Thread by @bravo_discourse

So #MoonFall sucked and, to me, represents a lot about what's wrong with the film industry today, where sloppy, weak storytelling is allowed because (1) there are big enough names tied to the project and (2) it banks on emotional investment pre-existent of the film itself.

Mainstream film today trades in a bloated version of self-referentiality/intertextuality. It regularly prioritizes how feelings created OUTSIDE a given film can be brought in, recycled, and exploited for commercial gain with an inferior product.

It's why we are constantly seeing a million Marvel movies, live adaptations of Disney films, reboots/remakes/BELATED sequels (e.g., Top Gun Maverick), etc. They all rely on affective investments that originated elsewhere. Nostalgias from The Before simulated in The Now.

Directed by the so-called "master of disaster," #MoonFall is a shoddy amalgamation of every Roland Emmerich movie. It was as if Emmerich became a kind of Dr. Frankenstein, and this was his monster. A weak, flailing, pathetic monster.

What I mean is nearly every scene in #MoonFall is a reference to some Emmerich film and/or the most obvious disaster tropes. Despite being one of the most expensive independently produced films ever made, its devoid of almost ANY innovation or attempt to play with the genre.

Instead it feel like Emmerich screenplays were thrown into a generator that outputted every aspect of #MoonFall. ALL of its pieces drew from things created elsewhere. The product was hollow self-congratulatory BS that confirmed the death of auteurs or at least basic storytelling.

This was clearest in the characters + their relationships that were empty, undeveloped, and PRESUPPOSED our understanding of how they have "always worked" in disaster films. The quirky sidekick. The parent with a troubled child (then the redeemed child). The white male savior.

#MoonFall COULD have been a self-aware kind of parody that subverted expectations of the disaster genre. Instead it was another crapped out blockbuster, exploiting audiences' feelings about OTHER movies instead of creating investment on its own. Might as well stick to 90s films.