Future of Popular Culture 2: Film, Television, and Animation

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Popular culture isn't something that seems to be brought up much in Future History (for fair enough reasons, it's freaking impossible to predict. Like the weather, you can get a good estimate about a week ahead, and afterwards its all guesswork). What it tends to be, from my experience, is that it seems like pop culture just freezes and stays the same forever. This of course is hardly the case. (yes, I am going to copy-and-paste this over all the categories I'm going to make)

Modern Film, as we know it today, is still an infant form of art, compared to Music, Literature, Paintings, and Sculptures, only being invented in, what, 1880, and became popular in the 1920's? Despite this, film quickly diversified and has seen different eras of popular films, from the 20's Charlie Chaplin slapstick comedy, to the 40's Propaganda, to the 80's Action film, and now our own modern Super-Hero movies. When the super-hero craze if finally over, what do you think will take over afterwards?

Also included in this tread is Television and Animation, mostly because, while related to Film, tend to have different genres popular at different times. Modern Animation was born not long after the creation of Film, with the first full-length animated movie being Disney's Snow White. But before that, Disney had a long history of animated shorts, highlighted by Steamboat Willy. The history of the Animation includes the early Disney Princess movies, Warner Brothers' slapstick, 80's TV cartoons in general, and our modern Pixar animation (you really can put Pixar style animation into it's own genre, really inspiring new, more adult stories to come to Animation). What do you think will come of Animation in the future?

Finally Television. Only being invented in the 1920's, first used in a semi-popular way with the 1936 olympics, and gaining full-steam popularity in America in the 1950's, it really did revolutionize the way we entertain ourselves. Sitcoms started out on top, and has remained pretty high up there since, but various Game shows have since risen, like Jeopardy!, The Price is Right, among others, followed by crime, mystery, and dramas shows like CSI, NCIS, to some extent Supernatural, and of course Breaking Bad swept the nation, become among, if not the most popular genre on Television, and recently, Reality TV shows have gained more and more attention. What do you think Television has in store for us in the future?

[Kubo Caskett]

I have a feeling that the whole grimdark trend for films in general would give way back to the optimism that the mid-20th century films had (I'm not a film student here but it's something that I read about). The reason is that some people just might get tired of various films taking on the zeitgeist from various tragedies and whatnot by the time 2020 rolls around.

While I can't say much about TV, I can say that Animation might see a 2D revival or rather a 2.5D trend (similar to that animated short that played before Wreck-It Ralph did in theaters). At that point, various animation studios might see a potential to mix the best of both worlds regarding the two formats, what might spark it, I don't know; possibly a glut of mediocre 3D animated films I guess.

[guyverman1990]

I think the odds are that with the advent of Virtual Reality, film as a medium will gradually become more interactive and immersive as a medium. Basically evolving to become one in the same with Video Games.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Jun 29, 2016 7:07:03 GMT guyverman1990 said:

I think the odds are that with the advent of Virtual Reality, film as a medium will gradually become more interactive and immersive as a medium. Basically evolving to become one in the same with Video Games.

I'm not sure. Virtual Reality still isn't very popular, and making a Virtual Reality film (unless Animated) would probably be very expensive to produce, expensive to reproduce, and expensive to watch. It'd take a while still for Virtual Reality film to become popular, if it ever does.

[guyverman1990]

Back in 1916, movies did not have sound, but just 15 years later, it was the norm. A hypothetical advent of Virtual Reality-based movies will be this century's equivalent of what happened with sound during the late 1920's/early 1930's.

[Jasen777]

The big thing facing TV is the distribution model. Cable and satellite companies are in a rightful panicking over cord cutting. Is Netflix and Prime the future or will it be something else?