Iconic Movie Magic Is Gone

The Death of Collective Wonder

After a test-screening of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather in 1972, the lights went up, but the crowd sat silent and still. Then, one man finally said aloud, “That was... a masterpiece.” And then the applause began.

The film created a sensation. The reaction was rapturous, reverential. Theatres added 3 a.m. showings to meet demand.

The release of Jaws in 1975 wasn’t just a hit—it was an event that redefined what movies could be, how studios would think, and how audiences would behave in a darkened theatre. Long lines snaked around blocks in blazing summer heat. At packed screenings people screamed in unison. Applause broke out mid-film. Some viewers fainted from tension during screenings.

Jaws was a cultural rupture—a before-and-after moment that made the entire medium sit up and ask: “What just happened?”

When the underside of the Imperial Star Destroyer rumbled into frame at the beginning of Star Wars, audiences sat open-mouthed.

Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Not in scale, not in sound, not in sheer cinematic force.

“When that ship flew overhead, I knew movies had just changed. Not just science fiction—movies.” — Lawrence Kasdan recalled.

Within three weeks, lines around theaters were eight hours long. Some fans even slept outside theaters to get back in.

It was the Big Bang of modern blockbuster filmmaking. George Lucas became the czar of the cultural moment.

Why aren't there monumental, jaw-dropping experiences and shared cultural events on our screens, and on our stereos anymore. Why is there no longer magic?

Magic isn’t just rare. It’s practically incompatible with the current system of cultural production.

There's been a change in younger people - ten years ago there was at least an apprehension among them of prior generations having monumental defining cultural moments. Now they are kind of estranged from the very idea of such moments.

It isn't so much that they have a lack of appetite for such cultural rupture, rather a dull lack of expectancy.

That doesn’t mean the magic is gone forever. But it does mean that the conditions that used to make it likely aren't really there much anymore.

Hollywood studios prefer safe bets: sequels, reboots, superhero franchises, IP adaptations. Original stories or genuinely new spectacles are fewer and far between because the stakes are huge, and failure can mean massive losses.

The “event” is often a brand extension (Marvel, Star Wars, Fast & Furious) rather than a fresh cultural rupture.

What's been lost is the genius of grafting pop-corn flick populism to fundamental myths and themes - Star Wars was both a monomyth of self-realisation, mysticism, freedom against tyranny and redemption - and a dazzling and kinetic spectacle with adorable side characters and laser swords and space dog-fights. In place of the balance of those two things,w e have four quadrant films, that more or less please everyone, and oftentimes no one.

Even what we mean by zeitgeist has changed. Much of the modern generation considers identity to somehow be zeitgeist - and this not really suited mashing of identity onto zeitgeist has made the craft, toil, pursuit or even conception of 'magic' and colllective transformative experience in culture and entertainment less prevalent.

Identity as a realised and navigated state is profound, especially with overlooked storytelling of struggle and marginalisation, past and present. But intersectionality in and of itself isn't hip or game-changing if it relies on pre-constructed IPs and aesthetics.

In the past, many iconic works emerged from a drive to create shared mythologies — sweeping narratives that captured something universal and external. Today, by contrast, much of the cultural energy is inward-facing — devoted to the expression of individual identity, not collective myth.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t beauty or importance in that shift — but it doesn’t coalesce easily into experiences that bring millions together in awe.

Rather than asking: “What does it mean to be human in the face of fear, power, loss, or wonder?” Or, "What does this say about all of us?”, much of contemporary entertainment asks, “What reflects me back to myself?”

The universal is often subordinated to the politics of visibility. When applied to legacy franchises, it can feel like a grafted-on mission rather than organic growth.

“Growing up, I never saw myself represented in the franchise…”

This refrain — often heard in press tours and promotional features — has become a dominant justification for creative choices.

Fictional worlds are not necessarily obliged to reflect real-world demographics, especially when built from specific cultural or mythic foundations.

The idea that “seeing myself” in a wizard, Jedi, or superhero is a requirement for emotional investment ignores decades of audience engagement across lines of identity.

Instead of creating new stories that reflect diverse experiences on their own terms, studios often choose to retrofit existing worlds — built by and for different cultural moments — and paper them over with contemporary identity politics.

This risks alienating long-standing fans who feel something sacred is being overwritten, and shortchanges the new characters themselves, who are often defined by contrast to legacy icons.

There are little spurts of what feel like collective experience - The Avengers Endgame, Barbie, where there is an atmosphere of fun and even dressing up - but that is a pale imitation of audiences being rapt by moments of cultural transition.

The same issue applies to music.

In the summer of 1968, shortly after completing the recording of Hey Jude, Paul McCartney took the track to a Club in London. The record had not yet been released, and none of the clubgoers had heard it.

The DJ played the song, and the reaction was electric. The crowd loved it so much that they kept demanding it be played again. And again, on repeat all night—until dawn.

A year earlier, during the final mixing sessions for “A Day in the Life”, the Beatles played the track for a group of friends at Abbey Road. The group sat there, silent and motionless after the last piano chord faded into the ether. No one quite knew what to say. They sat in awe.

When Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven hit US radio, it didn’t need marketing. DJs in Los Angeles dropped the needle on advance pressings, and the phone lines instantly lit up with calls from listeners asking, “What was that?” Many demanded to immediately hear it again.

Released in September 1991, Nirvana’s Nevermind was expected to sell modestly—yet by Christmas, it was moving 400,000 copies a week. Hearing the track Smells Like Teen Spirit for the first time was like a kick in the balls of the mainstream. The 1980s died quietly in the background.

The question then is: why have there not been any such monumental, magic and seismic moments in music since?

In the 60s through the 90s, music was often the engine of cultural identity. A track or an album could become a shared cultural event. It meant being borne along with a feeling that something had just changed. It wasn’t just a song or an album. It was a before and after.

Today, culture is splintered across infinite platforms—Spotify playlists, TikTok algorithms, YouTube rabbit holes. There is no central hearth anymore.

The internet gave us access to everything, all the time. But that’s also the problem: the velocity of content consumption leaves little room for a single moment to build myth.

Magic needs tension, space, anticipation.

Bands, who rehearse in sweaty rooms, fight over arrangements, find a collective groove—are increasingly rare, because they're not especially practical for music labels. Software and recording setups mean anyone can make music in their bedroom studio, which erases the intimate unique connections between musicians that create magic and a distinct sound. Nirvana rehearsed everyday for six months before recording Nevermind, and you can hear the energy and tightness and honed aesthetic.

When you phase-out the band, you phase-out: Shared intuition, the push-pull of egos, the feel of real-time interplay, and the stage as a crucible.

Before the internet, a band had to earn an audience. They toured. They bombed. They learned what made a room of 20 or 200 people shut up and listen. Performances give a frontman opportunities to hone provocation and connection.

In the modern environment, especially at festivals, the space between the act and the audience has expanded from devout fans having their forearms resting on the stage, to a two meter channel where security stand stoically in high-vis vests.

Today, viral success can come before a single live gig. Bedroom fame skips the sweat and toil. And that means songs are often written for algorithms, not for rooms full of bodies. There’s mood, not combustion.

There has been a death of imperfection. Modern ears expect tuning, compression, clean mixes. So we lose: Grit, surprise and the thrill of a flawed but felt performance.

Synthesisers and samples reduce the need for musical chops. Modern ears are attuned to sound that is heavily processed, tuned and compressed. In an age of minimal attention spans and digital sterility, solos are considered “boring” or “cringe.”

The other issue is young masculinity - the impulse to impress, to seduce, to provoke. Theatrics, bombast, the technical elements of musicianship, posturing and sexual braggadocio. The friction of male ego meeting cultural pressure

Beethoven vs. everyone — always out to overwhelm the competition, using force, scale, and complexity as weapons.

The Beatles vs. the Beach Boys vs. the Rolling Stones — constant one-upmanship in writing, studio wizardry, and cultural dominance.

Led Zeppelin vs. The Who — Who can be louder, filthier, more mythic?

Rock bands fought over headlining slots, sabotaged each other’s sets, stole each other's girlfriends. Rappers used to vie for status by battling each other in front of inner-city crowds.

These young masculine impulses have faded in a culture where aggressive artistic modes are now less socially rewarded, one that prizes emotional authenticity and accessibility.

This mirrors broader cultural shifts: an industry suffused with collabs, co-signs, and brand partnerships, and where identity and therapeutic language has become central to self-expression.

And this shift brings strengths — nuance, introspection, emotional literacy — but it also represses an entire aesthetic lineage in music.

None of this is to outright dismiss the artistry in today’s music—it’s often more emotionally nuanced and sonically inventive than ever. But what’s missing is scale. Myth. That world-stopping jolt when something new reorders the landscape.

Contemporary music fans are largely heedless of the idea of authentic subcultures.

An important aspect, perhaps the defining one of why there is no longer cultural moments or magic, is that modern society is, well, shitty in general.

By shittiness, I mean a flattening out of two essential extremes - one, the genteel, urbane and gentlemanly - the dapper Allan Lad seeing the potential in George Lucas, and classically trained thespian Peter Cushing, famous on the small screen as Sherlock Holmes, playing the role of Moff Tarkin with the proviso he could wear his slippers during takes; the rather refined, eclectic and unflappable former WW2 airforce pilot George Martin arranging orchestras and quartets for Beatles records, and the other extreme - the misfits, fuckups, peculiar outsider and hard-living types - the eccentric old-school publishers who would opt for obscure and profound novels; the likely morbidly inclined H. R Giger's illustrations as a basis for Alien, the oddball, perhaps mildly schizophrenic Philip K. Dick's novellas being used as source material; the fact craggy old Robert Shaw was half-pissed when he delivered the famous quint monologue, both of those lovely extremes have been largely compressed down, and worse still, without society as a whole having a bit of class - and by class I don't necessarily mean rich or educated, or refined, but including working class civility and decency and modesty - without that, the idea of collective cultural experiences and magic fades as well.

Because without class, what takes over is shittiness - identity-junkie screen writers, oriented to making self-serving, self-insert content, reddit posts, shitposting, a blizzard of popcorn during the chicken jockey scene, fat-arsed people in their droves, Karens harranguing staff, gigantic foam fingers at sports events, sub-categorized sleaze, demagoguery, TikTok “aesthetics” churning through entire interior design philosophies monthly: from “cottagecore” to “barbiecore, slop content, second-screen viewing, absurd vape flavours, clickbait and hideous AI abberations, Stunt Food" where Entire YouTube/Instagram genres revolve around hyper-processed, over-sugared, maximalist monstrosities meant to be looked at more than eaten, bedazzled Crocs, drive-by vitriol and ideological puritanism online, Milf Manor, airline passengers drunk, entitled, or conspiratorial, weaponized narcissism: The idea that “my truth” justifies any behavior, and that public spaces are extensions of the individual ego, slot machines in the airport - a society that has lost the thread of restraint, meaning, and proportion. Pleasure without grace. Identity without depth. Consumption without culture. Modern society is the opening to a tale of two cities, but only the negative stuff: it was the worst of times, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Darkness, it was the winter of despair, we had nothing before us, we were all going directly to hell - do not pass go, do not collect 200 - in short we don't get magic and transformative collective experiences because we don't deserve them - we are a sweaty, chubby, lardy, emotionally immature squalid horde of undeserving reprobates who have squandered the inheritance of the rennaisance, the age of enlightenment and the post-war consensus.

We suck, and perhaps the west needs to fall - but until then, you can always enjoy watching the old classics.