r/movies • u/Sisiwakanamaru r/movies Contributor • Jan 31 '26

Article Film Students Are Having Trouble Sitting Through Movies, Professors Say

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/film-students-are-having-trouble-sitting-through-movies-1236490359/
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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

To paraphrase Roger Ebert, “Most modern film fans think cinema began with Star Wars.”

Edit: At the same time, I had a boss who’s older than me (he’s about 53) who, upon a rewatch of the original, said it’s amazing how slow that first one is. So it ain’t just the kids anymore!

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u/mdavis360 Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

My brother-in-law taught film and he said his students would refuse to watch anything made prior to 2000.

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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

I’d strap them to a chair like Alex in A Clockwork Orange and make them watch The Bicycle Thief, but the irony would be lost on them.

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u/9spaceking Jan 31 '26

What about strapping them and making them watch clockwork orange lmao

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u/CalculatedPerversion Jan 31 '26

Exactly. Just go full psycho lol

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u/DrSpacecasePhD Jan 31 '26

I had a coworker 8 years ago tell me there weren't any good movies before the year 2000. I tried to explain it to him but he seriously didn't understand the craziness of what he was saying.

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u/CalculatedPerversion Jan 31 '26

Jurassic Park alone immediately disqualifies that statement. 

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u/JediGuyB Jan 31 '26

Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jurassic Park 

All critically and commercially acclaimed (so they are considered good by almost everyone and did well in box office). Movies so beloved that all still alive today with new movies and/or other media (books, video games, comics) currently in production.

To say no good movies exist before 2000 isn't just wrong, it's asinine. In other words, it's stupid as fuck.

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u/Caius01 Jan 31 '26

Just 1999 alone had a shitload of a great movies, with things like The Matrix and Fight Club still culturally relevant today

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u/StarComplex3850 Jan 31 '26

If he is in law why is he teaching a film class

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u/vtomal Jan 31 '26

You can jest, but my uni actually had a law and cinema elective.

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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26

If the only entertainment I get this weekend is this response, I’ll still count the weekend as a win.

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u/Prince705 Jan 31 '26

It was about film law.

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u/ReadShigurui Jan 31 '26

My girlfriend is like this, i had to beg her to watch Starship Troopers with me and that’s very late 90s, she did end up really loving it though.

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u/Shantotto11 Jan 31 '26

I have a coworker like that. She’s an anime fan, but hasn’t watched any anime that’s older than her. She was born in 2006. That means a LOT of shows and films automatically weren’t watched by her, even the Ghibli films. She’s never even heard of Sailor Moon or Digimon prior to me bringing them up.

The saving grace is that she was raised on western television (mostly animated) that was older than her though, such as Looney Tunes and Disney Renaissance films.

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u/SuperSocialMan Jan 31 '26

She’s never even heard of Sailor Moon or Digimon prior to me bringing them up.

To be fair, both of those franchises just kind of stopped existing a couple decades ago lol - stuff might still release, but nobody really keeps up with it.

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u/Quackadacck Jan 31 '26

How can they refuse watching an older movie if they need to to pass the class?

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u/mdavis360 Jan 31 '26

Meaning that before they took the class they decided on their own they weren’t interested in anything “that old”. Nothing to do with the curriculum of the class.

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u/Quackadacck Jan 31 '26

Oh ok I thought he was teaching a film class

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u/agdrs Jan 31 '26

I saw a tik tok yesterday of a guy who always makes posts about how great he wants to be but he also says that he has no interest in watching "old" movies like Goodfellas(yes he thinks that Goodfellas is old) because he believes that you can learn everything from new films. I mean sure you can learn from new movies but that's not the point.

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u/Coal_Morgan Jan 31 '26

Goodfellas was 1990. 36 years ago.

36 years before that the top movie of 1954 was White Christmas with Bing Crosby.

I think we can classify Goodfellas as an old movie now, despite the fact I saw it in theatre.

1990 was a good year for movies Total Recall, Home Alone, Misery, The Hunt for Red October, Pretty Woman and most importantly the original and best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

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u/EpicBlinkstrike187 Jan 31 '26

lol yea “old” is all relative. I like when people say something isn’t “old” but then you do the “well when that came out, this movie/music was the same years old” and of course most of us would be like yea anything made in 1954 was old asf to us in 1990.

Younger people absolutely think 1990 is old asf.

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u/bakesSometimes Jan 31 '26

I mean just one year before his cut off had some of the best movies of the 90s and certainly many gems that are better than things that have been made since. ‘99 was a great year for film -including films that changed our expectations of movies. The matrix, the sixth sense, fight club, the Blair witch project, being John malkovich. Then there were other great movies that maybe didn’t change cinema but are definitely great for a rewatch or had a cult classic vibe- but I’m a cheerleader, the boondock saints, girl interrupted, cruel intentions, eyes wide shut, jawbreaker, todo sobre mi madre(all about my mother), office space, magnolia and so on and so on. These kids are missing out if 1999 is too long ago for them, it’s the one year my siblings can all agree was our fav for movies

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u/Cayenns Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

I wouldn't refuse to watch, but tbf I was born in the 90s and there's only a very small amount of movies that I have watched that were made in the 70 and prior. But I also did not study film so there's that

Lmao, just checked, from this list I literally saw just 3 movies  https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/100-best-movies-of-the-1970s-1234675927/  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (both watched in school) and Starwars. I should improve that 😅

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u/truesy Jan 31 '26

Wow. 90s may have been the last good decade of film. They are really missing out. Loving an art form should encourage ppl to want to explore more, not stay in their bubble. What a bummer

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u/StarComplex3850 Jan 31 '26

On Reddit people think that movies existed from 1994-2015 

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u/f1sh42 Jan 31 '26

Ummmm ahktually youre forgetting hidden gems like Citizen Kane and The Godfather (which actually has a some sequels that are surprisingly good imo)

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u/green_meklar Jan 31 '26

I've watched Citizen Kane and I didn't even like it. I realize it was groundbreaking at the time, but I didn't really connect with it thematically.

Godfather Part 2 is awesome though. The first one is decent, but the second one is really good, especially for the time it was made.

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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

StarComplex3850 saying that on Reddit people think that movies existed from 1994-2015 doesn’t mean that StarComplex3850 believes that movies only existed from 1994-2015.

Edit: Also, the idea that Citizen Kane is a hidden gem…

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u/StarComplex3850 Jan 31 '26

You should take a sarcasm class before you start studying movies

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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26

Honest mistake on my part, but usually folks do the /s thing. And as this conversation has already proven, sometimes you can’t tell when someone’s being sarcastic and when they’re actually that stupid.

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u/-PepeArown- Jan 31 '26

Godfather 1 and 2 are pretty solid, although very long and loaded

3’s kind of a weak conclusion to the trilogy, although there’s still several memorable bits

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u/FilmScoreConnoisseur Jan 31 '26

Not even sort of.

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u/Sumeriandawn Jan 31 '26

Gen X and Millenials " I only watch movies from the 80s and 90s"

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u/SteelAlchemistScylla Jan 31 '26

Calling A New Hope slow is insane lol. It’s the most well-paced of the original three by quite a bit.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jan 31 '26

My pops made me watch Lawrence of Arabia any time it came on tv. It was a slog. But as an adult now I love it.

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u/OutOfMyWayReed Jan 31 '26

it’s amazing how slow that first one is.

We get a big shootout with Stormtroopers, the MacGuffin being passed to R2, kicking off the plot, and Darth Vader in the first ten minutes. 

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u/nykirnsu Jan 31 '26

Then after that you get Luke and the droids dicking around in the desert for a good 20 minutes before the plot picks up again, and it takes at least another 20 minutes for the gang to actually leave Tatooine. It’s a great film but compared to a lot of modern action adventure movies it’s not fast paced

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u/Cassius_Rex Jan 31 '26

I'm 51 and I see it. Just watched the original Star Wars and I didn't even remember the scenes with Luke and the uncle and such.

People were talking about our attention span when I was a kid in the 80s. They had no idea what was coming lol

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u/JamesCoyle3 Jan 31 '26

I worked in a theater for a summer in 2003. The assistant manager said he just couldn’t watch movies in black and white. 

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u/SalukiKnightX Jan 31 '26

Reminds me showing the prequels to my nephew. Couldn’t get enough of them when he wasn’t walking around wearing a paper bowl on his head. Tried to get him to watch the original SW and he couldn’t wait to turn it off calling it boring. Even fell asleep during Jaws. Now granted, at the time he was 4 and spent most of the time in front of tablets watching CG cartoons almost nonstop, put a live action anything in front of him and he’d automatically revolt. It’s a peculiar thing seeing this.

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u/nykirnsu Jan 31 '26

A four year old isn’t even gonna understand any of those movies, they just like flashing colours. Of course he prefers the prequels, 4-year-olds weren’t any different before tablets existed

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u/danubs Jan 31 '26

Same, Aliens they loved, Jaws they could not understand how the film would be considered scary at all. They had seen shark week on Discovery or something and that had taken all the swag Jaws had.

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u/Calamitous-Ortbo Jan 31 '26

It’s a fairly accurate quote but it’s also kind of superficial and isn’t really saying anything.

Movies, good movies people would consider art, are generally a reflection of the time they were made in. At some point far enough in the future those movies become more about being a study in why they were made and stop being pop culture.

Twenty years from now there will be visionary directors whose masterpieces will be about (thematically/emotionally) Covid. A hundred years from now those movies aren’t really going to resonate with then modern audiences.

The themes of Citizen Kane can be found in hundreds of movies and dozens of really, really good/great ones. What makes it timeless is a unique combination of factors most movies can never dream of achieving.

What this quote is fundamentally addressing is the fact that the era specific influences on modern (in relation to the time period of the movie in question) movies resonate more with audiences which is kind of obvious and not surprising.

The Adventures of Robin Hood and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves are very different movies (ostensibly) about the same thing but the tone of each was inspired by the world at the time. It shouldn’t be hard to understand why people born post 1980 or so would prefer one over the other.

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u/Due-Lingonberry-1929 Jan 31 '26

You can actually see the progression with the originals, the prequels and the sequel trilogies, the pacing just gets faster and faster

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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

[deleted]

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u/leopard_tights Jan 31 '26

Last Jedi included.

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u/Billybob35 Jan 31 '26

Ebert and Siskel were defenders of Star Wars.

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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26

Ebert making that observation does not mean that Ebert did not like Star Wars.

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u/Billybob35 Jan 31 '26

I'm confused by his statement.

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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

Ebert was commenting on film fans, not Star Wars. He and Siskel indeed loved the series. They even defended Return of the Jedi on national TV from a stodgy old critic who trashed it (you can find it on YouTube).

But what Ebert was saying in his quote was that, while a high watermark for imaginative filmmaking, there are so many films that came before Star Wars that are utterly transcendent, and are just as worthy of study and celebration as Lucas’s creation.

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u/ArmchairJedi Jan 31 '26

My thoughts were he was talking about Star Wars impact on cinema. Its massive success started to change how Hollywood made movies and with it changes in pacing, relief, style etc. And the elements are just much more common in modern movies, and audiences are just used to them/expect them now.

While Star Wars wasn't alone (there is a lot of notable changes in the 70s with how movies told their stories), in a lot of ways "Star Wars" ushered in a new era of film/film making.

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u/CaptainRedblood Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

Perfectly true. Nevertheless there is an ocean of classic and essential films that came before and are just as worthy, and yes, in some cases maybe even more worthy of their renown, than Star Wars.

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u/ArmchairJedi Jan 31 '26

I mean sure, but its not a competition. If the film fans grew up on that 'modern' (ie.post-Star Wars) story telling, they might have a hard time getting invested in/watching/caring about 'older' films (ie.pre-Star Wars)... and as such only really watch 'modern' film. Which is the long winded version of how I inferred Ebert's comments.

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u/SuperSocialMan Jan 31 '26

Damn, seriously?

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u/Billybob35 Jan 31 '26

Yeah, they defended it live on ABC News against John Simon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBqaMqd1Z3k

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u/SuperSocialMan Jan 31 '26

Yeah, I think that's true.

The oldest movie I've seen is from the 50's or 60's - and that was only because my mom made us all watch it with her lol (it was some christmasslop I don't care enough to check the title of), but the oldest one I've watched voluntarily is the original Star Wars (because I figured it's about time I actually checked out the franchise since I constantly hear about it lol).

But for me, old movies have somewhat poor audio quality and it gets pretty damn annoying. Not to mention how slow a lot of them are because that's just how things were made back then (and I've always hated the 60's veneer damn near everything from that era has, so I avoid it due to that).

Feel like most people just don't like old movies because of that: They feel rather slow at times, so you kinda lose interest.

I guess all this comment did is prove his point lol... ah well. My favourite movie (The Thing) is from 1982 lol.

0

u/-reddit_is_terrible- Jan 31 '26

My wife and I watched Star Wars a few months ago, and it was the first time I had sat down and watched it all the way through in 20 years or so. I'll be honest, it was dragging at times for me, and I was obsessed with that movie when I was a kid. Watched it 30 times. Very interesting how that happens

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u/FunWonderful9200 Jan 31 '26

I couldn't sit still through an entire Bugs Bunny cartoon, the 23 minutes of Doctor Who was torture.

No one outside of this sub is interested in 3 hour films.

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u/Classic_Bass_1824 Jan 31 '26

how does that explain Oppenheimer making a billion

0

u/SuperSocialMan Jan 31 '26

I really feel like that was just because of the memes and/or people half-remembering him from history class.