blackoak wrote:I think a big reason Scott gets criticized isn't just because he "fell from grace" as an artist
He is not an artist. He is a director. He directs artists.
We criticize him for trying to be a writer. He is a bad author.
Hideaki Anno can write an entire movie that's only intended for himself, that says to all of the fans "I hate your guts. You want me to
entertain you? Go screw yourself. That's not how life works.", and that's ok because he's aware that's what he's doing, and it's never the only thing that he does.
Prometheus 3 can only ever be about what a sexy, naughty robot boy David is, while trying to obfuscate this fact with some philosophical fart sniffing and 3 minutes of a CGI monster impaling someone with their mouth penis.
James Cameron on Ridley Scott (and I think Prometheus?);
"I don’t think it’s worked out terribly well. I think we’ve moved on beyond it. It’s like, okay, we’ve got it, we’ve got the whole Freudian biomechanoid meme. I’ve seen it in 100 horror films since. I think both of those films stand at a certain point in time, as a reference point. But is there any validity to doing another one now? I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s see, jury’s out.
Jim however, can actually write things that a lot of people enjoy. Just like in that South Park episode, he raises the bar a centimeter off of the ground. Which I think is way more than anyone can expect from Hollywood as a whole.
Re : Ridley Scott. So weird that this guy made 2 masterpieces early on and then his output dropped significantly in quality after that, never to peak back up ever again. Some of my friends call him a fluke director. lol. Don't know what to think myself
You know, whenever I watch a TV series I have never once thought "WOW, the director really directed the fuck out of that episode!" With how nearly every single episode has a different director, you'd see major differences - if it made a major difference.
But I can never tell. Guess I'm some philistine who can't grasp what all this "art" thing that directors do, is exactly.
At its core the problem stems from a bastardization of language, I think. In TV they have a much cleaner definition of what a "director" is - someone who directs resources to produce an episode. The
showrunners are the people responsible for staffing, and making sure the staff produces an acceptable product. (If you don't like what The Simpsons has turned into, you have Al Jean to thank for that. Here is a quote from the man from The Simpsons Movie commentary: "If Homer is on a roof, he has to fall down.")
In movie land, it describes someone who can have an enormous spectrum of power. Scott in his early career, like most directors (like the poor fella who had to shoot Alien 3), had practically no power. Today, he's got almost total control over what he makes. These are two completely different jobs.
Paul Feig absolutely, in theory, could direct a decent to good Ghostbusters movie. As long as it was *really* produced by Ivan Reitman, with some writers who know what the fans want to see.