. There is a reason why superhero comics ultimately became such a successful source for blockbuster adaptations, and it's not one that reflects well on the source material. Tolkien's works are very much a different breed, but like them, they attracted a popular audience before the widespread dissemination of "fandom" as a consumerist identity; and as such, they have the potential to be exploited.
It would also be folly to say that there ever existed a time when mainstream films were, by and large, high art.
But when looking at many of those films now (e.g., the highest grossing film of each year in the 1970s), it is striking to see, regardless of their overall quality as art, that they still had something genuine to say about their times, often by accident, simply because they did not primarily rely on an unholy combination of nostalgia and crowd appeasement to sell a product that could then be discussed on Reddit and YouTube.
(This post was edited by The Dude on Oct 28 2020, 1:03pm)
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