re: #98 Belafon

It’s not the existence of special effects that I think is damaging.

It’s that visual special effects have become the only metric that elicits responses, if I perusal of reaction videos on YouTube are any indication. At least for the masses of young people who make such videos.

And yes, Star Wars did its bit to help usher in this era. But the original Star Wars was very clearly a western set in space. Alec Guinness noted in interviews that it was a very basic story as such.

But it was the story that caught people up, and the charismatic actors (at least on the part of Harrison Ford.)

The role of the visual supplanting the story is a long one in cinema.

I just find that the past couple of decades has seen the mega corporations (e.g., Disney) run it into the ground.

But they do that with all their productions. Too many sequels/prequels.