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New Escapist Column! On “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” and Boring Blockbuster Third Acts…

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, it seemed like as good a time as any to reflect on one of the blights on modern big-budget blockbusters: the bland computer-generated third act throwdown in a big empty space with no sense of geography or texture.

In recent years, it has become increasingly common for these sorts of spectacles to climax with a gigantic final battle in a vast computer-generated wasteland, with no defining features or landmarks, but instead just a big empty space with no sense of where objects are in relationship to one another. Rise of the Beasts is perhaps the most egregious example of the trend, but there are plenty of others: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther. It’s a hollow, empty, cardboard world.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.