Greentext

One thing LotR does very well: lets men show emotions that aren't anger. Frodo smiles, shouts Gandalf's name excitedly, cracks a joke with him, and gives him a hug. That's how you know they're old friends.

One thing I've noticed with newer movies is they do a lot more "tell, don't show" than old movies.

For example, compare the live action Disney Cinderella to the original animated version. The live action version is mostly a voiceover telling the story of Cinderella. They literally say "Her stepsisters weren't very good at art or music" and then have a scene showing them being bad at art and music. The animated version spent the first 20 minutes or so like a Tom & Jerry cartoon.

And this is across movies. I watched Predator recently and there wasn't a lot of exposition about how they're there to fight communists or whatever. You pick that up in snippets of dialog in between the action.

It really does feel like movies are dumbing down.

But Lord of the rings is a modern movie?

good writing. :|

Howard Shore is the answer

Gandalf's actor really helps.

I think the biggest reason is that the actors were allowed to act together. Modern movies use so many digital effects that actors aren't even on set together sometimes. It's hard to have the same emotions looking at a green screen and a guy in a morph suit.

Show, don't tell

It works wonders

the problem is that a lot of modern shows/movies spend 2 hours explaining a characters backstory before you give a shit. there’s also a lot of “tell, don’t show” going on

It's worth noting that the Lord of the Rings in book form is very long because it goes into so much depth about each character's history. One of the things that the author intentionally did was world building. If you wanted to get the whole plot line in, you could do so in a third the length.

So then when it was adapted to movie format, you had three things going for it. First, a lot of people read the books and loved them, second, the cast and crew had a lot to work with, and third, there was ample budget.

This is how I felt when I tried to watch Rogue One. It's part of one of my favorite franchises yet it is also an entire feature length film without one single character in it who I give a shit about.

It's maddening.

They'd rather have the protagonist run around screaming like a moron for 20 minutes for comedic effect instead instead of putting any effort into developing characters

They are the archetypes all other fantasy archetypes are based on. Of course you know them.

a lot more care was taken with movie production in general in prior years than now and it shows

It helps that Sir Ian McKellen is a huge teddy bear with a heart of gold and he would hug anyone that sincerely, whether he knew them or not.

“Modern movies”

I'd say most of the time it's an age thing the younger we are the easier impressed/amazed we are. growing older makes us sometimes cynical sometimes overloaded with imagery. The more you've seen the harder it gets to be impressed by stuff, cause you have seen so much. And we keep fond memories of the things we liked as kids and teenagers.

Good acting.