A decade of entertainment: The good, the bad and the special

Matt Singer | Contributing Writer

I am not a crier. It’s not that I have any issue with crying; I just don’t really do it. That’s not to say I don’t experience moments where a natural reaction would be crying. “Why, Matt? Why don’t you cry?” I hear you asking. Well, it turns out I have a medical condition doctors call “being dead inside.”

I do tear up from time to time, but it takes something truly moving for that to happen. Something like Tony Stark completing his 12-year, nine-movie (10 if you include a cameo) character arc by sacrificing himself in order to save the universe, followed by a funeral with Alan Silvestri’s emotional score playing in the background.

“Avengers: Endgame” brought me as close to crying as anything in recent memory. That may sound ridiculous and maybe it is. But I saw “Endgame” on opening night at 10:15 p.m. in a packed theater. By the time the funeral scene rolled around, it was 1 a.m., and you would be hard-pressed telling me or anyone else in the theater that night that crying over a superhero movie was ridiculous.

“Endgame” was a phenomenon the likes of which we have never seen before. It was the culmination of the current iteration of Avengers films and the Infinity Saga of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), as well as the individual arcs of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, the respective head and heart of the MCU. It captured the zeitgeist to the tune of a $357 million domestic opening weekend—easily the largest opening weekend of all time—and a $2.798 billion total worldwide gross profit, making it the highest grossing movie ever.

The 2010s were dominated by the MCU, along with two other franchises that either have come or will come to an end in 2019: “Game of Thrones” and the “Star Wars” movies. Obviously, just like the MCU, neither are actually ending for good, but the current iterations have drawn to a close. Whatever you thought of the final season of “Game of Thrones,” you were still engrossed by it for six weeks. As for “Star Wars,” I don’t know if any story is more widely known than that of a farm boy from Tatooine. Through all the ups and downs, nothing has been more ubiquitous in culture for the last 40 years than “Star Wars,” and “The Rise of Skywalker” is its (hopefully) grand and satisfying finale.

However, as huge as the MCU, “Game of Thrones” and “Star Wars” were throughout the decade, their example is one of how things used to be, not a sign of changing times. As Kylo Ren says in “The Last Jedi,” “Let the past die.”

The 2010s saw perhaps the greatest shift in the entertainment industry and media since the rise of television in the 1950s: streaming. Streaming has fundamentally changed both how people consume content and what they consume. Its effects are far-reaching. From mergers (Disney-Fox, AT&T-Time Warner) to cord-cutting (Q1 2019), streaming has completely altered how media companies approach creating content and as a result, there is more of it, a lot more; take Netflix for example.

There are a lot of jokes about Netflix greenlighting anything and everything that comes to them, and while that’s not entirely unfair, there is a reason Netflix sits on the streaming throne. They have something for everyone, with Netflix Originals like “Stranger Things” and “Big Mouth” being huge draws. However, Netflix’s main attraction has always been licensed programming like “The Office,” “Friends” and a host of Disney movies.

The rise of Netflix precipitated the fall of traditional television, hurting major media companies. In response, over the last few years, the three largest media companies—Disney, AT&T (WarnerMedia) and Comcast (NBCUniversal)—announced intentions to create their own over-the-top streaming services, clearly pitting them directly against Netflix.

Disney+ debuted less than a month ago, with NBCU’s Peacock and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max set for release in April and May 2020, respectively. Disney took fire at Netflix by ending their licensing deal with the streaming giant. Meanwhile, NBCU and Warner both outbid Netflix for some of its most valuable licensed content, with “Friends” going to HBO Max while “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” will move to Peacock.

In addition to attacking Netflix directly, a need was recognized to go out and create libraries with enough content to actually compete with Netflix. To this end, HBO Max acquired the rights to shows like “South Park,” “Rick and Morty,” “Gossip Girl,” “Doctor Who” and “The Big Bang Theory.” In order to beef up their library, Disney went one further and bought most of 21st Century Fox.

All three streaming services are also making original content a huge selling point, with Baby Yoda from the Disney+ Original “The Mandalorian” already taking over the internet. Among other things, HBO Max is planning to reboot “Gossip Girl,” while Peacock is planning to reboot “Saved by the Bell.” When the current media landscape is placing emphasis on having as much content as possible, it is going to be continually harder to keep up with everything.

This is what makes the MCU, “Game of Thrones,” and Star Wars so special. They all came about before the rise of streaming and ended their runs right as streaming decided to storm the gates. While none of the franchises are actually hanging it up, each will take on a new form and, in my opinion, all are unlikely to ever quite reach the stratospheric heights of their 2010s predecessors.

“Game of Thrones” is likely the final event television show ever. Even in 2019, it still had the ability to bring people together on Sunday nights to witness how the show’s final season would end. It premiered in 2011 and became must-see-TV, building a fanbase of both readers and non-readers of the series alike. It redefined what television was allowed to be with its (mostly) brilliant writing, acting and enormous budget.

“Star Wars” returned with “The Force Awakens” in 2015, 10 years after “Revenge of the Sith,” and a new “Star Wars” movie has been released every year since. Just like the final season of “Game of Thrones,” if you go anywhere on the internet, you’ll be led to believe the Disney “Star Wars” movies are the worst thing since polio. Even still, all of the movies besides “Solo” have been tremendously successful. “The Rise of Skywalker” not only ends the first round of Disney Star Wars movies (they plan to take a break to regroup and figure out a cinematic direction for the franchise), but it also concludes the entire Skywalker Saga, which, as I said, is likely the most famous story put to film.

The MCU dominated pop culture in the 2010s. Not too long ago, a shared cinematic universe was an entirely foreign concept. In 2013, DC released “Man of Steel” as its first attempt to compete with the MCU’s dominance. By 2017, the DC Extended Universe had come to a screeching halt as “Justice League” flopped in theaters. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios was churning out hit after hit. They were smart in allowing for different styles, tones and voices to permeate the MCU while still maintaining its coherence as a shared world.

The MCU coincided with my adolescence; I grew up with these films. So as I sat in that theater, tearing up as Tony Stark’s first arc reactor floated down the river, my emotions were tied not just to the movie, or the character or even to the series as a whole. Deep down, it also signaled the end of my childhood. Coincidentally, I got off the Wash. U. waitlist just four days later.

But what makes the MCU, along with “Star Wars” and “Game of Thrones” unique is that each franchise played such an important role for so many people. The country is more divided than it has been in a long time, in more ways than one. I don’t expect it to get better anytime soon. And yet, two film franchises and a TV show were able to cut through that and bring people together to experience something, even just for a couple hours. That is special.

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