I have been scared for some time now. The cause of my fear and apprehension is quite simple, but also quite worrying: it seems to me that creativity is a dying art.
The lightbulb moment which made me realise this came at a bus stop in London recently. As the advert banner scrolled over from another pair of trainers from some sports brand or other, the poster which replaced it piqued my interest: “Loserville”. Being me, an ad for a new musical generally excites some interest. I was sad to note it was opening in the former home of a great now-closed show – Chicago – but variety is the spice of life and all that. Out with the old and in with the new, right? Except, there was another problem. The main image on this advert was of a strangely familiar looking stereotype – the geeky, ugly, generally weird-looking ‘dork’ stock character. Under his image was the tag line: “If you <3 The IT Crowd, you’ll love LOSERVILLE.” This made me stop and think. Something, somewhere, is not right with this, I thought. Since when is it ok for new creative material, whatever the medium or genre, to directly trade off a predecessor? I looked back at the guy taking up most of the space and realised where I’d seen him before: The IT Crowd. And The Big Bang Theory. And The Inbetweeners.
This all made me realise where the crux of the problem with many creative industries and products is at the moment. New, fresh, innovative ideas are becoming rarer and rarer. It’s a problem which is manifesting itself everywhere – it provides a convenient tie-in to theme parks for the purposes of this site. Opening in a few months is the majority of Disney’s New Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom. This is a $350m, all-singing, all-dancing blockbuster addition to the Orlando park, fit to beat down the toughest of enemies in the theme park world. But what is in it? Another omnimover, a restaurant, and a meet and greet. Oh, and another Dumbo. We already had it, but two is better than one, right? I’m not impressed. I’ll even stop and make a rare criticism of Universal here – flushed with the unprecedented success of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, they are taking their new-found popularity, their new money and the potential of all the IPs they own or could obtain, and are building... more Harry Potter. Um, I’m disappointed. It’ll be fantastic, no doubt – ground breaking even, in terms of technology (in this respect at least it is better than Disney’s efforts) – but it’s more of the same. Sigh.
The situation is repeated wherever you look. This year at the box office has been, save a couple of superhero blockbusters (neither of which introduced anything new either, I might add), slow. Certainly in terms of fresh ideas and characters it has lacked. What was the last completely original, well-crafted, enthralling and exciting film you saw? I’m struggling to remember. Perhaps Inception deserves a mention, but even so, it’s hardly Hitchcock’s Vertigo or the Ealing classic Passport to Pimlico. In the other major creative industry –gaming – I also despair as I watch the masses flock out to order Fifa 13. If someone could tell me what marks Fifa 13 out from Fifa 12, or for that matter Fifa 11, 10 or 09, I’d consider myself enlightened. What a boring world we live in, that this repetition and generic production is deemed acceptable in a world of boundless possibilities. Developers could be building fantastic fantasy worlds beyond our wildest imaginings, exciting plot lines and complex characters we could empathise with, but instead they churn out another annual instalment of the same old thing. What are we on now, the ninth Call of Duty? I’m dying here.
So it is with cautious optimism that I look to a couple of things which are in the pipeline for the next few months which seem to be bucking this trend. Uncharted developers Naughty Dog are wrapping up production on The Last of Us, a game which adds a distinctly human touch and character-driven narrative to the generally over-used zombie apocalypse scenario. Likewise, the National Theatre continue to stage new and thought-provoking plays from new writers in an effort to combat the lower echelons of musical and dramatic theatre which seem to be filling the West End recently (for example, I saw this ad for a musical called Loserville...). So I ask the creatives of this world, whatever your speciality – be it films, games, theatre, theme parks, or just a good old-fashioned novel – pick yourself up and create something extraordinary. And consumers, demand a better quality product. Don’t settle for something which existed 5 years ago. Ask for something new. Give life back to the decaying remains of originality and creativity.
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