| ktchong said: In terms of storytelling, Let say if you're a guy and you have a gift in telling stories, do you want to make movies or make games? You have a penis. Do you want to go into an industry in which you'll be surrounded by beautiful ladies and famous as the "King of the World," or do you want to work with other geeks? Seriously. That's why the best storytellers and artists in the West go into making movies instead of making games. |
2 of the films you mentioned are from known franchises or stories where the story is already set in stone and the the director's had to interpret the story to produce the brilliant films (LotR and Dark Knight). That's less to do with story and more to do with great directing, editing and acting. I'd also like to point out that Tolkien was British and that's where the story comes from for LotR. The last film you mentioned (Avatar) has a pretty unoriginal story and fairly average story structure and characters. Just go into one of the Avatar threads on this board and you'll see plenty saying the same. The appeal of Avatar isn't in the story but the world the film conveys and the way it's conveyed. The epic Hollywood films you're talking about really are quite light on story and heavy on special effects.
And I'd also like to point out that Hollywood seems to be running out of ideas and is copying films from the East. The Ring, Grudge, Dark Water, The Departed (Infernal Affairs in Hong Kong) were all remade in Hollywood, and mostly they were done in ways that were inferior to the orginal Asian film. And there are plenty of classic Asian films that you probably haven't seen that are true masterpieces (watch Battle Royale, Audition, Oldboy). The same goes for Europe (Pan's Labyrinth, Irreversible, REC). The reason you probably haven't heard of them is because they don't get advertised, because they haven't got the funds to advertise them globally.
Also, if you watched the Oscars last year you might have noticed Slumdog Millionaire won a load of awards. That wasn't a Hollywood film, it was British, and was mostly set in Asia.
The point I'm trying to make is Japan's best storytelling really isn't in anime and JRPGs although you might find some of the weirdest. The other point is Hollywood really doesn't tell the best stories in the world (although some are great) I also can't believe you didn't put Tarrantino, or mention Shawshank Redemption in the West's best films/stories.
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