Why Modern Movies Look So CLEAN and How To Fix Them

What modern movies have you noticed looking way too "clean"?

I think the 90s and early 2000s hit a sweet spot with not only how they were filmed but the right mixture of movie makeup and CGI. Movies now look like video games.

My friends and I rewatched the LotR trilogy recently (we do it at least once a year). And one thing that always stands out to me is how messy everyone's hair is. Beards aren't trimmed perfectly. Loose strands stick out and cross over people's faces or get caught in the corners of their mouth. It's a small thing, but it makes everyone just fit so much better.

Game of Thrones earlier seasons were so immersive for this very reason, but even later into the show with bigger budgets and quality of cameras, they managed to keep some grit which I appreciated.

My professor of Illumination said once "asian movies are different in terms of lighting, we, in occident, are used to add as many llights as possible and then remove them, Asians usually starts with 0 and only add the needed few, the less the better" Since then i've watched many asian movies and now, watching this video, i can only thing he was SO right.

I swear movies from the early 2000 looks so natural than todays. Films.

Interesting that you briefly mentioned Barbie, which I think actually benefits from being as clean as possible. Sometimes clean can be the right choice.

You pointing out how “The Batman” does NOT look clean like most modern movies is so important. It’s one of the reasons it resonated so much after seeing it in theaters that first time. It felt like a movie that we had been starved of in the last 10-20 years

I loved that LOTR feels so otherwordly yet at the same time so real and natural like I can still imagine myself in Middle-Earth, it's just the right balance of earthly dark colors and some recognizable colors so that it doesn't looks flawless but just right.

Very well said. This topic is my issue with Jurassic Park vs Jurassic World. Although both use digitally created dinos, the Jurassic World dinos are soooo clean it's distracting. They don't feel like they live in the same space with the human performers.

This is something that I started to notice a few years ago, mainly on Netflix. Some movies just looked fake to me, and I had no desire to watch them. It kind of reminds me of those "fresh-off-the-conveyor-belt" christmas movies, where everything looks too perfect.

tbf, I think emma's clean camera work fit with the film. At least for the first half, it fits with her idealism and the need to be perfect

It is so refreshing to see someone point out exactly what I have been silently enraged about in my head for years... I have often thought, "will movies ever look the way they did before?" My biggest problem with the "clean look" is it feels almost too similar to the real world that it takes you out of the story completely, and it results in a major lack of escapism, which is a primary driving force in people to want to watch movies. It gives every movie the exact same "visual tone/theme" and it looks cheesy above all. Love the video! :)

I remember going to the cinema to watch Empire Strikes Back, and one thing struck me afterwards. The hangar where the rebels were working on their spacecraft and other military machines was dirty, which you should expect if you have ever visited a real workshop. I loved it.

One thing I think a lot of 2000's movies like LOTR, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Carribean did well in was use a mix of practical and visual effects, so it allowed them to look very grounded and realistic for certain scenes but utilize their VFX for some of the more fantastical elements of the story. It really helped draw a line between fantasy and reality and is a much better use of effects when compared to today's use of blue/greenscreens.

Bro liked The Batman a little TOO much 😂

I'm sure he pronounced "The Batman" more than 1000 times

I love it when I'm made aware of something that sub-consciously I've felt, but never fully realised. That 'perfect'/'clean' look to modern films really does almost instinctively make me regard what I'm watching as sometimes inauthentic, but other times just simply less seriously (which isn't necessarily bad as sometimes I do just want easy-watching). All comes down to immersion as you mention.

Lord of the Rings and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are great examples of how much better movies used to look

YEEES! Nobody understood me when i was saying that. Grainy footage looks much more realistic as you don't see the crystal clear flaws!