Alright let's get to it.
I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic and I'm confident that things will work out. With the right people, God's promise and the effort I make, I believe it will all work out eventually. Sometimes getting hopeful is the most difficult thing to do but it is the most important thing and very often it's easy to forget and be lost in the despair of the unknown. There is light though, there's always light. If things can go terrible wrong then things can go incredible right and I choose to make my decisions having that hope that everything will go incredible right. I choose to be optimistic even when it is difficult to be, I will try.
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The Introduction
Right now let's get into the topic of discussion. I think that there are films that stand out. Films that are so good and leave such an impression that they are forever appreciated by all who have seen them. I like to call them culture/genre defining movies of the early 2000s, or the classics if you will. You see personal I'm quite young. I'm one of those kids who technically is recognised as Gen Z but I identify as a millennial basically I was born in 1997. I feel like 25 is such a weird age to be because it feels so old yet it kind of still feels very young. It's like I really have no clue what it is I should be doing at this age and where it is I should be at this age you know but that's not why we are here, we are here to talk about the films of the late late 1990s and the early 2000s that defined filmmaking for generations to come. The films that set the benchmark for which many films today have come to follow and have often tried to replicate some with some success others to well very little success.
Why the late late 1990s to the early 2000s
Well I'm glad you asked. To put it in simpler terms CGI (Computer Generated Images). As I said earlier this time in history signified the coming of a new age. Technology was entering its computer evolution, the internet was just born, globalisation was taking place on a scale never seen before and speed and machinery were bringing to life ideas and concepts people could only have imagined. This transformation was further pushed in the media and more specifically in film production. It was at this time CGI became more popular in film production and with its introduction new worlds and genres of story telling could be accomplished. Before this time shooting action films and adventure stories required practical effects or travelling and setting up in live sets to be able to accomplish the picture the producers wanted. That meant going to the grad canyon and shooting at the grand canyon if you wanted a scene made in the grand canyon or jumping off an actual moving bus moving at neck breaking speeds if you wanted to shoot a highway chase scene. With the coming of CGI film companies and producers could simply acquire large studios to shoot whole films in a completely computer generated world which didn't put the cast and crew at risk as well as slightly reducing the cost of production.
This availability of technological intervention also enable screen writers with the liberty of writing and crafting out stories and worlds that were previously impossible to design due to realistic impracticality. Now with CGI technology writers could write about an apocalyptic future where AI and machines over throw and drive away the human population into nigh extension while enslaving billions of human embryos sedating them and trapping their consciousness in a simulated reality all the while using them as batteries. They could even write an entire story made up of toys that take on human traits which go on various adventures all the while disguising themselves as toys for their owner. The point is CGI changed everything and since it's inception we still haven't had any other technology that comes close to replicating its effect in modern day film making.
The Classics
The classics are five films which in my opinion changed modern day film as we know it. Films that brought imagination to life and paved the way for the what I would consider as the golden age of cinema. They are films that defined the change in the times and they are films that ushered in generation Z into cinema. Now keep in mind these five films listed here are my personal favourites so of course expect that there is bias in this list however it wouldn't be just as simple as me liking them an rating them highly it would be a more in-depth analysis on what makes them stand out from the rest. So let's not waste anymore time now shall we. Also quick side note for the sake of the time it would take you to read this, I've decided to only talk about five films briefly in this post cause you know, you lot have other things you need to be doing.
5.The Spiderman trilogy (the original)
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Long before Tom Holland or Andrew Garfield ever dawned the mask of the friendly neighbourhood spider, the collaboration of Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire thrilled us with what has become the modern day standard of superhero films, with the perfect combination of new age CGI and practical effects. Before this time the super hero films we saw where highly reliant on practical effects and overly comedic tone. There were some stand out film of the 90s though that were very much memorable but with CGI technology still in early development stages these films in my opinion couldn't reach their full potential. However Spider-man 1 coming at the dawn do the new millennium changed that genre. It carried with it the comedic elements that preceded 90's superhero films but it didn't just stop there, it was also able to convey much more weightier tones such as the sober dramatic experiences we experienced with Peter Parker coming to terms with having to take down his best friends father. This particular theme is one which over 15 years later repeats itself in the Tom Holland's first iteration of the film where he finds out his love interest's father is the villain he has to take down. This film would eventually give us the first Spiderman movie franchise which we would see giving rise to several games and merch we would get to see in the years to come. This would eventually be the first step in the revitalisation of Marvel studios and the superhero genre as we know it.
4.The Star Wars franchise.
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As a young boy I never had the opportunity to be able to go the cinemas to see a film. I didn't even know my country had cinemas until I was about 15. That was the first time I heard of about a cinema which opened in my city. Why am I bringing this up because as a young kid who really was enthralled my big budget movies I remember seeing the trailer for Star Wars for the first time. I remember thinking to myself then "this is it, movies can possibly get any better than this". In a sense my younger self was quite correct. George Lucas' Star Wars was way ahead of its time and is easily one of the biggest cultural phenomena to have happened at the dawn of the new millennium. In terms of its impact on cinema we can look no further than its critically acclaimed success and it's rise and expansion into a 70 billion dollar business. This film pushed the limits of human imagination and showed the world the true potential of CGI technology by creating stories that expanded into the universe. It inspired a new generation of explorers who would be bold and crazy enough to dream far simply by bringing to life images and ideas that the human mind could only have imagined before the dawn of the 21st century. In terms of it's approach towards story telling it choose to keep it simple and instead it focused highly on creating this new world and expanding it in the eyes of its new found audience meaning that it relied heavily on never before heard off visual and audio spectacle. In the areas where it could not show the story it opted for displaying information through text which at the time worked. The final thing that made this film stand out was that it was an original creation meaning it wasn't an adaptation of a book or any other already existing franchise. It was new meaning all it had to do was discover it's fan base and build this whole world from the scratch as it wouldn't be compared with anything and fans would be there all the way to watch it become it's thing. The concept was new, the technology available could execute it, there was a new generation of movie goers who needed to experience something new in cinema, the story was new and understandable... It had the potential to become one of the greats an it took it. A classic example of a film which came out in the right place at the right time.
3.The Harry Potter franchise
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Welcome to the world of magic, wizardry, mystery and wonder. If the Americans could birth Star Wars then the British could make an average Joe like Harry Potter spectacular. The early 2000s were the years when fantasy, adventure and action thrillers thrived. This all came at the cost of the decline in the drama genre. With the rise of CGI action and adventure films didn't have to look so corny anymore, they could look highly realistic. Monsters, fairies, dragons and all could fill the big screen and that meant that love stories that made viewers feel all gooey inside could take a back seat. And so the world of magic could also come to life for little children. The franchise unlike Star Wars is actually an adaptation of the stories by J.K. Rowlings. It was what was responsible for her success, her rags to riches story if you will like to call it that. The story wasn't as simple as Star Wars and it also relied but not primarily on world building and rather heavily on distinguished characters whom push the story forward. The film isn't suppose work in theory and that's because from the first to the fourth part, Harry Potter remains one of, if not the most passive protagonist ever written for television. All throughout the story he is pushed and by others and rarely ever makes any decision to move towards the conflict and usually that would mean that i would bash him and give a thousand reasons why he shouldn't work but the story is written in such a way that it remedies this problem. It does it by segregating the conflict into groups of people and Harry Potter is made the center of the conflict so that no matter how passive he wishes to be the conflict which is the essence of the plot does not leave him and some how it works. It works so well that many other films of the following years try to replicate it without much of success. Then there is also the CG and other effects that make the story and the world of magic to life. It's one story that has certainly impacted the way fantasy especially magical fantasy is told but most importantly how passive main characters can be written.
2.The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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Now I will admit I do not know too much about this franchise and I am not one of its biggest fans. However I cannot deny how impactful this film has been to modern day cinema. In my opinion this film made elves, dwarfs, orcs, dragons and all other middle-earthan creatures popular in today's culture. As a matter of fact it is one of the two original fantasy stories set in middle earth so it is easy to understand why it has set the standard for fantasy films. Because of how good it was a lot of other studios have gravitated towards adapting fantasy novels into films and while some have been successfully at it for example the likes of Game of thrones and Dune (even though dune has elements of a space travel kind of story), while others haven't been very successful outrightly failing to really capture the techniques and processes that make Lord of the Rings work such include, Shadow and Bones and the wheel of time. Asides the adoption of new technology in bringing the story to life one key thing that sets the story apart and that seems to be missing in many fantasy films today is fact that the story is written to be quite simple and straightforward. It understand the importance of goals, stakes and urgency and it utilizes most efficiently. It shows us about 3 to 4 central characters whose stories take place simultaneously which are all connected to this item that holds the lives of everyone. It's the same character arc pattern that we see used in Game of thrones where we follow the lives of key characters whom all converge at the final climax of the story which we have seen slowly build up overtime. With these and many more I forget to mention this film definitely deserves a spot on this list.
1.The Matrix trilogy
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It seemed as though in the early 2000s the perfect amount of parts you could break a film into was three. Well wish films these days would follow suit then we wouldn't have overly stretched out stories in the form of 12 episode series. This film as some of you know is my pick for the greatest of all time (G.O.A.T) action film and it is the reason why I even decided to write this list in the first place. I don't think there's something new I can say about this movie which I haven't already said. It is the closet I have ever seen to an action cinema perfection. It does have its flaws yes however in the areas that it succeeds at it does so perfectly. It was a film ahead of its time not just in terms of story telling but also in terms of production techniques that became popularised and set designs that became popularised in the modern film making. I mean the matrix made trench coats look cool and it successfully pulled of the bad guys in suits trope that has become popular in modern cinema. It's story transition and philosophical themes are still highly relevant for today just as much as it was in the era it first aired. Heck you have people on YouTube reacting to this film who are impressed with the quality of the CG used. The character-plot dynamics work perfectly for the type of story being told as overly complicated as the philosophical themes are they are told in such a way that they don't lose their interest and they make the film an incomprehensible blur. The sound design is absolutely outstanding and the orchestra music of Don Davies which accompanies the action is perfect. Both visually and auditorilly (I'm not sure that is an actual word) this film's sole purpose is to stimutale you with an experience so captivating it makes you question everything around you. Sadly it was so good that stories of its quality could not be replicated and even when the studio tried to bring it back it failed woefully at it and I think it is because of how big of a shoe the fourth installment had to to fill.
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There you have it guys we have come to the end of the classics and I hope you enjoyed the read. I would also mention that there are some films that I do believe deserve a spot on this list but simple because of the word limit I couldn't really find a place for them. So yes I do agree that The pirates of the Carribbean franchise and The Lion King trilogy do deserve a spot on this list. You can also comment down below other films you think should be here I would really love to discuss them with you and so until i see u again..
Ciao