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Genre Turning Point: Difference between revisions
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Compare [[Wham Episode]], [[From Clones to Genre]], [[Follow the Leader]]. Good chance of being a [[Trope Maker]] or [[Trope Codifier]].
{{examples
== [[Anime]] ==
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* ''[[Heavens Gate (Film)|Heavens Gate]]'', although not for the same reasons as most of the other examples: it was so bad, it [[Genre Killer|killed]] the [[The Western|Hollywood Western]], [[Creator Killer|United Artists as an independent studio, and director Michael Cimino's career]]. It and other high-profile flops (''One From the Heart'', ''Sorcerer'') also killed the [[New Hollywood|auteur period]] in Hollywood.
* [[Wes Craven]] made ''[[Scream (Film)|Scream]]'' in an effort to kill the [[Slasher Movies|slasher movie]] once and for all. [[Springtime for Hitler|It did the exact opposite]], [[Popularity Polynomial|breathing new life]] into a once-dying genre and starting the late '90s/early '00s [[Post Modernism]] craze in horror.
** Before that, ''[[Halloween (Film)|Halloween]]'' did the same thing, basically starting the modern slasher genre. Two years later, ''[[Friday the
* ''[[Die Hard (Film)|Die Hard]]'' did this for the action movie. Sure, there were smart thrillers beforehand -- ''[[Die Hard (Film)|Die Hard]]'' itself could be seen as something of a remake of ''[[North Sea Hijack]]'' -- but after it came out, there were far fewer action films that featured invincible, unstoppable heroes (Schwarzenegger, Stallone) whose plots depended entirely on [[Ass Pull|Ass Pulling]] solutions out of thin air than there were before. Plus, not many films rewrite the rules for the genre so heavily that an [[Die Hard On an X|entire subgenre]] forms around them.
* A decade later, ''[[The Matrix]]'' did the same thing, introducing mainstream Western audiences to [[Heroic Bloodshed|Hong Kong-style gunplay]], fight choreography living up to Asian action film standards of sophistication, and [[Trope Codifier|codifying]] the use of [[Bullet Time]].
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* ''[[Forbidden Planet (Film)|Forbidden Planet]]'' was the film that revolutionized film and television science fiction.
* [[Sergio Leone]]'s [[Dollars Trilogy]]. These films weren't the first [[Deconstruction|deconstructionist]] [[The Western|Westerns]] -- the classics ''[[High Noon]]'' and ''[[The Searchers]]'' came out a decade before them -- but they left a far more lasting impact on the genre than those two films did. All of a sudden, the [[Black and White Morality]] that was nearly omnipresent in the genre vanished, replaced with the grittier, more morally gray attitudes seen in such films as ''[[The Wild Bunch]]'', ''[[High Plains Drifter]]'' and, much later, ''[[Unforgiven]]''. Every single Western made since the mid-'60s owes something to Leone's masterpiece.
* ''[[Star Wars]]''. While ''[[Jaws (Film)|Jaws]]'' is usually regarded as the first modern "blockbuster" movie, this was the one that proved that kids -- a demographic ignored by most 1970s movies -- were audience members too, that [[Merchandise
** Furthermore, ''[[Star Wars]]'' fundamentally changed how movies were made because of the huge success the franchise had with marketing. Sure, the movies were profitable, but the real money was made in action figures and toys and posters and other kinds of merchandising. Any kind of family-friendly blockbuster is going to have a cute character of some sort designed to appeal to children and sell toys to them.
* The ''[[Superman (Film)|Superman]]'' movie proved once and for all that comic book adaptations didn't need to be cheesy or silly, with terrible budgets & special effects.
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{{quote| [''[[Harry Potter]]'' is] a film series that, for better or worse, seems to have kicked off and excelled at every major trend in modern movie-making for the last decade. Things like the boom in the [[Fantasy]] genre, to the reliance on [[Derivative Works|recognized franchise names]], to the idea of [[Marvel Cinematic Universe|long-running cinematic continuity]], can all be traced back to this one game-changing production. Like it or not, the entire scope of movies are now living in the world that ''[[Harry Potter]]'' created.}}
** The ''Potter'' films most clearly sparked a trend towards more faithful and straightforward adaptations of novels, particularly fantasy novels aimed at children and/or young adults. The prior trend of combing seperate installments of a novel series into one film was killed in favor of adapting each novel individually in the hopes of creating a money-spinning movie franchise. When the live-action ''[[Chronicles of Narnia]]'' movies were first planned, [[Executive Meddling]] was aimed at relocating the story to America. But after the success of the first ''Potter'' film, the executives suddenly didn't have a problem with keeping the British setting of the novels.
* Together with the aforementioned ''Potter'', the ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Film)|Lord of the Rings]]'' films greatly raised the prestige of fantasy movies, much as the books had done for fantasy literature. Before then, fantasy films had mostly been (at best) [[B
* ''[[Blade Runner]]'' was a disappointment in a crowded summer box office when it came out. Repeated showings on cable and its release on video not only made it one of the first films to develop a strong cult following that way, but introduced the first entirely new way of visualizing the future in sci-fi films since ''[[Metropolis]]'' a half-century earlier. Not only did its wet streets reflecting neon signs at night get copied widely in other films, commercials and music videos during the 1980s, it arguably influenced the look of urban space in the ''actual real-world future'' ([http://www.flickr.com/photos/59303791@N00/2518314792/ See Times Square, ca. 2008]).
* The ''[[Alien]]'' series firmly established in futuristic stories, any major female character is expected to pull their weight in the face of danger or combat like Ellen Ripley.
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** Back in 1989, the first [[Prince of Persia]] did the exact same thing, with its realistic platforming and fighting.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' rewrote the rulebook for the 3D RPG genre, popularizing highly cinematic presentation enabled by CG rendering and the newly increased storage space of CDs, and dynamic camera angles and movement in battles presented in 3D.
* ''[[Street Fighter]] 2'' altered the face of the [[Fighting Game]], shifting focus from [[Beat
* ''[[Virtua Fighter]]'' likewise proved that fighting games could easily make a transition into 3D, in addition to showcasing more natural forms of combat as opposed to the fireballs and wuxia of its 2D brethren.
* ''[[Half-Life]]'' reshaped the [[First
* The FPS genre seems to be as impressionable as wet clay. After ''Half-Life'' it was once again redefined by ''[[Halo]]'', bringing in regenerating health and losing the massive weapon inventories of older contenders.
** And a year later, ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' also helped redefine the FPS by successfully fusing it with the Adventure genre, creating a first-person shooter where the focus was not on combat, but rather exploration and puzzle-solving. Those had long been staples of video games, but ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' really was the [[Trope Codifier|codifier]] for their inclusion in the FPS genre. To this day, almost every modern FPS plays [[Follow the Leader]] trying to catch up to ''[[Halo]]'' and ''[[Metroid Prime]]''.
** [[Accidental Pun|Rarely]] does [[The Problem With Licensed Games|a licensed game]] redefine conventions. Yet this is exactly what ''[[Golden Eye 1997 (Video Game)|GoldenEye]]'' did long before ''Halo'', showing that consoles were perfectly viable for a [[First
** ''[[Doom]]'' was the first FPS to offer multiplayer (via LAN or dial-up modem). This new mode of play proved to be hugely popular. Because of ''Doom'' virtually every FPS released since then includes a multiplayer mode, and many FPS fans buy games solely for the multiplayer and never play the single-player.
* ''[[Castle Wolfenstein]]'' invented the stealth game genre, but it wasn't until the success of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' and ''[[Thief]]'' that the genre began to attract attention. Other stealth game series, like [[Splinter Cell]] and [[Hitman]], have continued this with quirks of their own.
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