Strange Vistas

emilymortiner

Spectral promotional photo

Ugh. It seems that Netflix movies are like software – you need to wait a few weeks after release for ratings to stabilize.

Spectral seemed like it would be fun, cheap entertainment. It had a 4 out of 5 rating, which I thought was optimistic, but hey, if it passed a Saturday night, then great.

It didn't.

It's not even that interesting to dissect as a movie, actually. It's a hair above the quality you'd expect out of Syfy. What is interesting is what it might tell us about Netflix' data-driven production approach.

The story of how Netflix decided to produce an American House of Cards is at this point well know, but just in case: with the massive amount of user ratings they have, and no small amount of machine learning, they noticed that people who like the original British series also liked Kevin Spacey movies (and, I would expect, David Fincher). They decided to put them together to target their viewers.

If you squint, you can see where most bits on Spectral came from. Bruce Greenwood is a good choice of inexpensive “that guy” slash authority figure. Emily Mortimer is popular in secondary parts, even if not recognizable by most since she's never had a hit. The set design is so obviously geared to people who liked Terminator 2's future aesthetic that I'm surprised Michael Biehn isn't in it.

Throw in other look-alikes like Discount Ioan Gruffudd and Dime Store Jackie Earle Haley, and you've got yourself a movie.

I wish they sourced better writers, though. You could make a fun B movie with these elements. The idea of Moldova as “future Iraq” is not bad. But it's written without a shred of finesse, filling in blanks on a screenwriting template. You can bet your entire paycheck on there being plot shifts at 30, 60 and 90 minutes. There's a token tough female character who they still manage to turn into both “audience stand-in who needs things explained to” and “human subtitle machine”. You can be 100% sure Bruce Greenwood is there so he can deliver an attempt at a rousing speech before the last charge. There will be a massive face-off – duh! – where we are supposed to feel sorry for the extras sacrificing themselves as a distraction so that Science Boy and CIA Girl can infiltrate the enemy.

From plot to characterization, the script puts in the least amount of effort to even show up.

Not to mention, its shifting, pidgin language identified on subtitles as [speaking foreign] is not nearly as bad as the dialogue you actually do get to understand. It's one of those movies where, after a while, I just can't help but yell at the screen.

For instance, when they encounter disembodied nervous systems near the movie's end:

“How do you know if they can feel anything?” “I can't...”

How about there being an entire nervous system with a brain in that vat there?

“... there are some things science can't answer”

It's a bloody central nervous system! And a spine! And a brain! Which science school did you go to?

I expect in the near future Netflix movies will be written and produced by a convolutional neural network. Maybe then their genre offshoots will get better than this leaky Markov chain.

You have to wonder what the fitness function will be then, though. Right now it's ratings telling them what to produce. Eventually, it may turn to you being engaged, because as long as you are watching Netflix, you are not watching something else. Every two hours they get from you keep you one step further from going to a different service.

If that becomes the case, when in doubt, the only winning move will be not to watch.

Originally published on my old blog

#spectral #action #brucegreenwood #emilymortiner #sydfielded