There are a few animated theatrical releases in 2023 that I’m keeping tabs on, and it’s been interesting to watch how people have been reacting to the trailers. For example, I read an article praising the “stunningly ambitious return to form” that a Pixar film appears to be, and I’ve seen posts about how much of a “love letter” the new Super Mario movie is to fans of the franchise. Just go to one of these trailers on YouTube and count how many commenters say the movie is going to be “great”, “amazing”, or “a masterpiece”. Keep in mind that neither of these films has even been released. What I wonder is how people can be so confident in their assessment of a movie after a 90 second marketing video. What I suspect may be partially to blame is a media-driven feedback loop that has made our reasoning more emotionally-driven and surface-level over the years.

Every day we’re bombarded by messages from the media. Our brains are so overwhelmed with stimuli that we have to use snap judgments to sift through everything. We want things to be immediately apparent to us from the first instant so we can move on to something else. As a result, media makes itself more digestible and accessible, relying more on fanfare and spectacle to engage the audience. When substance and depth are compromised along the way, the audience members aren’t challenged to use their critical thinking skills anymore, and emotional response becomes the primary driver of reason and judgment. And that’s part of the reason why people in an excited state can “know” what a movie is going to be like after watching a trailer. But multiple times in recent memory, I’ve watched the hype fizzle out once the film releases. While it may have looked exciting and dazzling from the trailers, the real substance of the film – the combination of plot, pacing, dialogue, visuals, characterization, etc. – was found to be lacking.

When everything is engineered to be immediately grasped, society loses its ability to go deeper. It’s no wonder why we’re seeing the same generic characters, recycled themes, and heavy-handed messaging in mainstream animation. While these things ensure that the audience doesn’t have to work very hard to understand them, they ultimately ring hollow because they don’t reflect the depth of the ultimate reality: that there is an infinite, inexhaustible God who created the world and everyone in it. You could spend your whole life probing that concept and still find new things to discover.

The things that are most worth knowing have complexities and nuances and will not be fully understood in an instant. They demand an investment of time and energy, but that journey of discovery makes life much more gratifying. So take some time to slow down, assess your surroundings, and look deeper. I think you’ll find there’s much more beneath the surface than you realize.