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So i said this before a long time ago on here and i feel justified again in saying it. There are some sub-genres we see too much of now Comic Book movies, isekai, Fortnite style animated games (god i never liked those), Star Wars, Call of Duty/Modern Warfare style games, the "always online" sandbox games that are 90% empty space touting X times bigger than Skyrim and some others.

Old saturated markets would include WW2 games (esp. shooters and films), Wild West (way, way back), Space Marine shooters (and other overly dark super gritty entertainment), very clear good guy/bad guy groups in entertainment, Shooter games in general and others.

Admittedly this will probably start up a heated argument but there are also some character archetypes that are done too much as there always used to be. I'll keep it tame and just state the Girlboss is probably ok in small doses but when you see it all the time it becomes boring as all over-saturated things do. Remember in Rogue One how the main Protagonist was searching for her father and wanted to get information on the Death Star? I liked that and i still say it'd have been more poetic if she killed the main baddie in the end. Or maybe we could have a relatable lady character that works several jobs to help feed her family. Even if that doesn't sound interesting there are comedies or even movies that can make you sympathize. The Joker movie was a tragedy movie of someone that went through struggle only to become a villain. I just like a struggle that the character has to work to overcome that is legitimately hard for them or something that ultimately takes them down like a tragedy (i heard "The Whale" was good). We could also have stories where the main character doesn't always make it on time to rescue everybody.

As far as more sub-genres i wish we had at the moment is maybe some new big sci fi universe like semi realistic sci-fi like The Expanse. We could also have more Noir Detective type games like L.A. Noire. Wild West type games could be cool like more Red Dead Redemption. I also miss stealth games and to an extent i'd like to see more adventure games. Even more cyberpunk style games would be cool. I can't tell you guys how much i miss Deus Ex as a series.

I just feel like there's a lot of interesting new genres we could tackle and haven't. What do you guys think?

Noire was oversaturated not too long ago, and some would argue Neo-Noir IS oversaturated now.



What we need is some good ol' fashion Genre bending/mashing. Marvel was good at this but some of their more recent work has struggled when it has moved away from this format. I think more Franchises can make it fresh with some Genre mashing/bending.

This is a tricky one, because it is of course somewhat subjective.

A given genre may have heavy saturation, but that doesn’t mean we’re not still getting solid gold from that mine, no matter how much dross occurs.

I could point to Horror as an overarching genre. That’s always a busy one. Typically they’re cheap to make, and if your movie lands, it can be a solid payday for the studio. Think stuff like the first two, maybe three, Paranormal Activity movies. And studios being lazy money slags will churn out knock offs and milk the teat of sequels to ruin.

Yet, there’s always good stuff coming out. Some from left field, some comfortable old boots which regurgitate existing tropes in at least fun ways.

And it’s kind of hard to knock that. To go back to Paranomal Activity. It was filmed on a $15,000 budget. And once picked up, had a $215.000 post production spit and polish. It then promptly made $192,000,000 at the box office.

Even it’s objectively gak sequels made serious bank, and profits.

And that’s why we see so many. Because whichever is going to be the next breakthrough is going to be massively profitable.

But this is something I think Hollywood needs to keep in mind. Keep a tight budget. Reduce the performance burden. Don’t just throw money at your tentpole and hope it’ll return a profit.

And if something is the hot genre? Don’t smother the coals. Don’t just fund and release films chasing that dragon. Fund and release good films. Even better, interesting ones.

We talk about how the MCU used to inject a bit of Superhero DNA into Genre flicks. And that’s true, they did. But they worked because there was clearly some kind of reflection on how to best realise that. How do you put Cap through the wringer? Where do the stakes for a superhero come from? What makes the audience care about their situation.

This is where Superman can often fall down. He’s to all intents and purposes invincible. So the whole Pa Kent “no son, don’t help people, or They’ll come for you” didn’t work. Come for Supes and do…..what, exactly? Jail him? Hang him? Exile him?

The interest in Supes come from how human he is. How he uses his astonishing abilities for good, whilst also trying to have a relatively normal life as Clark Kent.

The MCU Spidey works because they convincingly show a kid with amazing abilities who cannot escape Being A Kid, no matter how many mad adventures he’s drawn into, willingly or not and to varying degrees thereof. But also? Isn’t trying to Not Be A Kid.

His relationship with Stark works there. It’s not that Tony is keeping him down. It’s that Tony knows the price you pay when you start tackling the big boys, as seen in Iron Man 3. That Peter needs time to stop and consider what that impact is going to be.

This is also what makes or breaks latter day sequels. For my money, Dark Fate, Fury Road, Prey and Ghostbusters After Life got it right.

The teams behind those films clearly took time out to understand what it is that made the originals classics. And then looked for new and interesting ways to present those without simply relying on the legacy. They take what came before, use that as a solid foundation, play within the rules, and gave us something new on top.

IMHO, I don't think it's so much "saturation" as it is lazy af execs.

So, way back in the day, Elvis makes it big. At first, music execs wanted the next Elvis, but make him "safe". . . So, we got a bunch of bands that, in one heavy metal documentary, an expert described them as "all clean cut, dark hair, new jersey high school look. they looked safe, that you wanted your daughter to date. But it's a period where, you hear a hit track and can't quite name the band because they all look alike"

Then, someone takes a gamble. That band hits it big, and every other record label needs their clone of that band.

By the time you get to thrash metal, it seems a bit more obvious when labels do this sort of thing. Then, Metallica releases a ballad on an album. It's their biggest album to date, and the other labels see this and majorly push their thrash acts to do the same. Exodus and Slayer hold strong and don't do it. Testament does. . . and in some of the metal docs I have, its the One musical regret of Chuck Billy's career.

In music this plays out over and over and over. It's why you get these waves of "same sounding" trends in whatever the popular trend in music is.

I think with the MCU example, the reason why many of us can put them in a "saturation" place where fans aren't interested any more is, the money execs got greedy.

Up through the Infinity War plot, yes, theres a LOT of movies. But, even from pretty much Iron Man 1, the people who were actually making the films had an idea or road map of how to get where they're going. Now that this huge story is done, the money heads are talking and wanting more more more.

In American sports we see this play out as well: the NFL, when I was growing up was 2 nights per week, and had been for 20+ years by the time I started watching. Then, money people said "people seem to love this football thing, they clearly want MORE football" so they added thursday. And they've added another week (or 2???) of games per season, because MORE football is better!!! And then, college says, "hey now, if people love their football, why should we be relegated to only saturday?" and I've started seeing tuesday and wednesday games creep into the schedule. Like, NO!!! stop with the fething madness!!!


Shifting gears slightly, I don't know if we're getting to "saturation" territory with it, but the American "monsterverse". . . there's only a few movies yet, with still a seemingly tied, and directed, goal oriented plot. But now there's a TV show. Is it good? I don't know. I won't ever get that streaming service (another saturation point). . . but I see commercials for Monarch and go "do we really need a TV show as well?" You don't really see this level of pumping out media out of studio Toho.


And, as mentioned: streaming platforms. But we're starting to see the cracks in the system there. Studios are starting to realize that having their own platform only works if they have enough content draw, and a good enough service (in terms of UI) to get the numbers. Just being an exclusive thing isn't enough by itself. And, again, the greed is showing. . . increasing rates, plus adding in commercials (the original main draw of streaming, imho) unless you pay extra for newly added tiers in service. It's all greed.

@Ensis Ferrae: Honestly the way you make it sound it's less about greed and more about playing it safe with what works and being lazy. It's just they milk a good thing until it's dry and they are afraid of taking chances until it's a big hit in which case they're very lazy and just do what's popular.

I think if they knew which trends would work beforehand and when they should try them then they'd do so. Originality is tough though i suppose.

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Also let's be real the terminator franchise stopped being great after 2, 3rd was decent enough i guess and 4th was the last gamble. Everything after terminator 4 was terrible. I heard Sarah Connor Chronicles were good though but it ended on a cliffhanger or something. I never got to watch SCC though.

Prey (the predator movie) was probably a decent enough movie but i never watched it. I always thought a movie about a Predator alien fighting during a Cold War or a Current Day war between 2 countries in an urban setting where at first they fight each other and then after thinking some elite team is off killing everybody it ends up being a Predator and both sides have to team up to fight the Predator with maybe a scene of Arnold as like some grizzled veteran commander and few knowing what's actually out there. I suppose it could also have Danny Glover (was that the hero from predator 2?) but that might be too much nostalgia bait and wouldn't make sense during a military operation.
Then it ends with maybe one person or one from each side (after getting thinned out by the Predator) and then they try to kill the Predator and maybe stop it from setting off a big explosion on its wristband to prevent a huge war with nuclear weapons. NOW THAT is what i'd like to see! Sadly it might be Too Real for current day audiences considering how big wars may happen on a greater scale soon.

In terms of Latter Day Sequels, I tend to have a blindspot caused by the Good Examples. For instance…

Mad Max Fury Road. A terrific film. I was initially dubious given Max has been recast, but as a sequel and a film in its own right? It’s fantastic.

Prey. This was an odd one, as I knew nothing about it until I saw that trailer. Then I was hooked and determined to see it. Like Fury Road, it’s a solid bit of movie making entirely in its own right, and a great addition (and I’m not just saying that because The Predator was bollocks)

Dark Fate. Sure it’s seemingly divisive, but I love it. Not just a retread, but like Prey, delivers our tropes in a thoughtful and competent manner. Yes there are the odd dodgy bits, but on the whole it’s very enjoyable, with a great villain.

Ghostbusters Afterlife. Entirely respectful of its illustrious predecessors, but unafraid to do its own thing. And absolute top marks for how they handled Egon.

Saw X. OK as a series it’s not gonna be everybody’s cup of tea. But this is really, really good. And it did something quite different in terms of the overall dynamic, almost justifying Kramer’s madness.

There are others, but these examples hopefully show a Latter Day Sequel is by no means a harbinger of doom. Which to be honest makes the crappy ones all the more frustrating, because it shows they didn’t have to be crap.

I just want to be in record stating Terminator 3 is disappointing as a follow up to 1&2, but decent enough on its own, and Dark Fate is slightly better than 3. All other Terminator movies are hot garbage with Genysis being absolutely baffling hot garbage.

Obligatory hot take: Terminator 1 is better than Terminator 2.

I don't think there's a problem with sub-genres being "over-saturated", you just described the natural evolution of all media.

Once an artist gets bored of a particular sub-genre, they create a "deconstruction", which looks at the genre through a more realistic lens, stripping it down to its core parts. They often end up being more grim/darker, although this isn't always the case. Through this, a new sub-genre is born and new artists flock to make a "construction" of it, essentially copying the original "deconstruction". This cycle repeats ad nauseam which is how we've arrived at the currently popular genres.

Also, when it comes to "Girlboss" characters or "Woke" media, it's almost always an issue with the writing and not the actual subject matter. The left has won the culture war and whether you think that's good or bad is mostly irrelevant. Bad stories have existed for as long as we've learned how to tell them, but they end up forgotten as only the good stuff rises to the top and sticks around. There's just more woke stuff, which also means more garbage woke stuff. The other side isn't immune to this either.

TL;DR - Recency and Negativity bias are a thing, and you are NOT immune.


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Oh and for the record, Magepunk is probably my favorite genre but it's vastly underrepresented. And yes, I did just make that name up but it fits my favorite series so well (Dorohedoro & Fire Punch for the weebs out there).

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I just want to be in record stating Terminator 3 is disappointing as a follow up to 1&2, but decent enough on its own, and Dark Fate is slightly better than 3. All other Terminator movies are hot garbage with Genysis being absolutely baffling hot garbage.

Obligatory hot take: Terminator 1 is better than Terminator 2.

Terminator would have been a perfect film if the future reveal was saved for later in the movie.

For me, the only truly disappointing Terminator film is Terminator Salvation.

The others at least explored and expanded upon the mythos. Not always competently I’ll grant you. But even T-3 had some cool ideas, like the advent of the Internet affecting things, Skynet switching tack to hunt down John’s right hand men and women.

But Salvation? The one film set during the Future War. The Future War I’m sure all fans of the franchise were desperate to see more of. Promptly…..really didn’t do a very good job. No phased plasma rifles. No legions of T-800’s accompanying Hunter-Killers.

Just as Prometheus and Covenant answered the origin of the Xenomorph in the most boring possible way, so did Salvation show us the future war in the more boring and incompetent way.