This article is solely my opinion. Although I wrote this without proof-reading, please bear with me.


Okay I admit, maybe I exaggerated with my so-called one thousand reasons; they are not even close to a hundred, but they are issues worth eyeing.

We are in a world where entertainments, particularly movies, have come to play a pivotal role in our society. Irrespective of the fundamental role movies play in our society, thoughts of Nollywood movies cause drowsiness in me before the idea of seeing them comes to mind. Although, I spend a great deal of time at cinemas and sometimes, trying to download the latest Hollywood movies, yet, few minutes into a Nigerian movie and I’m off to Wonderland. I often wondered what was responsible for this until I believed that I have figured out the answers. A LOT is wrong with our Nollywood and as a movie enthusiast; I find the movies disappointing each time some few friends are around me and we decide to see one. Upon closer look, I believe there are some problems with the entertainment industry. Which are;

1. Our Movies are too predictable: Probably the most dominant in Nigerian movies; the producers, directors, characters and soundtracks are too predictable that one could tell what would happen in the next scene. It is also too predictable that viewers know how a movie will end before the characters themselves. Unfortunately, majority of Nigerian movies’ producers/directors lack the idea to create a spark between their characters and the viewers. The gap is way too huge (I guess this explains why I sleep off, barely few minutes into a movie).
Predictability on the director/producer’s part: After a successful movie campaign, producers/directors guise under their last success to create/direct a similar story, which is often annoying. True, this is also found in Hollywood movies but ours is so terrible that at the name of the director who, for instance, directed BLEEDING LOVE, must necessarily direct a new ‘blockbuster’ titled BLEEDING ANGEL. Quite funny that such a director/producer’s specialty is on nothing but love that comes with heart wrenching moments of the protagonists (who are likely Ramsey Noah and Ini Edo).

2. On the part of the Characters: Unfortunately, most viewers have come to accept this unconsciously. I could remember seeing the popular comedy sitcom ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ almost, if not a decade ago and not quite long, the lead character, Will Smith, played a flawless and emotional role in ‘In Pursuit of Happiness’. Then there was another; young Keke Palmer (Akeelah) who transited flawlessly from a ghetto spelling bee girl (in Akeelah and the Bee) to a churchy, troubling teenage girl (Joyful Noise) whose voice is so amazing that her mother, Queen Latifah, failed to notice she had blossomed into a stunning young lady. The list is limitless with Hollywood acts, compared to our sloppy, unrepentant and undynamic actors/actresses. Take for example; I find it quite easy to conclude most Nollywood movies upon seeing the characters that make them. This is what comes to my mind when characters like this are mentioned in movies:

 Aki & Pawpaw: They must play the role of two village scoundrels who do nothing but terrorize their father for marrying a new wife after the demise of their mother. They must play pranks and turn the community outside-in to prove a point to their father. Hence, this must be a movie with some unrealistic comedy.

 Mr Ibu: He must play the role of the village clown, who, at 40, is still living with his father and ever caring mother. He can hardly read or write and therefore, has loads of problem with understanding people and what they really mean. Hence, it must be some annoying comedy.

 Sanyeri: He must play the role of a typical Oyo man who tries to manoeuvre people and is often being outwitted by his best friend, who seems smarter than him. Hence, it must be a boring comedy.

 Jim Iyke: He must play the role of the hot-tempered dude who talks rudely to his girlfriend/wife and sometimes, end up battering her. Depending on the title as well, he must also play the role of prince charming that comes out of the blue to steal the heart of a dejected lady who has long given up on love.

3. On the part of wacky soundtracks: Do we even see foreign movies at all? Some might claim that we just being us; we do not want to fake or thread in the path of others. But what happens when an annoying song, in the middle of a movie, comes up with a dirge when two masked men walk around the fence of Kanayo O. Kanayo or Jide Kosoko? Geez! What happened to the element of surprise? Must we be told when we are actually watching?

4. We have no genre: Being a lover of movies, I find it easy to fall on any genre of movie, depending on my mood. Still, each time I leave a cinema after a movie, I feel pleased and look forward to seeing movies again. Unfortunately, the our movie industry and its people are terribly stereotyped into feeding us with unrealistic comedies and largely dramas which, in turn has given us nothing but predictable plots and resolutions, which I believe hurt more. I strongly believe that what makes a good movie is not the number of star characters but rather, how the plot systematically beat the imagination of viewers in the course of events. For crying out loud, there are genres such as Sci-Fi, horror, comedy, drama, thriller, fantasy, animations, action, mystery, adventure etc.

5. Too many stars in a movie: It is obvious that the saying “too many cooks spoil the broths” is not applicable to our movie producers. The last time I saw movies of many stars in Hollywood movies were in “The Expendables”, “Fast and Furious” and the crazy comedy, “This is the End”. What we hardly understand is that the Hollywood spends more money on a movie than we spend. The effects of crowding a movie with A-lister actors/actresses are often too huge that the movie suffers and the actors/actresses also suffer as some are being relegated to the background. As almighty and high as the Hollywood is, it suffered the same in “The Expendables”; Arnold Schwarzenegger was relegated while the likes of Jason Statham grabbed the bull by the horn. The best movies of the world today are not best because they are made up of too many stars. Movies such as “In Time, I Frankenstein, A Thousand Words, Hunger Games 1&2, Now You See me, Titanic, 47 Ronin” etc. are examples of what I mean. Our producers must break free from the mentality of gathering too many stars to make up their movies. Although there are few exceptions to this, Kunle Afolayan is someone I respect so much in this regard. Only few Nigerian movies have managed to adopt this ideology. “Phone Swap, Figurine, and The Meeting” are successful movies that I don’t get tired of seeing.

6. Props, Costumes and Effects: Our movies are backward in this aspect when we put Bollywood and Hollywood into consideration. We are one of the very few movie producing countries with wacky effects and props. In place of blood, we are forced to use Ribena and things such as Tasty Time. Maybe these things were bought decades ago by viewers who could not tell what it was. It is important our movie producers understand that blood itself is RED and not in some blackcurrant drink! And about our guns? Bollywood does better movies that arouse one’s conscious as to what just took place in a scene is indeed real or not. This is the 21st century for crying out loud. Last I checked movies are described as ‘’make believe’; sell what is unreal in a manner that is true.

7. Our Movies Kill time: Annoyingly, on a scale of 1-100, I’d say movies that have parts or concluding series are over 85%. I could remember years back when I devoted two straight to watching Lord of Rings 1, 2, and 3. Each part of the movie is well over 2 hours yet, I couldn’t get enough of the trilogy and so were most of friends. Our movies show unconnected scenes and dedicate several minutes on these scenes just because the greed to make more money comes to mind. Clichés of time killing scenes are often seen in an act, precisely club scenes. I feel it is irrelevant for a movie that is rarely up to two hours of normal time to be split into several parts simply because the producers want to make enough money. This is one of the reasons most Nigerians prefer pirated copies to the real deal.

8. Adverts within movies: Honestly I cannot remember the last time I saw this because I stopped seeing Nollywood movies a long time ago. Still, I believe this is one of the time killing machines within our movies. Imagine anticipating a movie and what you would see in the next fifteen minutes or more are nothing but trailers of impending movies and some herbal products’ adverts. Our producers must understand that it is high time they understood the importance of giving their audience what they truly deserve.

9. Video Quality: Most of our movies are produced with little video quality that you tend to question if the movies were shot a decade ago. Somehow, I accidentally previewed the movie ‘Battleship (2012)’ yesterday and I just could not help but marvel at the quality of the movie after two years. The Nigerian Entertainment industry must pay attention to this if they really want fans of the industry keep coming back.

It is futile if we keep producing and releasing tons of movies every Monday morning when we lack the qualities movies need to stand. Though the industry might have been politicised, I believe a better entertainment industry is need to uplift the image of the entertainment world of Nigeria and Africa, since we are perceived as the trail blazer in the entertainment world. We need good movies.

I agree with most of your points. Your writeup is quite organised. Thumbs up.




We're getting there sha, I believe. But my own problem with our storylines or stories is not just that they are predictable (many hollywood movies are, especially book adaptations and biopics), but the way they are told matters more. You can give the same log lines to two scriptwriters and the scripts they would produce would be VERY different, in many aspects, and one script could be quite good and the other...trash.

That's what I'm still trying to unravel and learn as a scriptwriter. 'Silver Linings Playbook' could have been the usual romcom, but the way it was told made us connect deeply with the characters, laugh and cry with them, and even feel their pain. We need to sharpen how we relate our stories in aspects such as dialogue, symbolism, artistic descriptions, interweaving of characters, arrangement etc.



And please sir, we get genres for nollywood.

Sanchez01:
1. Our Movies are too predictable: Probably the most dominant in Nigerian movies; the producers, directors, characters and soundtracks are too predictable that one could tell what would happen in the next scene. It is also too predictable that viewers know how a movie will end before the characters themselves. Unfortunately, majority of Nigerian movies’ producers/directors lack the idea to create a spark between their characters and the viewers. The gap is way too huge (I guess this explains why I sleep off, barely few minutes into a movie).
Predictability on the director/producer’s part:

Your head dey dia joor.

And there's always an annoying song in Nollywood movies in which the lyrics narrate the whole storyline ......

Sanchez01: After a successful movie campaign, producers/directors guise under their last success to create/direct a similar story, which is often annoying. True, this is also found in Hollywood movies but ours is so terrible that at the name of the director who, for instance, directed BLEEDING LOVE, must necessarily direct a new ‘blockbuster’ titled BLEEDING ANGEL.

And that BLEEDING ANGEL would be the Part 3 and 4 of BLEEDING LOVE ..smh for nollywood

Sanchez01:
3. On the part of wacky soundtracks: Do we even see foreign movies at all? Some might claim that we just being us; we do not want to fake or thread in the path of others. But what happens when an annoying song, in the middle of a movie, comes up with a dirge when two masked men walk around the fence of Kanayo O. Kanayo or Jide Kosoko? Geez! What happened to the element of surprise? Must we be told when we are actually watching?

Soundtracks like "Gan Gan Gan Gan"..
You just know what's about to happen... Smh again

Sanchez01:
It is futile if we keep producing and releasing tons of movies every Monday morning when we lack the qualities movies need to stand. Though the industry might have been politicised, I believe a better entertainment industry is need to uplift the image of the entertainment world of Nigeria and Africa, since we are perceived as the trail blazer in the entertainment world. We need good movies.

Nollywood works on 'Quantity' instead of 'Quality'......
Too bad...

O.P, nice write up...

But my question is, why do Nigerians judge NW using our bad products. You're not the first to say it and you can never be the last, I've retired from criticising the old NW because me and you can't change it or will I say change them the producers, 'cause they know that they suck but refuses to change 'cause they're making their money and we the Nigerians are the ones patronising them, the producers that understand what making good movies is all about diverts to new NW, the examples you gave about storytelling, character wise etc are all 100% visible in old NW movies, but can hardly be seen in new NW, you can't see aki and paw paw playing those roles you made mentioned in new NW, the people that doesn't know what is happening in the industry are the ones criticising them 'cause they're still watching crappy movies. If you really want to know the people that criticises NW thinking they know something about the industry, just ask them whether they know O.C Ukeje, Anthony Monjero etc the Actor that were made via new NW. The only way to stop these mediocrity in the industry are 1., we should stop watching any direct to video movies tagged old NW, which is impossible or 2., building upto a thousand cinemas in Nigeria, then you'll see how the crappy movie will die off instead of having 99% crappy movies, it'll be the other way round.

@tonyayo....nice one.

stop complaining, be the change

try venturing into movie industry to effect a change.

mumumugu: stop complaining, be the change

try venturing into movie industry to effect a change.

You expect me to carry enter into the Entertainment industry because I want a change? Well, this is how it works, that I highlighted these flaws are because I want a change. This is why critiques exist. I'm not saying my points are perfect and totally complete, though I believe that we must, and by we I mean those directly involved, make a change. I pay to see these movies. You expect me to suffer for what I pay for? No! The answer is simple, the industry needs total reformation and as an audience, what I have done is called FEEDBACK. I need not venture into one to make a change. Bollywood and Hollywood do not need me to tell them how to blow our minds with their movies. Our producers need to be sensitive. And just in case you know any of them, please, help tell them to help us make our eyes better.

tonyayo1: O.P, nice write up...

But my question is, why do Nigerians judge NW using our bad products. You're not the first to say it and you can never be the last, I've retired from criticising the old NW because me and you can't change it or will I say change them the producers, 'cause they know that they suck but refuses to change 'cause they're making their money and we the Nigerians are the ones patronising them, the producers that understand what making good movies is all about diverts to new NW, the examples you gave about storytelling, character wise etc are all 100% visible in old NW movies, but can hardly be seen in new NW, you can't see aki and paw paw playing those roles you made mentioned in new NW, the people that doesn't know what is happening in the industry are the ones criticising them 'cause they're still watching crappy movies. If you really want to know the people that criticises NW thinking they know something about the industry, just ask them whether they know O.C Ukeje, Anthony Monjero etc the Actor that were made via new NW. The only way to stop these mediocrity in the industry are 1., we should stop watching any direct to video movies tagged old NW, which is impossible or 2., building upto a thousand cinemas in Nigeria, then you'll see how the crappy movie will die off instead of having 99% crappy movies, it'll be the other way round.

I quite agree with you mentioned but is O.C. Ukeje the only one in the industry? If you read through my post carefully, you'd discover that I made mention of Kunle Afolayan; so far, he has been the most promising producer around. The reason for this is very simple, he has moved from the conventional way of a stereotyped industry to doing the industry proud. Still, Kunle Afolayan cannot do it alone, other producers must repent. And about the cinemas, let's talk about the movies first? How many of our movies are cinema worthy? How many of our movies are worth watching more than ones? Let's talk about this first before thinking of creating more cinemas.

sholay2011: I agree with most of your points. Your writeup is quite organised. Thumbs up.




We're getting there sha, I believe. But my own problem with our storylines or stories is not just that they are predictable (many hollywood movies are, especially book adaptations and biopics), but the way they are told matters more. You can give the same log lines to two scriptwriters and the scripts they would produce would be VERY different, in many aspects, and one script could be quite good and the other...trash.

That's what I'm still trying to unravel and learn as a scriptwriter. 'Silver Linings Playbook' could have been the usual romcom, but the way it was told made us connect deeply with the characters, laugh and cry with them, and even feel their pain. We need to sharpen how we relate our stories in aspects such as dialogue, symbolism, artistic descriptions, interweaving of characters, arrangement etc.



And please sir, we get genres for nollywood.

I'd gladly become a fan for doing something different from what we have. And about genres, we have:

Action

Comedy

Adventure

Biography

Animation

Family

Fantasy

Crime

Mystery

Sport

Horror

Romance

Drama

Mystery

Documentary

Film-Noir

Musical

War

Thriller

History

Sci-Fi

(Western)

Of all the genres I mentioned above, excluding Western, which I consider irrelevant in Nigeria, which of those genres do we have?

...

@Op, I can only see 9 reasons, where are the rest? Your topic specifically stated "1001" reasons, no? So how come?

RayMcBlue: ...

@Op, I can only see 9 reasons, where are the rest? Your topic specifically stated "1001" reasons, no? So how come?

And I believe I admitted and apologized...

Sanchez01:
And I believe I admitted and apologized...

Apology accepted.

Sholay, good points. I have often said Nollywood problem is not Story, but how to tell a story WELL. Any dumb story can be made brilliant, it's all a matter of how it's told.

Sanchez01: Honestly I cannot remember the last time I saw this because I stopped seeing Nollywood movies a long time ago.

so you have no business opening this thread then.

btw, i didn't read your thread...i know it's not anything I haven't read before. Thank you.

speedyboi: Sholay, good points. I have often said Nollywood problem is not Story, but how to tell a story WELL. Any dumb story can be made brilliant, it's all a matter of how it's told.

Thank God we can agree on something

did I just see speedyboi? #removes slippers and dash off! You are a ghost!

Sanchez01:
I'd gladly become a fan for doing something different from what we have. And about genres, we have:

Action

Comedy

Adventure

Biography

Animation

Family

Fantasy

Crime

Mystery

Sport

Horror

Romance

Drama

Mystery

Documentary

Film-Noir

Musical

War

Thriller

History

Sci-Fi

(Western)

Of all the genres I mentioned above, excluding Western, which I consider irrelevant in Nigeria, which of those genres do we have?

do you mean we don't have any of this genres of movies in Nigeria?

Sanchez01:
I'd gladly become a fan for doing something different from what we have. And about genres, we have:

Action

Comedy

Adventure

Biography

Animation

Family

Fantasy

Crime

Mystery

Sport

Horror

Romance

Drama

Mystery

Documentary

Film-Noir

Musical

War

Thriller

History

Sci-Fi

(Western)

Of all the genres I mentioned above, excluding Western, which I consider irrelevant in Nigeria, which of those genres do we have?

Sir, you are right about the genres but you should note that these days, 'films' are usually a combination of genres. e.g a movie could be a combination of Crime, action, mystery and thriller.

And you'll have to answer the question yourself. "Which of those genres do we have?"
But ensure to think once, then stop and think again the second time.

homesteady: did I just see speedyboi? #removes slippers and dash off! You are a ghost!

We are seeing ghosts ooo.

homesteady:
do you mean we don't have any of this genres of movies in Nigeria?

We do, maybe Family, Drama and Romance. Just that our plots have a way of taking the three to be one.

prof800:

Sir, you are right about the genres but you should note that these days, 'films' are usually a combination of genres. e.g a movie could be a combination of Crime, action, mystery and thriller.

And you'll have to answer the question yourself. "Which of those genres do we have?"
But ensure to think once, then stop and think again the second time.



We are seeing ghosts ooo.

You are right, most movies allow for fusion. There are 'pure' movies that tend to maintain a genre from the beginning to the end, and there are 'fused' movies which allow for the combination of one or more genre. What we do in Nigeria is strictly Family, Drama and Romance, all fused into one, most times.

[size=28pt]Too predictable...Yes, I can predict a whole film by just watching 30mins out of it[/size]

Nice observations. Is "Nollywood" your school final year project topic?

I cant stand their titles.

Hmmmmmmmm

okay, mine is yoruba movies and their subtitles.

What are my doing here I don't even know what OP is talking about who is sanyeri, jim unlyke and co?

The points the op adumbrated are the reasons why I don't watch Nigerian movies. The picture quality is too poor same goes with the story line and redundant use of a single character to portray many roles. okay for instance, Mike Ozurunye playing a Prince in over 200 movies. Like seriously are we not tired? The most annoying is the too many royal movies. All you hear is my King, my prince, my queen. WTF!!! Then in village movies when a character has done so many atrocities and when nemesis has caught up with him or her. The next thing you will hear is...." I want to confess, I will confess'', followed by ''I killlllled.....''. Then in the end, two things will happen. The person will either die or run mad. Talking about soundtrack, it is so wack. They need an overhaul in that area.

Ok.....this is a question for the op....-what impact have you made in this country?
Nollywood has promoted NIGERIA for all i know.......movie industries in africa respect this very 'nollywood' you just tried to tarnish its image.
Go get a job man.....a job that would keep your brain and fingers busy,ever busy!

Naming one movie different names

I dont have time for nollywood, too messy.

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For me oo.. Na the use of people like Mercy Johnson funke akindele and more to play secondary school or college student roles in movies dey vex me..


We should develop nollywoood by bringing up new stars younger ones to play high school and college movie roles..

I really hope the introduction of this Digital Tv to naija will also help nollywoood producers start showing us standard tv series movies..