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Barrin92today at 6:02 AM4 repliesview on HN

"She advised film-makers to focus on character and emotion[...] So evident is Pixar’s formula that it has inspired an internet meme: “What if toys had feelings? What if fish had feelings? WHAT IF FEELINGS HAD FEELINGS?” [...] Film franchises tap into nostalgia, too. “Toy Story 5” will be watched by more than a few adults who saw “Toy Story” as youngsters 31 years ago."

Reminds me very much of Roger Scruton's diagnosis that our popular culture is defined by kitsch (which in turn is defined by sentimentality), echoing Wilde that the big problem of the latter is that it wants to have an emotion without paying for it, gratification on the cheap.

And I think animation is particularly ripe for nostalgia, just like gaming because effectively it never ages. The Scrubs reboot is an interesting case because just watching the first episode I think you can actually see Scruton's point, there's something immediately off about seeing the same jokes and characters played out by people well into their 50s in a painfully way too HD recreated set.


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RobotToastertoday at 9:28 AM

> in a painfully way too HD recreated set.

That does make me wonder if anyone has started shooting in SD again to make things look "nostalgic". The only ones I'm aware of are some art films that used super 8 for that effect.

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ekianjotoday at 10:31 AM

Gaming ages. Not sure why you are under the impression it does not. For example, what was seen as innovative controls at one point in time becomes really clunky 20 years later

ares623today at 6:34 AM

I've always been fascinated by nostalgia. It is such universal source of both positive and negative feelings for people. If anyone has any books or other media about nostalgia I'd love to hear about it.

Today's Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox (blegh) will be tomorrow's nostalgia. I just don't know if there will be cheap hardware available for future adults to experience it though. Plus it seems that pop culture is so much more fragmented now thanks to social media, so it's harder to capitalize on a single IP to milk later on.

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everyonetoday at 6:46 AM

The vast majority of our media, most of our culture, has been created by artist / writer types, you know; kinda shallow, superficial, not particularly intelligent, not very well educated people, with nothing to say aside from meaningless platitudes like "all you need is love"

I guess that's normal? I dunno, I dont have any further conclusions. Maybe we should be concerned about it?

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