https://twitter.com/pkafka/status/1392111119511216132
Amazon studios executives had to send Bezos regular updates on the projects in development that included spreadsheets describing how each show had each story element; and if one element was missing, they had to explain why.
storytelling is when you're ticking boxes in a checklist, and the more boxes you tick, the more storytelling you're doing
at least slop is cheap and made from food leftovers and produces wonderful results :Hoggers: , it's not a billion dollar production
This. He's making TV shows that people will watch, not something that will endure for the ages.
Sadly, this shit works. There was a book that came out that instructed Hollywood exactly how to make a movie. Down to the minute. You can take a stopwatch and the book to a movie and watch them hit the points one by one.
He's willing to spend insane amounts of money on streaming media because he assumes he'll make even more money by getting people to sign up for Prime and starting to use it.
The sad thing - he's probably right.
So if the whole world isn't at stake then it's not a good story. Also it has to be funny. And the protagonist has to have superpowers or magic.
Guess the MCU is the only good story out there.
His comments make perfect sense in the age of Capeshit. The stuff he talks about is superhero garbage, and also why people are getting sick and tired of the sameness of it all. So, like any other good capitalist, who can never accept doing something just because, and need the profit motive to do anything, he figures that he needs to appeal to the broadest selection of potential customers.
Yeah I get why, I just fucking hate it. I'm even a sucker for marvel slop but something new every now and then would be nice.
holy shit bezos has fucking awful taste if that's what he's into in visual media
also whoever wrote this did not need to suck his dick that hard, was this originally published in WaPo or something?
he's not interested in media at all, of any kind. apparently he doesn't like music or anything.
this is just his robotic analysis of what he thinks humans like.
Bezos passes the reverse Turing test. He is Machine Learning, personified.
the tweet says it's from some new book about Amazon, a "deeply reported, vividly drawn portrait of how a retail upstart became one of the most powerful and feared entities in the global economy". I'm not really sure if it's meant to be praise or critique, don't know what this Brad Stone guy's angle is
they basically call bezos the god-king of brain-logic here for his very surface level thoughts on media crit, there's no way the whole book isn't praise
I'm guessing that book isn't a scathing exposé on Bezos based on Amazon's willingness to eagerly sell it on their site.
deeply reported (on what Amazon allowed us to see), vividly drawn (with colors provided by Amazon), (self-)portrait
It's gotta have humor. Ok, Bezos, write some humor. Go on, tell me a funny story. Let's hear it bitch :meow-shining:
:lord-bezos-amused: McKenzie, I have analyzed meals. I know what meals are. I've got the scientists down there getting meals down to their absolute basics for our AmazonBasics Worker Energy Bites, (just add water for gravy). Look, here's all it is:
-A mixture of simple and complex carbohydrates
-Salt
-Acid
-Various aromatic compounds
-proteins, either animal-derived or plant
c'mon, it's not that hard. You can't make your husband a meal for Valentine's day?
:porky-scared-flipped:
You want a div-what?
I agree, civ stakes aren't necessary at all. In addition, I hate two other points:
Woody from Toy Story wasn't necessarily heroic until the climax, but was the main character of an iconic story. I think characters like him and the girl from Spirited Away make my favorite kind of protagonist (insofar as the kind I like to write).
I also don't love wish fulfillment. It makes it seem like every MC has to be the chosen one in some way or another. People in the middle of the pack can have great stories like Fry in Futurama or JD in Scrubs.
There are people beyond the valedictorian in Yale and Harvard
jeff's show trial after the revolution better involve him trying to explain how marco inaros is a compelling antagonist
tbf marco was like that in the books, just big capitalist realism brain making the freedom fighter a power-mad genocidal maniac because otherwise he'd have a point
The Hays Code, but instead of criminals always being punished radicals always have to murder children
I propose we call it the (Ken) Levine code, after his masterpiece of radical centrism, Bioshock Infinite
fuck marco, all my beltalowda homies stan anderson dawes
I mean you could make a point about co-opting the struggle of the oppressed for personal gain but that wasn't done here
it was kinda done, but libs need it to be smashed over their heads for the message to come across, and even then it might not land
This would lead to pretty much all movies being lifeless, boring Marvel clones... which are already quite lifeless and boring!
This is insane, lol.
Commoditizing the hero's journey for algorithmic success
Yeah, but he didn't kill Ronald Reagan before he became president
Nothing signals that a story has an intriguing narrative and world building like board room approval.
This is not really the point though. If I said that novels should have characters and story I would be correct from a marketing standpoint but I would also be missing the forest for the trees.
Also, you would be telling professional screen writers nothing they don't already know. Anyone who has taken middle school English can tell you that epic stories traditionally have a character who grows over the course of the story. Let alone a professional writer with 3 degrees from Middlebury or whatever.
Bezos thinks everyone else is an idiot, which is unbelievably galling, when he is the one being an idiot. As someone else said "oh? humor is good? gee, thanks. I didn't realize people liked humor. Anyway, ok, humor is good. So write an original joke. Should be easy, right?"
That's because bad anime literally hires writers from webnovel sites, I was fucking floored when I saw that, given my last interaction with the webnovel community was someone asking for a critique of their "skeleton mage harem novel" and a second person said they would do it so long as they got a critique of their Nazi lolicon story (which they had commissioned art for). Anime studios hire the Japanese versions of those dudes.
I felt like I was Bill Hicks in the Waffle House where he reads a book and the waitress says "why read when ya got the telly right here?" while the old redneck in front of him says "well well well, looks like we got ourselves a READIN' boy". Anyway fight against that shit by reading Urasaria Academy, it rocks.
have Amazon ever made a good show?
the expanse was good but it got worse after the network change
wait actually, patriot is brilliant. forgot that was them
I liked Good Omens, the show original content from the third episode was awesome.
Althought Neil Gaiman is showrunning it, so maybe it's why.
The Wheel of Time adaptation's first season was decent.
Upload was good. Second season coming out soon. Vaguely anti-capitalist too boot.
I liked season 4 (just started season 5) but there was definitely this weird piling on of just shit happening.
Like alright cool,
spoiler
the belters and earthers are arguing over land rights, got it. oh no, the planet's weapons are waking up. oh no miller is nowhere to be found. oh no, they're all trapped underground. oh no, their support ships are crashing. oh no there's a microscopic organism IN THEIR EYES making EVERYONE blind?! oh no, there's evil death slugs?! oh no repeat just piling shit on. Also I'm kind of annoyed with how super special Holden is and how he's always the best and everything happens to and around him. Let someone else shine for a fucking second
I mean it is pretty faithful to the book so amazon isn't really the ones to blame there
expanse got better imo, but i was probly more due to the source material
