Hacker Cinema
Bright
2017 · Film · 117 min
Directed by David Ayer
In an alternate present-day where magical creatures live among us, two L.A. cops become embroiled in a prophesied turf battle.
2 positive14 negative4 mixed7 neutralfrom 27 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
32 comments on Hacker News
Agree. I want an advanced filtering system, not an algorithm curated list of movies based on what I've seen before. How many times does "Bright" have to keep appearing on my list before it goes away, even after I've watched it already???
Turmoil in the mideast
celebrities get divorced
middle aged white incel males fail to understand why hollywood keeps making movies for the small brown foreign females that vastly outnumber them for yet another year.
Yet another '3rd way' political movement whose real purpose is to peel off votes flowers during the summer and fall and then dies partway into november
Yet again pundits are treated like sages this week while it is forbidden to bring up what they said last week.
Food subscription service debutes, you pay a modest fee forever until you return to the store and shit out a weight equal to your purchases.
Mideastern superpower continues to be militarily untouchable until their enemies aquire 3, maybe 4 nukes.
Streamlined keyboards with only a single key that says 'BUY' are popular stocking stuffers.
America will continue to look more and more like the movie Bright. (we are the orcs)
A shadowy group starts giving thousands of 3D printed guns with 5 bullets each in them to the homeless. Millions of 2A fundies change their opinions overnight.
Children flock to a movie about quadrupeds, becomes huge hit.
Another generation will remain angry and sullun until they die instead of doing something.
This reminded me of the Netflix movie Bright (modern day Lord of the Rings kind of people), and while focusing on the main characters, it still manages to incorporate the realness of NPCs going about their lives.
Netflix has lost 200,000 and expects to lose ~2-million over the next few months under its current guidance.
Does it make sense, from an accounting point of view, to have "paid" for Bright in 2017 dollars and its 2017 cash-flow? Or does it make sense to pay for "Bright" with 2022 dollars?
Its all accounting. But next year, when Netflix is down by 2.2 million customers, Netflix's 10k statement is going to be "paying" for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 movies despite having much fewer customers.
In contrast, Disney+ or Disney loses 90% of their value in the 1st year, so Disney's accounting will only be paying for "Turning Red" this year and next year.
----------
It kind of sorta doesn't matter "how" accounting is done, as long as everyone understands it. Except because of this Netflix methodology, Netflix has effectively "borrowed future money", from an accounting perspective, to make 2017, 2018 and other years "look better".
> Netflix can make a case that content continues to make an impact on subscription revenue over a larger window of time, and so expenses should equally be recognized in relation to the income statement.
How many people are getting Netflix subscriptions to watch Bright (2017 Will Smith+Orc movie) this year?
Or from a Disney perspective, how many people are getting Disney+ to watch Coco (2017 Day of the Dead 3d cartoon)?
I was expecting to see some discussion over Netflix's depreciation models, which is (apparently) over 5 years, 20% per year.
While Disney (and other producers) do something like 90% depreciation over the first year, the famous "Hollywood accounting" that gets a lot of criticism.
But "Hollywood accounting" might be closer to the truth than Netflix's model. 20% of the movie "Bright" (released in 2017, the Will Smith + Orc buddy-cop movie) is still being "paid for" on Netflix's books this year.
--------
Since Netflix's growth has slowed a bit, the effects of depreciation are now going to start hurting it. But it seems like everything discussed in this article is about the fundamental viewership issue, which might be worse.
Can you name a few? I can only think of three memorable ones; Annihilation (genuinely good film IMO), Bright (mediocre; decent worldbuilding but lacking) and Bird Box (mediocre, massive budget spent on promotion and hype).
I get big "direct-to-dvd" vibes with most other stuff they put on. And nobody talks about these films, which for me is a big indicator that it's not worth watching.
I'll admit Netflix spends a lot of money, but they spend it safely; they try to min/max their content, try to fit ever box / category.
Just what I was looking for. IMHO Arcane marks a milestone progress in Animation technology.
Also glad that the article confirmed that they don't use MoCap. It was such a great choice. I recently watched another visually exquisite animation movie on Netflix (the one in the Bright universe). There they used completely flat shading to achieve toon look for characters and environment, but made the characters move with MoCap animations. It looked very eerie.
I feel like we’d be communicating with them by now if that were the case. The dolphin-socrates would have a YouTube channel campaigning for dolphin rights or something, via a human translator and camera crew.
Our world would look like that Netflix movie “Bright”, with multiple intelligent species living and working together. (The movie was bad by the way)
This assumes the Disney back-catalog strategy makes sense in the digital age.
Pre-VHS, Disney would re-release movies in theaters. They could re-release Fantasia, or Cinderella, or whatever, and still make money in theaters in the 1970s.
But, there wasn't that much content to watch at that time. You had live TV or movies. That was it.
Today there is more on-demand content out there than I could watch if I lived a million years. Do you think "Bright" will keep subscribers 10 years from now for Netflix?
Just as an example: "Band of Brothers" and "The Wire" are two of the best things I've ever watched. Would I _keep_ an HBO subscription forever after I've watched them? No...
I remember when Netflix started automatically playing trailers (or their own version of one) whenever you rested on a title for longer than a few seconds. And I remember looking up how to disable this feature but you can't. I'm sure there will be "well actually"'s for this but when I checked, you couldn't and I don't bother every day checking to see if it's there.
I noticed the Netflix app on some older smart televisions don't have this feature which I can only speculate why but it's like an upgrade watching on those old versions.
I think it's clever, it gets the content they paid for playing on television sets sooner. Trailers can draw people in to watch something they might not have the same way the beginning of a book can suck you in sometimes. And for users that don't like this feature, it keeps them scrolling. Cause every time you scroll over to the next title, the trailer stops and you reliably get about 2 seconds before the next trailer starts playing.
So I started scrolling faster. I think what happened next was that I realized there was nothing interesting to watch much sooner than I would if I wasn't scrolling as fast to avoid the automatically playing trailers.
Their original content comes out so fast and different people in my social circles are so excited about completely different ones and recommending them to me all the time that they just all seem the "same". Something about not having months of hype and advertisements, big reveals, franchises, etc. makes the Netflix originals feel like the product of an assembly line than legitimate inspiration. Like they're doing sprints for creative work. There was a thread a while back on HN about "Bright" when it came out. I remember there was a comment suggesting that the plot/setting/actors/world seems like it was generated with neural nets or something. That's how they all feel to me.
Also the recommendation algorithm gets some things right about me. Most things probably. But it's noticeably more exciting to use when scrolling through someone else's profile. Because it's all new stuff. It's completely tailored for someone else. You're likely to find titles you wouldn't bother to search for specifically (typing in the title) but you're surprised it's on their and you want to watch it immediately. I like The Incredibles but I don't want to watch the Emoji Movie.
So I think they're getting eaten from a couple of angles. original programming is soylent green, other media companies are taking their balls home, the interface is designed in a way that reveals the lack of interesting stuff quicker, their price went up.
True about the wider demographic, but that has an unarguable correlation with lower quality. A show, book or movie which has something to say (artistically, socially or whatever) will upset someone; by definition the only way to reach a wider demographic is to make something blander or with less to say, so that you minimize the risk of upsetting/disappointing your audience.
This doesn't even apply to arguably good shows like The Killing, whose later Netflix-produced season is so awful it's embarrassing, not because it appealed to a wider demographic -- it was pretty niche -- but simply because it was terrible, badly acted and worse plotted. I've no explanation in this case.
I'm surprised by what people are saying about Bright. I disliked it because it was a bland knockoff of Shadowrun and similar scifi-with-orks-and-elves settings, with weak SFX and an even weaker plot. The commentary about racism -- whether well or badly done -- didn't even factor in my dislike. Bright is indeed a by-the-numbers urban fantasy made to appeal to a wide demographic, with nothing interesting to say about scifi, fantasy or even action. It was quite accurately described by the press as "a movie done with an algorithm". So of course it will likely have a sequel!
I really hope bland shows aren't the future of Netflix, but I fear they will be because they make business sense.
Bright was decent as an action movie, but terrible as the social commentary it tried to be.
Netflix originals are hit or miss. They make (or take over) some good stuff, like Stranger Things season 1 or Bonus Family, but they also make some embarrassing, awfully bad things, like Bright or Bird Box. Even within the same show they are hit or miss, like when they took over The Killing or Black Mirror. I find there's no correlation between "made by Netflix" and quality.
It's a bit weird that you think Hollywood is only 5 studios. That would be like saying Silicon Valley is just FAANG. There are dozens of studios in LA alone, not including the studios in NY, Atlanta, and Vancouver.
Netflix is the 5th biggest studio in Hollywood (the industry) but is the biggest studio actually located in Hollywood (the neighborhood of LA) as the other major studios have their own facilities in other neighborhoods or cities of LA. (Sony = Culver City, Fox/Disney = Century City and Burbank, Paramount = Mid City, Universal = Universal City.)
Comparing the end credits for Netflix originals and Disney films, I see no difference in the amount of vertical integration. Netflix films generally aren't VFX heavy so there isn't as much outsourcing that needs to be done. Disney films are, and most VFX shots are outsourced since (a) it's cheaper and (b) the specialized VFX shops are usually faster and more nimble than in-house VFX teams. Compare the end credits for thein-house VFX-heavy Netflix original like Bright and Mute. They have just as much outsourcing as a Disney film.
(Source: I count Fox Searchlight, Vendome, and Sony Pictures as former clients and I currently work for a media company. I'm well versed in how movies are made.)
Netflix funnels people towards their own properties in the hope of raising the value of their new IP and network. Some are hits. Some are misses.
People watching Bright doesn't mean people, on the whole, liked Bright. Making a Bright 2 might just mean that making another was the easiest and cheapest way they had to honour Will Smith's contract, which may have primarily been inked to keep Will Smith out of putting together exclusive content for other streaming services he was in talks with.
The idea that the quality of the content itself is the end-all of the business decision to fund a series or movie is misguided.
Regardless, this misses the point. Consumers are right to push back against lowered content standards, and opaque business choices don't trump that. If Bright was actually good, it would have been fans that were clamouring for Bright 2. They weren't. The fact that good money is following bad doesn't mean the series is suddenly a success.
Whether a show, book, movie, song, etc is "worth the time" is entirely subjective. There are million dollar franchises based on material that I don't consider worth my time. But you better believe that stuff is worth Netflix's time.
A perfect example of this is "Bright," a netflix movie that was critically panned. But people watched it. And now they're making "Bright 2". Are you really suggesting that Netflix should stop making movies that people want to see because critics (professional or otherwise) dislike them?
Two things people need to keep mind:
a). There's no objective way to judge this stuff.
b). The existence of movies like "Bright" does not prevent "high quality films" from being made.
Werner Herzog, Kelly Reichardt, Wong Kar Wai, Michael Haneke, Mia Hanson-Love, etc can keep making movies whether or not "Bright" keeps getting made over and over again. Both kinds of movies have their audience, and that's fine.
Nowadays every media company wants their own streaming service. That means Netflix has to scramble for content. And when starting out they were careful in selecting projects. But once they got a taste for success they have been green-lighting projects left and right. But, they are not going to select winners every time. Stuff like Bright, the Will Smith movie, relied solely on the star power.
It will be interesting to see if Netflix imposes some kind quality bar to ensure things don't go even worse.
The future of bad films.
My wife and I give most of the netflix movies and shows a shot but the batting average is unfortunately really low. At least for us. We thought "Bright" and "Titan" were absolutely terrible.
And it's not like we're snobs, we're looking forward to "Infinity War" even though it's silly and dumb. The writing the Netflix movies is mostly really horrible, though.
I hope they make some better movies because the world does not need more bad or even mediocre ones. We have plenty.
Putting the beauty and power of going to the movie theater aside, I think what is most powerful about Netflix, and something they learned from HBO, is how to give the directors/writers/producers more autonomy over their work. This is something TV execs have failed to do again and again. I think the problem is this does not translate to cinema. Films are a much more tight medium where spreading your wings and entertaining a multitude of ideas fudges the thrust of the narrative. With TV, we are willing to entertain long arches of story that wind and weave without a clear endpoint or direction. Let’s take Game of Thrones, for example, it’s rarely quite clear what is going to happen. We do have the specter of the Khaleesi and the white walkers arriving on the shores of Westeros, but throughout you have an overarching theme of uncertainty with any and all of the characters. Cinema would not allow this kind of uncertainty. And that’s exactly one of the reasons why superhero movies do so well. They have a clear and crisp narrative that we go to the cinema to satisfy. Being nuanced in film is much harder because in film you also have to be blunt. In film, you must pay more close attention to the heroes journey. In TV, you can hack and toy with it.
This is why I think Netflix thrives in TV shows but flounders in cinema. Cinema requires tight thinking and TV requires open thinking. Netflix, by its business model and Silicon Valley culture, is inherently an open culture. They are willing to entertain and support the ideas of creators. Now, you might argue, hey look at A24, they allow their creators a lot of space and still pull off great cinema like Ex Machina and Moonlight. I think Netflix hasn’t quite made it there yet but is inching towards it with movies like Annihilation. Annihilation also tries to do too much but it is succinct as compared to Bright. That’s A24’s strength it picks and guides its creators towards succinct storylines that, in the end, are powerful.
I think the best example of the above points is how weak Netflix superhero shows are overall compared to its big hits like Stranger Things and House of Cards. With superhero stories, they are inherently tight: the hero must win. There isn’t much room for subtlety and so these shows tend not to catch on. It doesn’t play to Netflix’s open-ended storytelling strengths (and granted their production value is usually B level). Whereas with Stranger Things, the open-ended nature of the story keeps the viewer entranced.
Unless Netflix hires some people who understand these fundamental issues at its top levels, it will be hard for them to really innovate on cinema. IMHO.
I laughed pretty hard after reading this blog post.
Netflix movies have been on a horrific downhill trend in quality (though their documentaries have remained great). After the Adam Sandler flicks, Bright, The Cloverfield Parodox, and especially Mute, it's become clear that Netflix's film department has no fucking clue what they're doing. It's getting to the point where people I know who are avid Netflix bingers would literally rather rewatch a show or film they just saw than watch the latest Netflix film.
The working definition of a "TV show" is a series with regular installments/showings overtime, or at least many shorter length shows. A "movie" is the opposite, with just one production film. This is flexible, of course, as a movie can have later installments, but it is not its primary purpose. There are many "movies" that never make it to the Cinemas because of bad production value, ie bad movies!
Your definition would call Netflix's recent film "Bright" a show, which of course it is not. Cannes is being ridiculous.
Netflix isn't listed as a production company for Okja.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3967856/companycredits?ref_=ttfc_ql_4
They are for Bright.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5519340/companycredits?ref_=ttfc_ql_4
It was Shadowrun lite, which is awesome. Now that they have a movie that rates well with normies, they can go deeper and expand (and probably even make a series out of it).
A lot of settings that are actually interesting only really work as long-form episodes--Babylon 5 or Angel for example would've been a garbage movie.
Bright was essentially a large pilot. I'd be really interested in seeing what the production side of the house is learning.
Bright was a truly horrendous movie. Everything about it was terrible. The writing was beyond bad, the performances were weak, even Will Smith was just a bad R-rated version of previous performances. One of the worst movies I have seen in a few years.
If I dismissed every movie or show with left-progressive propaganda I would have nothing to watch.
Had no relation to Bright either.
Bright is Urban Fantasy, which is a rather rare genre for feature length films. It's not a great movie but it's a lot better than you'd think if you just listen to critics.
I hate will smith, don’t like most of his movies. Enjoyed bright. Started out slow but now hoping for sequel...
The post seems to make its point by dismissing just about everything. Bright is "just another Will Smith movie" and Stranger Things is "pistache by design." Game of Thrones is probably just another fantasy-book-to-TV translation and The Wire is probably yet another crime drama.
Through that lens, is anything going to impress you?
I agree with the sentiment that any kind of SciFi is irresistible on Netflix. There has been a great void when it comes to futuristic shows or movies. I even enjoyed bright, despite its numerous flaws.
However, altered carbon's visual brilliance is marred by two things:
1. Many actors are simply not up to the mark. The two leading ladies quell and Rei both feel incredibly wooden and cheesy. Really takes away from the show.
2. The world is not futuristic enough for being set 300+ years in the future. I feel that this 2ould have worked better if Kovacs would have been asleep for 30-40 years, not 250.
One awesome character was Edgar Allan Poe, who is a hotel. He was fun, and well played by the actor.
Roger Ebert said it was due to a Film Critic seeing 2-3 movies a Day. If you are seeing that many movies, you start to yearn for something different and challanging. If you see at most 1-3 movies a month on a good month, you tend to be ok with "just" entertaining movies. Also critics like to see movies that move the artform forward in some way. So while Bright on Netflix is a very servicable by the numbers movie, it is not really doing anything outside the box.
> This is the same problem Netflix & Amazon have been successful in combating.
I would say that the jury is still out on that. Lack of Blockbuster movies has always been one of the weak points of Netflix, and they are still in the process of getting started with producing content there (with "Bright" being one of the first of their movies trying to be a Blockbuster).
On the other front, they are highly dependent on existing content that people love, and more and more of that is being owned by Disney and pulled from the platform as they are gearing up for their competing service. If they also fail to keep the other big right holders on the platform then soon all they have will be Netflix content (which is probably their 5-10 year plan anyway since that makes them more profitable).
I'm not sure a Netflix Originals-only catalog will go over well with the subscriber base. Despite some of their first original content having some good hits (e.g. House of Cards), I think over time their hit-rate pretty much adjusted to the levels of traditional cable channels like HBO/Showtime with a lot of mediocre content.