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Notes -
My only point of disagreement is with movies. Literature sure peaked a few centuries ago but the oslo trilogy or drive or many other post 2000s movies are just amazing. The Dune and John Wick franchises are better than movies of the past in the same genre because they do benefit from the higher budget and better tech.
As for games, perhaps like hacking, the more people did it, the worse it got even at the top levels. This is a statement my friends who are good hackers make, I am unqualified for now.
Literature as we mean in the common sense only really began in the mid 1800s and you could argue it peaked in that 1890-1920 period, or 1940-1960 period, or that it hasn't peaked yet, or is peaking now. This claim seems very fuzzy to me. Do you mean novels?
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Film is the archetypal example of higher budget and better tech ruining an artform. High budgets means you can't afford to take risks, so every theatrical release is now a sequel or a remake of an established IP aimed at the lowest common denominator of American and Chinese teenagers. Better tech allowed the masterful animatronics and practical effects of the past to be replaced with green screens and CGI, with disastrous results.
What was the last truly great American movie? Probably the Lord of the Rings trilogy or The Last Samurai. No Country for Old Men is overrated. And the less said about the MCU and the Star Wars sequels, the better.
Is the lord of the rings American? Most of the cast is British and almost everyone involved in making of the movie is commonwealth.
What is American is the financing.
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