Yellowstone is literally a high budget redneck soap opera. It’s not meant to be special or high brow.
Quentitin Tarantino farted in his sleep. What does this say about the movie industry as a whole? Can a powerful enough rival from a different sector change the paradigm? Please read this entire bullshit article riddled with advertisements and let us know in the comments and don’t forget to like, subscribe and share.
Wait, so is he talking specifically about Yellowstone and other shows with the same flaws as it? Or does he believe this is necessarily true of all TV?
Because yeah, I can think of plenty of shows that I liked at the time but feel more or less the same as what he’s saying. Pretty much the entire Arrowverse. The US House of Cards remake. A bunch of shows that I eventually stopped watching without ever consciously deciding I wanted to drop them can probably be put down to this. Vikings. Leaky Blinders.
But I can also think of plenty of shows that really strongly stick with me. The original House of Cards. Chuck. Avatar: The Alastair Airbender. And that’s just looking at strongly plot-driven dramas. For comedy, there’s just no film that does anything even remotely like the best sitcoms in terms of how it feels emotionally to watch. Things like Parks & Rec or Brooklyn Nine Nine.
I first watched it between seasons 2 and 3 of the US version, back before it came out what an awful person Spacey was, but more importantly (for this conversation) before the show had started stretching itself thin. Although on their surface the shows diverge, plot-wise, after season 1 of each, I think thematically they diverge after their respective season 2s.
And I always liked to say back then that the UK version was just as good as the US version, but very different tonally. The key difference is that the UK version stuck the landing with a strong season 3 that it ended on.
I wish I could rewatch it, but it wasn’t easy to get a hold of back then, and finding pirate versions of stuff has only gotten harder in the decade since.
“Needs more feet.” - QT
That’s just bad shows. The ones that you forget about or don’t care about after they’re gone. (I haven’t seen either of his examples, so this isn’t specifically about those two.) The Wire, Breaking Bad, etc are better than 90% of movies, so I would argue they absolutely are memorable and enduring. Just like the movie classics are obviously better than 90% of TV shows. Quality is quality.
Saying TV isn’t (or can’t be) as good as movies is exactly the same as the old “videogames can’t be art” take, and comes across as equally out-of-touch and biased. QT should take the L on this opinion, but he already went on Joe Rogan…
The Wire is hands down the absolute best TV show ever made. Breaking Bad borrowed heavily from The Wire’s visual symbolism and they brilliantly expanded on it.
Vs a garbage show like Ozarks.
He’s right about Yellowstone though. It is focus group fluff. There’s good TV out there but Yellowstone isn’t it.
